Porta Palazzo

Oh, the Porta Palazzo! It's kind of nice just to say it. Porta Palazzo, Porta Palazzo, Porta Palazzo. I like the way it just rolls off my tongue, sexy-like, and liberated from the clench of the jaw; like the way most Italian words just enter the world uninhibited and gorgeous. For those who are not in the know, Porta Palazzo is a giant food market situated, almost plopped, in the middle of the suave city of Turin. I have been hearing about it for some time, and so I decided to discover it all by my lonesome. It was a beautiful Saturday morning in late November, and I was bright and excited to experience the market to end all markets. Vegetables, fruits, fish, cheese, olives, awaited my arrival. But the beautiful Saturday morning morphed into heavy rain and below zero temperatures, but I was determined. I had a cappucino at my favorite cafe, and a toast. A toast here at least, is a pressed sandwich, sort of like a panino, with ham and cheese oozing out. I felt pretty good after that duo, and sort of waltzed out into the rain, towards the train station. Trains were delayed, as they always are in Italy, it was an hour and a half before the next one, and so I called my friend for a chat, and maybe yet another coffee. She was game, but she wanted something more substantial. I said I would accompany her, but only have a water. Who am I kidding? We went to one of Bra's most venerable eateries, virtually unchanged in decades. The owner is a funny but grumpy middle-aged man, and he sort of just gets by muttering half-truths out and into the heads of customers. My friend had her heart set on egg noodles with truffle shavings. It's still high truffle season here. I tried to be resolute and only stick with water, because I was full, damn that toast, but I could feel my will crumbling. I heard myself say, "I'll have one too." My friend cackled at my lack of discipline. She said, well, Clover, you're only in Italy for a few months, why not indulge, and so I did. If there's a heaven, and I don't think there is, this was it. I mean, I could have made love to that dish. I could have spent a life with that dish. I could have worn that dish around. Anyway, after the orgasmic offerings, I got on the train, stuffed and happy. I emerged a little plumper in Turin, and searched for the market in the rain. And then I arrived. And it was too much. Overwhelming, endless rows of vegetables and fruits, greens, olives, smoked fish, cheese, I was paralyzed, and my umbrella broke. So now here I was a rapidly becoming plump tourist with a broken umbrella and eyes full of wonderment. I only bought three things at the market that day, and one of the purchases proved to be, perhaps the most inconvenient, and stupid. A woman from Sicily was selling her wares, and because she was wrapping up her day at the coliseum, she was selling two kilos of clementines for one euro. What a deal! I'll take them. I had no foresight about what it would be like to carry 2 kilos of clementines in the rain, in the crowds, in the sheer pandemonium of a Saturday evening in Turin. Note to self and reader: two kilos is heavy. It's something like six or seven pounds. And then for added comic effect, the clementines found a way out of the thin plastic bag, and they began to plop themselves here and there and everywhere around Porta Palazzo, leaving a trail for a pack of Arabs that started to follow me. This is not fiction, I swear. In the last ten years or so, Porta Palazzo has become more and more infiltrated by other cultures, and now the market houses a majority of Arab vegetable and fruit purveyors. Anyway, they must have sensed a sister among them, apparently they could smell that I had some middle-eastern in me, and began to follow me. We're not talking a dribble of men, but hoards, throngs, almost as if I was a bitch in heat, and a pack of dogs were on my trail. The thing is that I could not lose them, because the clementine trail afforded them a supreme advantage. I started to walk briskly, and entered the indoor part of the market, that is really comprised of meat and cheese. I hid behind a giant carcass, and managed to buy some walnut gorgonzola, and then some olives. If pushed, I could perhaps use the gorgonzola to smother the offenders, and the olives to stone them. The meat and animal parts started to depress me, so I exited quickly, pulled my pathetic, broken umbrella almost over my face, and ran towards the center. At this point, my clementine bag was light - I think only one remained. I ran to the train in the rain without getting slain but in significant pain, as I stubbed my toe at the ticket booth. Finally I managed to get on the train, and sat down all sweaty. I looked at my sad purchases, one runny gorgonzola oozing out of the wax paper, one sad heap of olives, and one clementine. It was then and there that I ended the clementine's reign over me. I ate it. It was satisfying. Oh my darling, oh my darling clementine.

A Unique Change of Pace

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I have been a privileged beholder of beauty for exactly two weeks now. My arrival to Bra from New York has been an eye-opener in warmth, great food, wine, and of course, the‘b’word - beauty. I’ve been familiarizing myself with all types of it, big and small, say a snow-capped mountain, or a little glossy chocolate wrapper that is as gorgeous as the little treasure found inside it. Its not like I’ve been starved of beauty, but I’m rather used to the
steel and grit kind, the hard beauty a la Max Ernst, instead of the soft touches of Cezanne.

