This is a blog about flying things, episodic encounters with the artist known in the future as the artist formerly known as Prince, and clinical ponderings of miniature and unlimited scale. On the latter, the bailout failed today. I don’t pretend to know what this means now or moving forward. I’m waiting for the Frontline special, but VH1 will probably get to the instant history first. Banking CEOs will be rock stars in their version. And like rock stars, the banking CEOs will be financially well in the end, at least. They’ll be healthier than former rock stars but they’ll probably also have sex with young women until they die. Actually, VH1 was in the live music business last night with a broadcast from a sold out Boston show of New Kids on the Block. Irony is not dead, but in economic terms it’s in a trickle down stage of devolution, so diluted that its practitioners make it happen on the fly:
A 30-year-old texts her friend, three rows back: OMG, Joey Mac just motioned to me like he was texting me, did you see that! Now I’m texting you back and he probably thinks I’m texting him even though I don’t have his number this is so surreal!!!!!!!!
But let’s go smaller than $700 billion bailouts and stadium shows exhuming dusty rags of irony. Let’s talk about swiss chard. And let’s preface with a nomenclature statement: we prefer to call it chard. We think its both earthier and All-Star with the simpler appellation.
Rocket Prince has had a lot of chard this summer. It’s not his first experience with chard but his experience has been something like a metrician making a statistical breakthrough, except with heart: I see it at the farmer’s market and I go to it, unbidden, excited and intrigued by its stiff, water-repellent leaves and its red, orange, purple, and white stalks. Chard is beautiful, like a one-named model, but much, much better for you.
Of all the attractive leafy yield—calalloo, of which I recently made a savory Caribbean gumbo by the same name, the different generations of Bok Choy, kale, spinach, red and green leaf lettuce—I can’t leave the market without chard.
I started with a simple pan fry of chard, onions, garlic and olive oil. I’d cut out most of the stalk, or rib, questioning myself in process, then regretting on the order of the regret I will always have for once telling my dad between innings of a Little League game that I wish he’d stop yelling to me in the outfield about where I should be positioned, and ease up on the cheering when I got on base. So I stopped cutting the stalks out and lamented the lost ones. Because how can you not include the most colorful part? It just looks healthy, which was reinforced by a small piece in the Times about the most healthy things we aren’t eating enough of. The article said chard has “carotenoid that protects aging eyes.”
I loved the stalks in the stir fry and I was excited about more possibilities, even if the best ingredients require the simplest fabrication. My grandmother used to make ravioli with spinach and meat. I tried the old recipe with chard. Let’s just say Rocket Prince’s sweetie had a that’s-why-I-love-you-moment upon tasting. (Followed up by subsequent moments because I froze the remainder of the yield: chard enhances relationships.) Parmesan in the admixture, which my grandmother bought several times a year in Boston’s North End, brings out the rich gravitas of the chard even more than her spinach did. Saying as much is sacrilege but that’s the thing with chard: you must go with your heart.
My deification has limits, though. I’m not going to waste it with an attempt at, say, chard ice cream: it’s not a good venue regarding my spiritual understanding.
I saved the crimson liquid of the stir fry from the latest round of ravs and have in mind re-heating it as a broth, unadorned, when the winds come brisk from the northeast.
I recently came across another chard lover in Richard Olney, author of Simple French Food. He talks about something I’d already discovered, my aforementioned appreciation of chard ribs, and says that outside of “meridional France,” which I picture to be a café or two outside of Paris, they feed the leafy parts of chard to rabbits and ducks. That’s a food chain I’d want to be a part of. He also mentions that in Nice they replace spinach for chard when making green pasta. And he drops an incredible recipe for chard tarte, which includes olive oil pastry, “shredded chard greens, raisins, pine nuts, grated cheese and sugar, bound with egg.”
I’ll let you know how it goes.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
700 million trillion
The tiebreaker question was: How many gallons of water are in the Quabbin Reservoir?
The closest answer would finish in third place. Our foursome coughed up answers ranging from 4,000 gallons – “it just popped in my head” – to way more than that. I pictured the Quabbin, which I flew over as a passenger in a small plane a few years ago. Definitely way more than that. They sank whole towns to make Boston’s water source, which looks like the blemish on M. Gorbachev’s scalp. The blemish times, like, a million trillion.
Our judgment was rushed by the trivia emcee, who wanted to get the tiebreaker over with so he could tell the crowd which team came in second and which team won. We panicked. I knew it must have been a lot more than 4,000 but really I had no idea. None of us did.
