Right against Right

In an elliptical feat of no small measure, a "New York Times" book review on Sunday July 5th of a biography of I. F. Stone entitled "American Radical," reviewer Jackson Lears wrote that in a "New York Times" book review from 1967, Stone wisely observed that "The essence of tragedy is a struggle of right against right." I have always admired Stone for his insights and common sense.

Red Squirrel Gray squirrel

There’s an article in the October 7, 2007, Sunday New York Times Magazine about the small, shy British red squirrel being overtaken by the big, brutish American gray squirrel. The gray American squirrels were brought to England as a novelty, but once the aristocracy got tired of them, they let the big bruisers lose into the countryside and the buggers have been causing havoc ever since. How American.

The metaphor of the delicate red squirrel representing traditional English values and culture that is getting overrun by the American behemoth (the gray is a better breeder and more adventurous that its British cousin) has been used before. There was an article, I think it was in Harpers, 15 years ago that used the red squirrel as a metaphor for English cinema. In a nut shell (ha!), films like Brideshead, Enchanted April, Remains of the Day, Howard’s End, and Sense and Sensibility show the Britannia that exists in our imaginations. The stories these films tell are from other centuries with no shadow of the post-colonial, multicultural, you-are-being-videotaped Big Brother England of the 21th Century. The English movies of the red squirrel kind are your basic Merchant/Ivory fare.

Though I can appreciate a Die Hard and an Independence Day, there's nothing like spending quality time with a classic “red squirrel.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/magazine/07squirrels-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin
Squirrel Wars, by D.T. Max, 10/7/07

Will You Marry Me?

No more schoolteachers marrying stockbrokers in the New York Times society page this Fall. No, these are heavy hitting news producers, lawyers and doctors. One in particular made me swoon. An Oxford educated ballerina who worked in the U.S. Attorney’s office until she got married. Oh, before getting her masters in economic and social history at Oxford, she graduated with honors from Harvard and then got a law degree from Yale. And she’s beautiful. What does her husband do? Who cares?

Chicken Charlie

Last night as my head was in the toilet and my guts were in the bowl, I thought maybe it was a sign that I shouldn't be in the kitchen preparing meals but should limit my visits to getting a cold Coke out of the fridge. It was the first time that I'd cooked for friends in a long time (and that was an accident involving a surprise visit). I hate cooking b/c I'm not good at it. There are lots of skills that I master, but cooking has never been one of them. Chef's are considered artists, but we're supposed to pick up a sauce pan and, with no training or calling, make meals.

The recipe is from "Summer Express: 101 Simple Meals Ready in 10 Minutes or Less," that was in the The New York Times. It's fried chicken strip sandwiches. Easy peasy. But cooking makes me nervous. I don't trust food and am terrified of raw chicken and I'm sure that everything is spoiled. How many fights have I had shoving a milk carton under my partner's nose saying, "Smell that. It's bad."

I had even practiced the meal on my parents over labor day. I called the dish "Chicken Charlie" b/c, while we prepared the sandwiches, my mom was telling a story of when she and my dad were looking for the Mickey Mantle sports bar in Boston. They came to the address on the Google map and my mother read the signature on the bar's sign as "Chicken Charlie" and asked my dad, "Why would they put another sports bar right here next to Mickey Mantle's?" She bought commemorative cups with Mickey's signature on them and asks everyone, "What does that say?"

"Mickey Mantle."

Chicken Charlie went fine at my folks', but that was with my mom handling the chicken, cutting out a nasty looking tendon from the strips that she says makes them tough. I just dredged the strips in flour and plopped them in hot oil. Even with a splash guard, I got smacked a lot. Between the sputtering oil and my "Ouching" and "Damning," it was loud food prep much like in a professional kitchen. I've seen cooking shows. So, I made the chicken sandwiches for friends last night. I tried to take the tendons out but, between touching the chicken and the dull knife I was using, I pocked my finger. It didn't break the skin and no blood was drawn but I was so freaked out about what COULD have happened that I fried them tendons and all.

Everything went well. Chicken Charlie was a hit.

Then, I woke in the night feeling queasy. I tried to open a box of Alka-Seltzer but it was too late. Hello toilet bowl. I was sure I'd killed our house guests that, hours earlier, were laughing and enjoying what little time they had left in life at my kitchen table.

My partner found me passed out this morning under the toilet bowl covered with bath towels, hand towels, small rugs and wash clothes. (I was cold. They were near by.) My partner called our dinner guests and they're fine. It turns out that I was right. Cooking makes me violently ill. Told you.

What I Know for Sure

In the tradition of Oprah's last page of O Magazine, I know for sure that after reading the New York Times society page for many years, if you're a third grade teacher in New York and surrounds, you will marry an investment banker or lawyer. Ladies looking for stay-at-home mom positions, put "grade school teacher" on your eharmony, jdate, or Match.com postings and you're in. The other way couples meet is in college. There are lots of Harvard grades, both magna cum laude, starting their young lives together.

I justify reading the society page because I look for interesting jobs. Admittedly, my eyes glaze over when I see "investment banker" and "lawyer." Obviously I missed my calling as a stay-at-home mom.

By far the most interesting couple are Anjali and Chuck. Anjali's father is a photojournalist living in Paris. Great job. Great city. Her mother sells real estate. Well, someone has to make a living. Chuck's mom is a life coach. (Most moms on the society pages are on the board of charities, social workers, therapists or teachers. Of course, as I'm looking up Mother jobs to make my case, I'm finding all the exceptions to the rules: the parents that worked in tape recording and motorcycle factories in the Ukraine, and the mother retired as executive director of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies in New York.)

Chuck studied everything East Asian (Princeton, Rutgers, Swarthmore) and Anjali edits books for Vintage after graduating from Brown.

While in Taiwan finishing his dissertation, Chuck wooed Anjali by narrating a tape of the sounds he recorded of Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market, Swallows baseball game, and gaming parlor.

Isn't it romantic?