I am having a little adventure, similar to the one I experienced two years ago, when I interviewed a magnificent set of British and Scottish food producers for Slow Food UK. And while I’ve only interviewed three so far in the Piedmont region, the experiences have been unique, and again beautiful, whetting my appetite in more ways than one, for what’s to come.
In other words, I am granted perspective on a perspective that’s new to me, all around gorgeousity. How will I readapt to NY? I don’t have to think about that for another couple of months.

So here goes. First stop was Signora Raffaella Firpo who produces the Capriglio Pepper (a member of the Piedmontese presidia), a small munchkin cousin of the regular gigantic bell pepper. The dainty Capriglio was threatened with possible extinction until Firpo took this precious vegetable under her wing where it grows just a hop, skip, and a jump from her lovely sanctuary Cascina Piola. Signora Firpo epitomizes the crux of what Slow Food is all about. More than twenty years ago, she left city life for Capriglio, and escaped with her husband and young children to rediscover and work with the land. She refurbished an old house, and created there an ode to the land, and an ode to the joys of farm to table. In addition to growing the peppers, Firpo has melons, squash, lettuces, and a little store where she sells the preserves of her vegetables. The process of preserving is a considerable family legacy, one that she has fortified with the very act of growing special things with her own very special hands.

Next on the list, is the Orbassano Red Celery producers at Cascina Gorgias and their great glowing root and stalks that were once a common item found in the market gardens near Turin from the 17th century on. But, sadly, the celery went out of fashion after World War II because of its demanding cultivation process and relatively low profitability. The lovely almond essence and iconic red base of this unique vegetable might have been lost on the Piedmontese, if it weren’t for a devoted few men in Orbassano. Cascina Gorgias is a 62 hectare oasis of pets, pond and green. It’s a wonderland of bunnies, chinchillas, horses, cockatiels, chickens, and alone peacock. And the celery is left undisturbed to do its duty. Cascina Gorgias also houses a restaurant, and a store should you feel inclined to buy some of the very ‘local’ products.

Last but not least, there are the mountains of Castelmagno, that almost led me off the precipice plummeting into a giant beauty vat. There was a possibility of plummeting literally a la Grace Kelly, if you were too ‘focussed’ on the magnificent view, as the guard rails on that steep windy road were few and far between. What’s there to say about those mountains, that air, that water that you drink up there - that is cool, crisp, and a true gift? If anything could possibly top it, it must be the centuries old Castelmagno cheese made up in those mountains that is sheer bliss, and Georgio Amedeo whose passion is the production of that cheese. ‘Art’ would be a better word to use than ‘production.’ Amedeo sees that Castelmagno is made the same way it was hundreds of years ago. What does the cheese taste like? Like pure cow essence, mountain air, dew, straw, grass, and perhaps even the divine touch of a Castelmagno ancestor or two, leading us the way to nirvana.

New York is a far cry from what I’ve experienced thus far. The skyline seems a little dusty in my mind’s eye at the moment. I have mountains on my mind.

The Kids of Dogliani

Never start a sentence with “never,” or so the teachers of my formative years used to say. And speaking of formative years…Never have I seen a group of kids, a collective of young blood, so intelligent, so charming, so witty, and so well-behaved. The back-drop for this rather startling occurrence was Dogliani’s Scuola primaria dell’Istituto Comprensivo Luigi Einaudi. A mouthful, yes, but well worth the trouble of training the tongue. Good old professor Henry Higgins would be proud if you could say the name of the school three times at break-neck speed. He would also be proud of the young lads and lasses at the Scuola that could articulate their sophisticated thoughts so well. I had the opportunity of visiting these kids on the bright and beautiful November 11th – the day of Festa Degli Orrti, (school garden day), and also St. Martin’s Day*, hence the beautiful weather. Not that I’m assigning credit to someone other than the kids, but I think the patron saint lent some of his virtuous touch to these astute children as well. They were in a word, otherworldly. The day took the kids through various discoveries of cultivating the land in their own back-yard, or garden, on the school’s property, care of a few devoted vegetable farmers that explained the diversity available to them. The school’s garden houses a variety of green leafy vegetables, as well as a hunchbacked cardoon. There was also a giant worm that was slithering around in the soil, which both delighted and grossed out the kids who tried to pick up its slippery body.