The other team was a round table full of women who were knitting. They were calm. It seemed like they had their answer very quickly. They won, though they were not close to right either. I’ve already forgotten the answer but it was in the many millions. I think it might have been in the hundreds of millions. When numbers attached to small things like gallons and those numbers reach into the millions, I simply lose all sense of scale.
In trying to make sense of the proposed Wall Street bailout, I’ve tried to make sense of $700 billion. It seems like an astonishingly high number to give to companies that coaxed people into thinking they could afford things they could not hold, like houses.
If I was Bush, Bernanke, Paulson and the other power brokers involved in this – do you get the sense they were like, eight sounds too close to a trillion and six isn’t enough, let’s call it seven? – I would have put the number out of reach. $700 million trillion. That’s serious. That makes me think, wow, we’re in a lot of trouble. But $700 billion? Come on. There’s probably three times that many gallons of water in Lake Okeechobee.
I should know, I’ve flown over that large body of water, too. It only took like ten minutes to fly over it. But it was a much bigger plane.
The closest answer would finish in third place. Our foursome coughed up answers ranging from 4,000 gallons – “it just popped in my head” – to way more than that. I pictured the Quabbin, which I flew over as a passenger in a small plane a few years ago. Definitely way more than that. They sank whole towns to make Boston’s water source, which looks like the blemish on M. Gorbachev’s scalp. The blemish times, like, a million trillion.
Our judgment was rushed by the trivia emcee, who wanted to get the tiebreaker over with so he could tell the crowd which team came in second and which team won. We panicked. I knew it must have been a lot more than 4,000 but really I had no idea. None of us did.
The other team was a round table full of women who were knitting. They were calm. It seemed like they had their answer very quickly. They won, though they were not close to right either. I’ve already forgotten the answer but it was in the many millions. I think it might have been in the hundreds of millions. When numbers attached to small things like gallons and those numbers reach into the millions, I simply lose all sense of scale.
In trying to make sense of the proposed Wall Street bailout, I’ve tried to make sense of $700 billion. It seems like an astonishingly high number to give to companies that coaxed people into thinking they could afford things they could not hold, like houses.
If I was Bush, Bernanke, Paulson and the other power brokers involved in this – do you get the sense they were like, eight sounds too close to a trillion and six isn’t enough, let’s call it seven? – I would have put the number out of reach. $700 million trillion. That’s serious. That makes me think, wow, we’re in a lot of trouble. But $700 billion? Come on. There’s probably three times that many gallons of water in Lake Okeechobee.
I should know, I’ve flown over that large body of water, too. It only took like ten minutes to fly over it. But it was a much bigger plane.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Prince toys with the space-time continuum
On a temp job in 2067 I learn that there are no more new songs. There are new bands with new names but they only play covers. People around here—the future—they say you get used to it. When I asked the guy I was working with how it came to be this way, he said an algorithm determined beyond any shadow of doubt that it was impossible to write new songs. They'd all been written. As far as songwriting was concerned, the oversoul was complete. Any attempt to write a new song was by definition not a new song, it was an oldie, so if you tried to say it was a new song—your song—you were in fact stealing it from the oversoul and setting the species back.
Of these future matters of state I didn't worry because, as always, I had a job to do and a temp job should be free of worry while you're doing it. I was to assist in the manufacture of a couch under a rock concert because what happens at rock concerts in 2067 when there are no new songs is two people manufacture a couch during the show, under the stage. The couch is a thematic representation of the show itself, to be determined by the rockers, who give the couch makers the theme before show time, based on their pre-concert interaction with tailgaters, though it turns out theme is only sponsored by color in the future. They're supposed to be mood couches, capturing the spirit and vibe of the show and if you're fortunate enough to be able to buy one, you can take it home and sit in that vibe in your living room. Bring the show home. Better than a bootleg, said Phil, the guy I was making the couch with.
During the show itself there's a monitor showing the two people making the couch. And what happens in the future when you go to a show is, you watch the manufacture of the couch on a huge monitor above the cover band as much as you watch the show. It's a big part of the experience, though they still have smoke in the future, too.
*
Phil said he'd made hundreds of couches. It was easy—always the same frame, always the same arms, legs, the same stuffing. The only thing different was the color of the fabric. Our couch was yellow. I asked him if he could feel 30,000 people in the coliseum watching him, watching us.
