7 things I love... (free-style tag)

We've all done a tag or two (or n, n large) tags in our days, but Marion has invented a new form, which I picked up over at Jane's place and which I'm going to call free-style tag. In this version, rather than tagging 7 specific people, you just let anyone who feels like it join in. Think of it as a big jam session, or even better those drummers in the park (bring your drum and join in!), rather than a symphony orchestra.

So my version of it, like Marion and Jane, will be 7 things I love right now... If you're inspired, please do join in!

1. Kurosawa's Ran. No surprise given my last post, but I was waiting to be transported back into a world of heightened feeling and sound (I've probably been missing going to the opera), and this film did it.
2. Gorgonzola cheese. These days I can't get enough of it (which is why I take care to buy very little -- you know, little cheese.)
3. The art of my friend Lee Etheredge. I'm lucky enough to own a few of his pieces (and so are MoMA and the Whitney!) But I caught up with my friend recently and was delighted to see him doing new and exciting work (not yet on his blog, but keep an eye on it!)
4. Cappuccino. (You can see there is no order to this list.) Of course we all love a good cappuccino. Italics here will mystify our Italian friends who are used to a good coffee from a bar no more than 100m from where they stand, but in these parts you have to go looking for one. (But this takes me back to a young bb discovers the world anecdote. When I first began drinking the stuff at Italian restaurants outside Italy, I would enjoy the foam but then find the coffee just too bitter. Some years later I discovered the coffee I was having was too bitter, not that perfect marriage of coffee and foamed milk. And can I get one more pet peeve off my chest? If the president of Starbucks or any other chain is reading, please not that it is coffee and foamed milk not coffee, milk, and foam. The problem here is you get coffee with warm milk and mound of topiary foam on top. Done right the milk itself takes on a light foaminess...) Anyway, I 've had a decent espresso machine at home for about 8 years, but recently I have begun using it to make myself a cappucino every morning. As good as my favorite coffee bars? No. But better than 95% of most others? Yes.
5. The laptop computer. OK, I guess this really dates me. But even though I had a laptop, my "real" computer until 3 years ago was a desktop to which I was tethered. But now everything is on my laptop (don't worry, duly backed up), and I can roam free. And you know good ol' bb likes to roam!
6. Semi-fictional, semi-history. The writing is formulaic, but I couldn't put it down.
7. And finally this picture:

I suppose most of you are asking yourselves: who? It's Roger Federer who just won his 16th Grandslam Championship, with his father. (Just to be clear, since I sense most of my readers aren't sports type, I'm talking about tennis). Some of you may be shocked to discover that I watch any sports at all. The truth is not often, but sometimes tennis. I think this is because we watched it growing up (unlimited television during Wimbledon!) And some of you may be shocked then to discover that I admire a sportsman. But friends, there is much to admire here. First, how he plays. It's more like ballet than today's physically grinding game. Second, there is the impossibility of it. He sees angles and openings no else can. In that sense, I think he is like an artist, creating and orchestrating movement and visual possibilities. And also if you look at his tall, slim frame and his muscle-bound opponents, you can't understand how this man can stand a chance. Third, he has been doing this for about 6 years. Six sports years are like 30 normal years. He has somehow operated at a the highest level that long, maintaining his body, his mind, and above all his freshness of spirit -- the desire to excel, to win, and the pleasure of doing what you do. And finally, you've got to love this picture! Look at his delight, and look at the father's delight. And look how delighted they are to be sharing the moment. Even the greatest champion, artist, scientist must have these moments, when he or she is a child again basking in his or her parent's love and admiration.

bb

Kurosawa's Ran: A Master's Take on a Master

Usually I recommend a film to others after I've finished watching it (and the way things are usually after everyone else has already seen it, possibly decades ago...)

Though I'm only part way through Kurosawa's Ran (unfortunate English association with this word, which translates as chaos from Japanese), I feel myself keeping the DVD a week longer to see it again. It is Kurosawa's adaptation of King Lear. There are so few instances in which the master of one medium successfully adapts a masterpiece from another medium. Verdi and Otello come to mind. In that case, some have argued that Verdi even slightly improves on the original. I wouldn't go that far. But I would say that when one master hold's another gem in his or her hands, he may shine light on some facets of the original that were in the shadow (Iago in the case of Otello / Othello.)

To modern eyes, watching Kurosawa is both easy and challenging. The easiest way in is through your eyes, but the the style of acting and story telling, particularly in the epics, takes some time to adjust to. (Many rewards to doing so, of course.) But here the very operatic quality of the subject matter makes this intuitive. We are ready for stylization and heightened reality.

The moment (thus far) when it dawned on me that Kurosawa had done more than adapt Shakespeare, and create his own masterpiece, deals with the fool. In Lear, he is a central figure, but never quite becomes a character. Indeed, would I be going too far to say that is true of many of the characters in King Lear? They are striking, violent, moving, piteous, heartbreaking, but more stylized than human. This probably applies to the Lear character in Ran, Hidetora. But many of the others are built up out of human impulses, even the fool, who wonders at one point whether he should stay with Hidetora, whose nurse says he has been his entire life. Moving to see behind the fool's mask, a moment that Shakespeare doesn't give us.

This film is both an epic and a closeup -- the tragedy both large scale and tragic/heroic and very personal.

bb

BIG CHEESE little cheese

Somehow, somewhere two weeks have slipped since my last post. I thought this next post was going to be about some films I've seen (the next one maybe...) but this one is a about:

BIG CHEESE and little cheese.