Taste was of course a factor in getting the kids to understand just what they were cultivating, first on land, and then on their palettes. There were jam and honey tastings, where the kids had to submit their top pick. But, I think the thing that got me the most, was how these little angels conducted themselves in the canteen. And even how the canteen conducted itself. Perhaps I’m just from depraved parts, but I have never seen tablecloths, china, glass, and real silverware used in a New York school cafeteria, where the kids are younger than ten years old. It was something out of one of Edith Wharton’s novellas. And the kids were something out of one of Jane Austen’s. They sat patiently waiting for their gnocci. I wasn’t that patient, I almost had to stop myself from banging on a glass with my fork. I do a lot of odd things in anticipation of gnocci. The gnocci was laid out on the children’s plates, and they used their knives and forks. I just used my fork to shovel it in. If only I grew up Italian…It makes me want to marry an Italian, just to have some angelic tots. Then the plates were collected to make room for the entrée of turkey and peas. The kids again exhibited such maturity and deftness at eating and appreciating their meal, that I felt frankly embarrassed to have let one of the peas roll of my plate, and then roll off the table, only to be squished later by my decidedly uncouth foot and shoe. Dessert was comprised of a locally grown kiwi, so local, it probably grew on a tree in the school’s garden. How dainty, how pleasant, how right to end a meal like that. Of course, the kids outshone me in the cutting and eating of the kiwi. I think that some of the kids actually peeled theirs.

The “A” for effort and good behavior at the school is of course attributed to the leadership of the dedicated teachers and headmaster Tarcisio Priolo. This is a school from make-believe, or rather a school founded in a glorious reality, celebrating a day that pays homage to the land that produces the food on your table. With the Thanksgiving brouhaha around the corner in the US, I feel that I have already experienced Thanksgiving Italian style. After all, the Festa Degli Orrti is all about Thanks and Giving.

*St. Martin was born in A.D. 316 in Hungary, and grew up the son of a Roman military officer in Pavia. He joined the Roman army and was sent to Amiens, where on horseback, he met a starving man begging at the city gates. In a gesture of deep compassion, St. Martin tore his red woolen cloak in two with his sword, and gave half to the beggar. The next night, he saw Jesus wearing the half od the cloak he’s given away. St. Martin then decided to convert to Christianity and dedicate his life to Christ.

Back In The Saddle Italian Style

Someone once asked me: Clover, what would make you happy, really happy? I don't remember what I answered, but just what I thought. The thought of happiness came in an immediate rush of images - Mozart's violin concertos playing in the background, a lovely breeze spreading itself over a nicely made-up bed, roses in a vase, good friends in my kitchen making something delicious to eat. I'm sure there's much more than that, but these are the things that make my heart feel light. Are these stock images, or do they hold sway somewhere in a yet to be announced future. I sometimes get mixed up with what has happened, and what I want to happen. Maybe, that's why lying has come easy to me, and why, I have to sometimes fight off the impulse with everything I've got. I want so much to happen to me. I want to be happy, I want to will it. And now, without extending the truth at all, I am happy. I'm in Italy, have been for nearly two months, and I find that my day-to-day is brimming with sunshine. Can a change of scenery change a person's outlook? Maybe. Or has my outlook changed? I don't know. I don't think I ever will, but I do know that I was suffering in my hometown that I once loved so much; that I was festering. Nothing was changing, and yet the need to be happy was ever present. I don't have that pain in my neck and shoulders anymore. I'm sleeping better. Is it the Italian mountain air, the love put in the food, and the wine? Is it a stranger taking my hand to assure me that all is okay, or a person I've only exchanged two words with kiss my cheek, not once, but twice. There's a warmth here that I have never known in my birthplace. There is a love of life, a love of doing nothing, a love of taking time to have a coffee, a cigarette, a kiss, a walk, a meal, a sleep, a dinner. Nothing is rushed here. This is what I needed. Leger. The French would say. Take it easy, Italy keeps whispering in my ear. You're fine, you're out of danger. Don't look over your shoulder. Relax. Sshh. Enjoy your glass of wine, enjoy your meal. Don't worry about your weight, you're fine. Open the window in the morning, and look forward to the day, and sleep in peace when day is done. No rat race, no bitterness, no anger, no paranoia, no nothing. Breathe easy. Breathe deep. Study the lovely chocolate wrapper, look at the ribbon that wraps up a cake that you're bringing to a friend's house. Observe the snow-capped mountains. They're all around you. They're protecting you. I'm been brought back to myself, and for that Italy, I am eternally grateful. I'm back in the saddle. Italian style.