No, he said.
It kind of feels to me like we're behind a one-way glass, I said.
That's entertainment, he said. Hand me that leg. Sooner we knock this baby out the sooner we can get out of here.
But what do we do if we finish early, before the show's over?
Usually I watch the rest of the show from the side of the stage.
But then you're not really capturing the theme if the show isn't completely over. Doesn't a lot of important stuff happen as the show ends? Like encores?
Encores? There aren't any encores.
Why not?
Why not? Because all the songs have been played.
See, this is what I don't get.
Hand me that hammer.
Sure, sorry, here you go. Why have the concert in the first place if there are no new songs?
What? Where are you from anyway?
The past.
Get out. Really?
Yeah.
How'd you get here?
On Prince's space ship.
Who's Prince?
He's a musician, was a musician, a songwriter.
Really?
Yeah. There isn't a Prince cover band?
Not that I know of.
Well, he contributed many songs to the oversoul.
Phil stopped what he was doing.
But if he's in the past and you're in the past and he sent you from the past and he could have sent himself and not you—are you a songwriter from the past?
No.
Then the Prince is writing songs when those songs are still contributing to the oversoul, which means he could come here and write new songs and they would be new.
I suppose.
But they would only be new and entered into the canon of the oversoul if he came here and stayed here.
The old Brigadoon trick. I don't think that's going to happen.
Why?
Prince is tough to figure. But I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to mess with the space-time continuum. He's not greedy.
What's the space-time continuum?
It's a theory proposed by a scientist in the movie Back to the Future. Hey, question: are there any new movies in 2067?
Yes, but we're getting there. Government estimates say we'll have them wrapped up in twenty years or so.
What about poetry?
Done and done.
Novels?
Not quite. Novels are to poetry as movies are to songs. What's the space-time continuum theory?
Oh, it's that if you go back in time or forward in time you shouldn't do anything that will disrupt the natural order of events because the consequences could be disastrous.
Like what?
The scientist never really explained how it could be disastrous. I guess it was just taken on faith.
You're in the future now, Phil said. Aren't you disrupting the natural order of events?
This is just a temp job, Phil. Temp jobs, by definition, don't disrupt the natural order of events, which is why I like them. My work life has no practical effect on life as we know it or what it will be. I'm not out to change anything. I prefer that tranquility.
But you're making a couch with me. If you weren't here, I wouldn't be able to make the couch alone and there would be no couch to sell to the highest bidder at the end of the concert and one less person or family would be able to vibe out to the show in their living room.
No offense, Phil, but I don't think that would have any real effect in this world.
Of course it would! I'm an artist! What I do matters! I've spent my life working on thematic couches so that one day there will be no more possibilities and we can cross them off the list on the way to ultimate knowledge! You fool! I'm doing my part!
I'm sorry, I said.
*
We worked on the couch uninterrupted until we finished, which coincided exactly with the last song of the show above us. Prince never tells me where or when he's going to pick me up so I usually end up doing what seems natural, I just sort of go on walkabout and he always appears, hovering in his space ship like a sand sniffer from a galaxy far, far away. I figured now that Phil and I were done with the couch, now that the show was over, I'd walk outside and see what people in the future do after a show, since I missed out on what they do before a show. Phil wanted to talk some more so I stayed put for the time being.
When did Prince play? he asked.
In the 80s, 90s and 2000s.
Is that when you're from, the 2000s?
Yeah.
That explains why I haven't heard of him. We're systematically working back in time with concerts until we get to the first song ever sung. Right now we're only in the 2020s, songs written in the 2020s. What were songs like in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s?
I guess you'll have to wait to see.
Can I go back with you?
I don't think so.
Why?
Prince's space ship is a two-seater.
Damn.
Why do you want to go back anyway? You're doing your part here, like you said, and I apologize if I suggested you don't matter, Phil, because you do.
All the songs remain the same.
Whoa, dude.
What?
Nothing, Phil. I wish I could take you back but you have more important work to do here.
*
We parted ways and I walked out to the parking lot. It was big and had entirely cleared out of space ships. Except for one. I walked over to it, across the vast parking lot, like a stable hand across a pasture, trying to make headway with the one remaining renegade horse and armed only with straw. Prince leaned over and rolled down the passenger window. I'd been meaning to ask him about that. The manual window. His ship has warp speed.
How was it? Prince asked. I was surprised because usually he's not as effusive.
Sad, I said.