So what's it all about? There's no way to pretend the following will be coherent, so I'm not going to try:

* In London I lived next to a cheese monger (love that occupation name - monger, iron monger and cheese monger being the two I continue to see - it's not used in American English). Well, I thought of myself as living next to La Fromagerie, though in reality it was a 4 minute stroll away. It's a gem of place, and most things cost just about as much as gems. But getting back to the cheese, they have their own cheese cave. I should say "cave", because it's a wonderful room that the customers can walk into, to be surrounded by the smell of ageing cheese. What a smell! And the cheese monger himself will give you a tour, with some suggestions and tastings thrown in. Looking back, I don't know why I didn't buy more cheese. For one thing, you could get unaged raw milk cheese, which we can't here. For another, it's irresistible! So just for the record, it's not that I could resist, it's just that somehow I went shopping on Sunday, market day, and tended to buy my cheese there...

* In New York, I live next (in the same sense as above) to a very fine, quite reputed cheese section. Indeed, one person liked it so much he asked - and was given permission - to get married there! (No, not me, though not a bad idea for the future...) The only problem here is they have many cheeses pre-cut and pre-wrapped. Good cheese, but usually hunks (don't like that word, but it's the right word...) Of course, you can get them to cut piece for you, but you have to endure the competitive sport called New York grocery shopping. Some people move too fast and knock you over. Some run their shopping cart into you Achilles' tendons (there's a reason ancient mythology picks this as Achilles' weak spot...) Even more taxing is weaving your way through the crowd. Overtaking the slow walkers and the indecisive, while yourself being flanked by a shopping cart and a baby stroller. In this kind of high-risk situation, you don't really want stop to to ask for your bespoke slice of cheese. You grab what you can and run.

* In Boston, I now have my own cheese monger. Actually it's a wine store and provisions store. The wine store is great, if like me you enjoy good wine but don't enjoy the sticker shock of buying wine outside continental Europe (sorry UK -- same problem there as here....), and I'm sure at some point I'll write about how this has changed my life. (But that phrase sounds bad no? At the least, a bit tricky...) But the cheese monger... Life changing... My local grocery options here basically consist of overly expensive, overly large, pre-packaged cheese. Now instead, I pop in for somewhere between $2-$4 worth of cheese. A thin sliver of Gorgonzola here, a brick of Robiola there, and even better a great selection of American cheeses. (For the doubters out there, American cheese isn't only Kraft slices. There's good stuff there. Right now I'm nibbling on a American raw cow milk's cheese...)

I wish there a were a more philosophical peroration to this line of thought. But really, that's it for now. Big cheese, little cheese.

bb

Passion may be

the subject,

but the method

is reason.

{A.O. Scott on Eric Rohmer in the New York Times}

Requiem for a toaster

My parents bought me a toaster in 1992. At the time I was still at an age where my parents would buy me things, but all ready of an age where my parents would buy me such things, things I needed more than things I wanted or desperately desired. We were the kind of family that when we went to the movies didn't buy popcorn or sodas. It's not that my parents didn't want to spend the extra money, or that they were trying to save our appetites for a dinner that would follow (or - except for a few unmentionable years - were trying to protect my waistline). It's just that we didn't believe in these things. Popcorn was nice, and soda was nice, and I never lacked for these things. It's just at the movies we didn't believe in them

(Strangely, all these years later, I still don't believe in popcorn at the movies. I am so absorbed in the film that even the basic process of shoveling food into my mouth is too distracting -- although perhaps this is the time to confess that for few years I used to take pasta to the movies. I mean if you are going to eat, then why not eat really good food?)

In the 18 years that have followed, I have taken that toaster for granted. For, you see, I am not really a toast person. Toast has never been a breakfast food for me. Nor do I take toast with an omelet at lunch or brunch. And when I eat bagels , I eat them untoasted. Nonetheless, it follows my blindly and loyally wherever I go.

I have from time to time used the oven feature. But really when I use an oven I need a real oven for baking. And I don't eat much frozen food. But still sometimes the oven has come in handy.

My parents bought me the toaster because they thought I needed one. There is a pretty lengthy list of things my parents bought for me, generous as they are, and most of the items on that list proved to be pretty useful. (The one item that stands out as less used than the toaster was an electric can opener. I got rid of it years ago. Not because I don't open the occasional can, but just because the mechanical variety seems to take just about the same effort and take up less space. I still don't understand why someone would need an electric can opener. I'm not being judgmental here, or, I hope, unappreciative of a thoughtful gift. I'm just trying to understand.)

In any case, after a long gap, and for some random reasons, I bought a loaf of toasting bread the other day, popped two slices in, and depressed the button. Nothing. I was taken a back. There are few certainties in our world, but this is one of them. When you depress the toaster button, the heating wires turn red, and the two slices are on their way toast heaven.

It stood there, inert, mute, cold, lifeless. My toaster was no more.

* * *

I miss my toaster for all these reasons, except the toast. But I am gleefully, and guiltily, thrilled to recover the counter space, the one most precious ingredient in my kitchen. And I have plans for that space, such plans! But more on that some other time.

For now I would like to remember the toaster that my parents bought for me 18 years ago, and the 18 years we have lived together since then.

bb

Update

I had better just confess this now. I've become a toast addict.

A peek from behind the screen

{images of Fatehpur Sekri by yours truly}

If I were prone to peeking from behind screens, then I might be tempted to do so from these.

bb

Di Chirico meet Maharaja Jai Singh II

{pictures from a recent trip to jaipur}

xoxo

bb