Dickens Fair

 

“The Cow Palace,” site of the Dickens Fair. What would Queen Victoria think about that?

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DE POÉSIE OU DE VERTU

Winslow Homer's Girl Reading Under an Oak Tree

We have a beautiful plaza in this town,
Laid out by a Mexican commandante when the land
Belonged to one man or another, all according to plan–
But all the hundred-year-old trees were planted by women

Not many people I know in this town read poetry;
One hears many stale references to Jack London and Bacchus
But few to the raving ones, the Maenads – perhaps because
Everyone here drinks wine, yet few read between the lines?

I make a habit of always bringing a book
In verse, or a French novel to the read
On autumn afternoons when the yellow Gingko leaves
Fall like golden rain upon the children swinging

Just last week I saw a girl, eighteen if she was a day,
Reading my favorite book of Baudelaire’s prose poems,
(The one called “Twenty Prose Poems by Baudelaire”)
Under the quiet shade of the great Southern Magnolia

And what caught my attention first was the cover,
As hers was a library book, which ruled out
Some possibilities; for example, the book wasn’t a gift
From a friend at a university, a cousin in Paris;

It isn’t a book one finds at a yard sale or flea market
Not something she would’ve discovered snooping
In her mother’s locked trunk of forgotten treasures:
Old love letters and odd trinkets saved from a previous life

It isn’t a book the local bookstore owner on the square
Would have recommended (I know him); he’d freely admit
His taste is more tales of men and irony; he has little interest
In nonsense about the moon’s curse on a green-eyed girl

I wanted to ask the girl if she knew why the French adore Poe, or
What she thought of “Double Chamber” or “Favours of the Moon”
And if she’d read Remembrance of Things Past; but then I stopped,
Remembering this dreamland was made by women.

From across the sandbox, I saw that she had long brown hair
And was narrow around the hips, like I once was,
And was dressed in old jeans, worn sneakers and a sweatshirt
Just fashionable enough not to be noticed at all

When she rose to leave, she pulled the hood over her face;
Familiar trick! To avoid ensnarement in the imagination of a creep,
Fearing he should keep some part of us; she passed, like a phantom
Through the rippling autumn light under falling golden leaves

As she was leaving there were things I wanted to say, such as:
“Stay away from tone-deaf Troubadors who strum for your attention,
Even when you’re trying to read poetry at a bus stop,” or,
“Don’t wear shoes you can’t run fast in – you just never know!”

There were so many things I wanted to tell the girl
As she walked quietly away, under golden leaves, falling, falling
But all I knew to say in French was: “enivrez-vous sans cesse!
De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise.”

Note: “enivrez-vous sans cesse!/De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise” are lines from Baudelaire’s prose poem “Enivrez-Vous” or “Get Drunk.” (City Lights Books)

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Latkapocalypse

A Latke Memory

Every year, as the holiday season approaches, I revisit what I call my “botched holiday meal” strategy. If I can maintain my reputation in the kitchen, no one will ask me to be in charge of feeding crowds. As an occasional science writer, I’m more of a cuisine naturalist than enthusiast.

For example, last year, around Thanksgiving I had to make four separate potluck dishes for the kids’ heritage feast at school. I had a mild panic attack and called my sister in Colorado. She said, “What are you asking me for? Don’t you remember I don’t cook either? Make something white. Kids love white food.”

Sheepishly, I called my mother. “You failed to domesticate us,” I told her.

“It’s not funny anymore. You don’t even iron,” she said.

“Who irons?”

Finally, at my mother’s suggestion, I made a green bean casserole – a dish I truly believed to have passed into legend circa 1971. My mother made a list of the simple ingredients I would need. She assured me it would be a hit. “It’s all starch and salt. Everyone loves it.” I went to the Safeway and it took me at least fifteen minutes to find French-fried onion rings. I had difficulty classifying them as a species. Would they be with crackers and chips? Baking supplies? On the ethnic foods aisle perhaps, under “Regional American/Confederate States?” Near the green beans, perchance? Finally I found them near the pharmacy, arranged precariously in a tower that was listing slightly to the right. Next aisle over I found the cans of cream of mushroom soup – a mysterious coagulated compound of fungi and plumber’s putty. I brought the casseroles to the heritage feast. When I pulled the foil off to present them, the casserole looked like wet grout with green beans. No one touched it.

Determined, I finally mastered the green bean casserole after several more attempts, and I decided I would bring it to Thanksgiving at my mother’s house. Sadly, when we arrived, the meal had already fallen into disharmony. The gravy, stuck in traffic on HWY 5, showed up two hours late. We waited as long as we could, until the turkey shriveled and dried out on the barbecue and the kids had to dunk it in the sparkling apple cider just so they could chew it. There was a miscommunication about the stuffing and we ended up with about forty pounds.

After everyone had enough wine, the conversation turned to Turducken, a distinctly Yiddish sounding word yet a profoundly unJewish dish. Luckily my cousin’s girlfriend at the time (now his wife) took my part. (She animates adult cartoon shows and collects rare fighter fish – a real shiksamy mother says.) Authoritatively, she said, “I believe a traditionally prepared Turducken is a Turkey stuffed with a duck, stuffed with a chicken. The French do something else. There are more birds involved. I think they start with an ostrich.”

“I bet,” I said. “An ostrich stuffed with a turkey, stuffed with a duck, stuffed with a chicken, stuffed with a house finch, stuffed with a cigarette.”

“Exactly!” she said. “Speaking of cigarettes…”

My mother rose stiffly from her seat. Giving me the evil eye, left the dining room. “You had to start,” she said later. “At least you could let everyone eat before you make them sick with all your nature. How did I fail my daughters?”

A few weeks later Hanukah arrived. My strategy was working. “Can we all just admit that latkes are just Yiddish for “hash-browns” and get over it?” I asked my mother.

“They are not hash-browns. It’s important to make them from scratch, the right way, hand-grated. Will I never teach you anything?”

In our family, the “traditional way” means hours of peeling and grating followed by billowing black smoke followed immediately by the onset of anxiety around the Christmas meal.

“Don’t you remember last year?” I asked my mother.

A dark cloud passed over her face. During the previous year’s Hanukah dinner, I walked into my mother’s house during peak latke-production. My son, always running through the kitchen, skidded out on a viscous, potatoey substance on the floor and injured his head on the refrigerator. Clumps of latke batter dripped from my mother’s hair, and her face was partially covered in flour. The garbage disposal was making that burning brakes smell and yurping up copious amounts of potato matter.

“This isn’t making latkes, Mom. This is a potato apocalypse.”

“Don’t you have something to do? A trail to run? A ball to kick? Leave me alone,” she said defeated. It was only then that I realized it was I who had failed her.

Finally, after some pressuring, I convinced her to try the frozen latkes from Trader Joe’s. “It’s just us,” I said. “No one will know.” She scoffed, of course. But in the end I won. We spent the rest of the evening drinking and watching the candles burn down.

“These were good,” my mother said. “Not a word to anyone about frozen latkes, especially no one Jewish. My reputation is on the line.”

“Mom,” I said, “Haven’t I taught you anything?”

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