Why?
This guy I was working with, Phil, he's never heard your shit. Or Led Zep.
Get in.
And, Prince, it's worse, I said as I Velcro-strapped myself in: in the future they've got the oversoul on a spread sheet. Your work is done even though they haven't gotten to you yet.
They never will, Prince said, and winked a purple passion my way, a roofie-powered blast of boudoir. I was out, again, until the next episode.
Of these future matters of state I didn't worry because, as always, I had a job to do and a temp job should be free of worry while you're doing it. I was to assist in the manufacture of a couch under a rock concert because what happens at rock concerts in 2067 when there are no new songs is two people manufacture a couch during the show, under the stage. The couch is a thematic representation of the show itself, to be determined by the rockers, who give the couch makers the theme before show time, based on their pre-concert interaction with tailgaters, though it turns out theme is only sponsored by color in the future. They're supposed to be mood couches, capturing the spirit and vibe of the show and if you're fortunate enough to be able to buy one, you can take it home and sit in that vibe in your living room. Bring the show home. Better than a bootleg, said Phil, the guy I was making the couch with.
During the show itself there's a monitor showing the two people making the couch. And what happens in the future when you go to a show is, you watch the manufacture of the couch on a huge monitor above the cover band as much as you watch the show. It's a big part of the experience, though they still have smoke in the future, too.
*
Phil said he'd made hundreds of couches. It was easy—always the same frame, always the same arms, legs, the same stuffing. The only thing different was the color of the fabric. Our couch was yellow. I asked him if he could feel 30,000 people in the coliseum watching him, watching us.
No, he said.
It kind of feels to me like we're behind a one-way glass, I said.
That's entertainment, he said. Hand me that leg. Sooner we knock this baby out the sooner we can get out of here.
But what do we do if we finish early, before the show's over?
Usually I watch the rest of the show from the side of the stage.
But then you're not really capturing the theme if the show isn't completely over. Doesn't a lot of important stuff happen as the show ends? Like encores?
Encores? There aren't any encores.
Why not?
Why not? Because all the songs have been played.
See, this is what I don't get.
Hand me that hammer.
Sure, sorry, here you go. Why have the concert in the first place if there are no new songs?
What? Where are you from anyway?
The past.
Get out. Really?
Yeah.
How'd you get here?
On Prince's space ship.
Who's Prince?
He's a musician, was a musician, a songwriter.
Really?
Yeah. There isn't a Prince cover band?
Not that I know of.
Well, he contributed many songs to the oversoul.
Phil stopped what he was doing.
But if he's in the past and you're in the past and he sent you from the past and he could have sent himself and not you—are you a songwriter from the past?
No.
Then the Prince is writing songs when those songs are still contributing to the oversoul, which means he could come here and write new songs and they would be new.
I suppose.
But they would only be new and entered into the canon of the oversoul if he came here and stayed here.
The old Brigadoon trick. I don't think that's going to happen.
Why?
Prince is tough to figure. But I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to mess with the space-time continuum. He's not greedy.
What's the space-time continuum?
It's a theory proposed by a scientist in the movie Back to the Future. Hey, question: are there any new movies in 2067?
Yes, but we're getting there. Government estimates say we'll have them wrapped up in twenty years or so.
What about poetry?
Done and done.
Novels?
Not quite. Novels are to poetry as movies are to songs. What's the space-time continuum theory?
Oh, it's that if you go back in time or forward in time you shouldn't do anything that will disrupt the natural order of events because the consequences could be disastrous.
Like what?
The scientist never really explained how it could be disastrous. I guess it was just taken on faith.
You're in the future now, Phil said. Aren't you disrupting the natural order of events?
This is just a temp job, Phil. Temp jobs, by definition, don't disrupt the natural order of events, which is why I like them. My work life has no practical effect on life as we know it or what it will be. I'm not out to change anything. I prefer that tranquility.
But you're making a couch with me. If you weren't here, I wouldn't be able to make the couch alone and there would be no couch to sell to the highest bidder at the end of the concert and one less person or family would be able to vibe out to the show in their living room.
No offense, Phil, but I don't think that would have any real effect in this world.
Of course it would! I'm an artist! What I do matters! I've spent my life working on thematic couches so that one day there will be no more possibilities and we can cross them off the list on the way to ultimate knowledge! You fool! I'm doing my part!
I'm sorry, I said.
*
We worked on the couch uninterrupted until we finished, which coincided exactly with the last song of the show above us. Prince never tells me where or when he's going to pick me up so I usually end up doing what seems natural, I just sort of go on walkabout and he always appears, hovering in his space ship like a sand sniffer from a galaxy far, far away. I figured now that Phil and I were done with the couch, now that the show was over, I'd walk outside and see what people in the future do after a show, since I missed out on what they do before a show. Phil wanted to talk some more so I stayed put for the time being.
When did Prince play? he asked.
In the 80s, 90s and 2000s.
Is that when you're from, the 2000s?
Yeah.
That explains why I haven't heard of him. We're systematically working back in time with concerts until we get to the first song ever sung. Right now we're only in the 2020s, songs written in the 2020s. What were songs like in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s?
I guess you'll have to wait to see.
Can I go back with you?
I don't think so.
Why?
Prince's space ship is a two-seater.
Damn.
Why do you want to go back anyway? You're doing your part here, like you said, and I apologize if I suggested you don't matter, Phil, because you do.
All the songs remain the same.
Whoa, dude.
What?
Nothing, Phil. I wish I could take you back but you have more important work to do here.
*
We parted ways and I walked out to the parking lot. It was big and had entirely cleared out of space ships. Except for one. I walked over to it, across the vast parking lot, like a stable hand across a pasture, trying to make headway with the one remaining renegade horse and armed only with straw. Prince leaned over and rolled down the passenger window. I'd been meaning to ask him about that. The manual window. His ship has warp speed.
How was it? Prince asked. I was surprised because usually he's not as effusive.
Sad, I said.
Why?
This guy I was working with, Phil, he's never heard your shit. Or Led Zep.
Get in.
And, Prince, it's worse, I said as I Velcro-strapped myself in: in the future they've got the oversoul on a spread sheet. Your work is done even though they haven't gotten to you yet.
They never will, Prince said, and winked a purple passion my way, a roofie-powered blast of boudoir. I was out, again, until the next episode.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Space trip
It was the night before Tuesday. I was watching reality TV when Prince rolled by. Rather, hovered by my third floor window. I leapt from the couch and threw open the window.
Wanna come for a ride?
I nodded.
Get in.
*
Where are we going?
England.
Why?
I want you to meet a friend.
Who?
You'll see. And then Prince winked his wink. A spray of lavender mist shot out of his eye and enveloped my head space, a straight shot into the olfactory. The last thing I saw before I passed out was Prince pushing the warp speed lever. After that I saw myself in a sea of lavender with thousands of deodorant stick-sized purple Princes hopping above the lavender sea, all excited about the new revolution and all chirping, the thousands of them, Let's get crazy, let's get crazy!
*
The biggest and most popular summertime attraction in England is a swimming pool under a tent. I shouldn't understate it like that because it's actually a sprawling series of pools connected with waterfalls under a massive tent. They wait in line for hours in their flip flops to get in under the tent and chill out by the pool. One of the reasons it's so popular is the tent acts as a sun filter. Estimates vary on the SPF factor. Some say it's as high as 150. Others say it's as low as 45, and unsafe. They debate the SPF factor of the big tent while waiting in the long line, which is as long as a dozen football fields. A bar stretches the length of the line so it's a flip-flopped bar crawl in a straight line with everyone comparing sunscreens and their SPF factors like wines and vintages, which is sort of all you need to know about the modern English.
I just don't see what's so special about a pool under a tent, Ricky, I said to Ricky Gervais. I'd landed next to him.
Series of pools. Are you daft?
I don't think I'm daft. I just don't see the great big deal about a pool—
—series of pools—
under a tent. I mean, the tent sort of defeats the purpose of having a pool—
—series of pools—
doesn't it?
It's about synergy, yeah? The pools are all connected so we're connected. In our swimming trunks. All together, yeah? Little waterfalls doing their bit. Harmony. Yeah? Ebony. Side by side. Ebony and harmony side by side with perfec ivory. That's what it's about. Teamwork. I. You. Me. We. Yeah?
I'm with you, Ricky.
Where's Prince?
I don't know. He ejected me from his spaceship and I landed here.
Funny little bugger.
I'm going to need a lift home after the pool. That is, if we ever get in to see the pool.
Series of pools.
Wanna come for a ride?
I nodded.
Get in.
*
Where are we going?
England.
Why?
I want you to meet a friend.
Who?
You'll see. And then Prince winked his wink. A spray of lavender mist shot out of his eye and enveloped my head space, a straight shot into the olfactory. The last thing I saw before I passed out was Prince pushing the warp speed lever. After that I saw myself in a sea of lavender with thousands of deodorant stick-sized purple Princes hopping above the lavender sea, all excited about the new revolution and all chirping, the thousands of them, Let's get crazy, let's get crazy!
*
The biggest and most popular summertime attraction in England is a swimming pool under a tent. I shouldn't understate it like that because it's actually a sprawling series of pools connected with waterfalls under a massive tent. They wait in line for hours in their flip flops to get in under the tent and chill out by the pool. One of the reasons it's so popular is the tent acts as a sun filter. Estimates vary on the SPF factor. Some say it's as high as 150. Others say it's as low as 45, and unsafe. They debate the SPF factor of the big tent while waiting in the long line, which is as long as a dozen football fields. A bar stretches the length of the line so it's a flip-flopped bar crawl in a straight line with everyone comparing sunscreens and their SPF factors like wines and vintages, which is sort of all you need to know about the modern English.
I just don't see what's so special about a pool under a tent, Ricky, I said to Ricky Gervais. I'd landed next to him.
Series of pools. Are you daft?
I don't think I'm daft. I just don't see the great big deal about a pool—
—series of pools—
under a tent. I mean, the tent sort of defeats the purpose of having a pool—
—series of pools—
doesn't it?
It's about synergy, yeah? The pools are all connected so we're connected. In our swimming trunks. All together, yeah? Little waterfalls doing their bit. Harmony. Yeah? Ebony. Side by side. Ebony and harmony side by side with perfec ivory. That's what it's about. Teamwork. I. You. Me. We. Yeah?
I'm with you, Ricky.
Where's Prince?
I don't know. He ejected me from his spaceship and I landed here.
Funny little bugger.
I'm going to need a lift home after the pool. That is, if we ever get in to see the pool.
Series of pools.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Smooth Bird
Last weekend we went for a swim at a lake in a hill town. Blueberry bushes ring the lake. It was a beautious maximus afternoon. We cooled off, watched a tireless dog swim to and fetch a ball thrown in the water over and over, compared and contrasted our feet while sitting on a wooden dock, and caught sight of an enormous bird, probably a heron but it looked like a pterodactyl, swoop about the edges of the lake, no doubt for the blueberries because herons aren’t bird brains – they know where to find the antioxidants.
On the way back from the lake we saw road signs for corn. We pulled off at one to find an old flat bed truck, veggies in coolers, baskets and crates on or about the truck, and a kind of roof contrived to shade the bounty. A sign said to put money in a hanging bird box.
We bought a huge bunch of basil, swiss chard, a dozen ears of corn, beets, and incredible white onions. They smell so sweet.
Recently I came across a list of the eleven best foods you aren’t eating. Blueberries, beets and swiss chard make the list. My mother used to make stuffed zucchini around this time of year, with zukes from the garden. (She also used to make zucchini flower pancakes.) The main ingredient in the stuffed zucchini stuffing, aside from squash pulp itself, is swiss chard. It brings strong character to the stuffing, as if it’s the family member who most specifically captures the mores, triumphs and flaws of the unit, extending across generations. The crazy uncle, maybe. Swiss chard is why you love your family. And it’s good for you.
Well, we boiled the beets for a salad, in which we Frenched and added one of the sweet onions. The beet water couldn’t be wasted. I decided on two purposes. I would cook rice pasta in it and I would add some to the chard that I’d already rinsed and chopped and had cooking with garlic and olive oil. See, we’d sketched a menu using the veggies from the truck stand. I was to use the chard as main ingredient in ravioli.
I added about a cup of the beet juice to the simmering chard and let it cook mostly off. The result was a hearty braise whose taste alone is a little too sharp but when complemented with parm, ground beef and pork and a conservative application of ricotta, the admixture should make for supreme ravioli the likes of which my grandmother might be proud (her famous ravs were spinach, parm and meat-filled, no ricotta).
I love to cook. I love to swim. I love fresh vegetables of high summer and lakeside blueberry bushes you can swim right up to. I’d love to glide down to them in sweeping arcs, too.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
The Middle Way
At Rocket Prince we like to encourage belief in wonder. We ask for nothing and everything. Now we ask you to consider young Siddhartha. The Siddhartha who saw two choices when he bolted the palace in the 3C BC -- the velvet coffin or enlightenment. Young Buddha was hungry for the latter and eventually found the Middle Way. All other paths lead to extremity, depravity and despair.
When playing, let us not think about despair. For as much as the woods are shadowy and dark, the meadow is light. Zooey Deschanel sings, “the summit doesn’t differ from the deep, dark valley and the valley doesn’t differ from the kitchen sink.” Wash up – let’s go to the light.
But there are holes with trees smack in the middle, you say? Look at that narrow defile. Sometimes you have to go left, sometimes right, sometimes up and over, sometimes through, sometimes beneath, you say? Yes, it is true.
Then how can you prescribe the middle as the way?
Look at the tree. You might say to it, Hello, tree, you’ve been around a long time, isolated in nature, I commend your longevity. If you’ll hold still a moment, I will throw my disc around you and then I will walk to you. I will admire your silent grace. And then I will continue walking, looking forward to our next conversation.
We find the middle only when we open our hearts. You won’t get there if you think. You have to feel. Trust the way. There’s no syllogism, no this plus this equals this. No if, then. This is not reason.
We’re talking about a nice drive, yes, but we’re also talking about the return of soul. It helps if you have four arms but all you need is one heart. Grab the saucer, throw the saucer, and release a piece of your soul. May it fly to the heavens.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
It begins
I was putting the trash in the dumpster behind my apartment building when Prince turned up and said,
Did you see that?
See what?
Three guys just dumped a milkshake in that convertible. He pointed to the street in front of the building where a long white convertible was parked.
What guys?
They just walked by. Let's get them.
Did they really do it?
I saw them.
Alright.
Prince motioned me to his motorcycle, which isn't a motorcycle anymore it's a spaceship. We didn't really need to fly if the shake dumpers were on foot but Prince was pretty excited and you could tell he'd sort of taken charge of the situation. He velcroed me in and we flew off down the alley and down the street.
There they are!
Prince parked, slid down the nose of the spaceship and came to a stop right in front of the three shake dumpers. I hurried out of the velcro and had Prince's back just when he started in on them:
Did you dump a milkshake into the convertible back there?
Yeah, what's it to you little man?
And then Prince, this is hard to describe, but Prince, what he did was, he like floated in the air in front of the doofus, hovered like a hummingbird or like he was his own spaceship and slapped the doofus at hyper speed. He like spackled the dude and the dude was dazed. The other two bozos made a start but I stepped and gave them a look like, Yo, my man Prince is exacting justice. Step off. And they did but I'm pretty sure it was more to do with they didn't want to get spackled than because of my steppin'.
Justice exacted, Prince flew me back to my apartment.
We wasted those guys!
I'll roll with you any time, Prince.
He winked and said, I'll see you around. Then he flew off.
His words wafted after he flew away, lingered there in the air, a whelming mist that lifted me off my feet, literally lifted me off my feet and transported me to the roof of my apartment where I waited for further instruction.
Did you see that?
See what?
Three guys just dumped a milkshake in that convertible. He pointed to the street in front of the building where a long white convertible was parked.
What guys?
They just walked by. Let's get them.
Did they really do it?
I saw them.
Alright.
Prince motioned me to his motorcycle, which isn't a motorcycle anymore it's a spaceship. We didn't really need to fly if the shake dumpers were on foot but Prince was pretty excited and you could tell he'd sort of taken charge of the situation. He velcroed me in and we flew off down the alley and down the street.
There they are!
Prince parked, slid down the nose of the spaceship and came to a stop right in front of the three shake dumpers. I hurried out of the velcro and had Prince's back just when he started in on them:
Did you dump a milkshake into the convertible back there?
Yeah, what's it to you little man?
And then Prince, this is hard to describe, but Prince, what he did was, he like floated in the air in front of the doofus, hovered like a hummingbird or like he was his own spaceship and slapped the doofus at hyper speed. He like spackled the dude and the dude was dazed. The other two bozos made a start but I stepped and gave them a look like, Yo, my man Prince is exacting justice. Step off. And they did but I'm pretty sure it was more to do with they didn't want to get spackled than because of my steppin'.
Justice exacted, Prince flew me back to my apartment.
We wasted those guys!
I'll roll with you any time, Prince.
He winked and said, I'll see you around. Then he flew off.
His words wafted after he flew away, lingered there in the air, a whelming mist that lifted me off my feet, literally lifted me off my feet and transported me to the roof of my apartment where I waited for further instruction.
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