Change Of Pace

There are a lot of things I've been meaning to tell you. But, somehow the moment passed, or the validity of that set of experiences flitted away, which is a little sad. I've always been sentimental about flitted moments. But before I go on about all this hoo-ha, I wanted to tell you how I tried to fix my alarm clock the other day. It's a little clock that is shaped like a snail, and my mother "lent" it to me years ago, but I never wanted to part with it. Anyway, it's long been ailing, even though I've changed its batteries three or more times. The clock doctors, and there were many, said they simply didn't have the parts to fix it. Something in it was off. How could that be? In all of Manhattan, not one person could fix my little snail? One after another exclaimed, it's working, it's working Miss, what's the trouble? To which I replied, a new battery was just put in, and it will work perfectly, but only for its first hour of renewed life, and then sadly, it would stop, which of course called to mind the silly but true aphorism, that even a broken clock was right two times a day. This whole clock scenario seemed like a mini story that represented my last two years in New York. Nothing fit, the parts were not there, my timing was off. And so instead of living life like a broken clock, I've decided to leave New York for a little while. What will I write about? Is this blog going the way of the snail? No. I'm just taking a little time off from my home-town. I'm going to Italy, where I can breathe for a little while. I can eat well, see well, and drink well. I got this opportunity practically put in my lap without me having to do that much for it. No struggle, just smooth sailing. I'm a little nervous, but somehow, there is a level of calm, that everything can work out there for the next few months. So I'm going with it. NY might hate me still, but Italy loves me. And so this is what I'll be writing about.

Fortune Kooky

People say that once they break a bone, any bone, when the weather is crummy, they feel rheumatism and an ache in the bone that has long been mended. I've always felt that that must be a royal pain, but also rather poetic. I don't know, maybe something about how a break in the original structure can always be felt and serves as a reminder. Fortunately for me, I've never broken anything thus far, other than a vase, or a dish or two. But my tongue is another story. It's nothing really icky, just that when I'm not feeling well, getting a cold, not getting a job etc., the right underside of my tongue starts to hurt. It's like the tongue knows. The tongue is kind of my soothsayer. Last night, my tongue told me to get some soup at the Chinese place next store. I don't like eating fake/Americanized Chinese, but who could argue with a tongue? So I got a small soup, and sat there sipping and sometimes slurping. No one else was frequenting the joint, except for a rowdy group that kept reading their fortunes out loud to one another. I felt kind of bad about sitting there, only ordering a soup, but I thought small business is better than no business. I got my check, along with two orange slices, and a fortune cookie wrapped in plastic. Geez, I could use a good fortune, a really good one. A bomb of a fortune. A good bomb, anyway. I opened it, and it read "You are heading for a land of sunshine." Well, I'll be darned! This is great. I haven't seen any sunshine lately, in the way of a job at least. What kind of sunshine will it be? A really good job offering, two great job offerings, three? What's in store? I felt happy. The steady ache in my tongue had subsided a little, like it too read and understood the cookie's message. I paid the bill, which sadly for the restaurant only amounted to three dollars, and while I was waiting for my change, I got to thinking about how crazy everything has been. How kooky! What was and is the rhyme or reason? And then I thought about the terrible fast-food Chinese place in Poughkeepsie, a hop, skip, and food-poisoning jump from my college Vassar. Friends of mine would order that terrible food late into the night, and somehow came out of it unscathed. The place was called "Fortune Kooky," which always made me laugh for a variety of reasons. I assumed that the owners were not trying to be ironic, but how could they not know, or how could no one ever tell them? It was a conspiracy of dunces and comediennes that wanted to keep the funny interpretation on the down-low. It's strange that so many years later, this funny name would pop up in my mind's eye, and how it summed up everything rather beautifully - fortune kooky. Things have been so kooky, but apparently, I'm on my way to some fortune, and sunshine.

Yelp!

It's easy to fall in love with things. It's easier still, to fall in love with people. It can be something small, inconsequential, a flick of the wrist, the way someone appreciates the air outside, or eats a plum. I have fallen in love with things and people at a considerable rate, not more than most, but not less. The "love" does not have to be remotely romantic, but it's more about, yes, what's it about? A sense of closeness, maybe proximity unmarred by a particular set of circumstances and time frame. Over my lifetime, and especially during the last two years, I have fallen in closeness with people that seemingly want to help me forward my plans, and see and take me for what I am, whatever that is. Perhaps it is an unromantic crush out of respect or admiration for the person, or for what the person does. I guess that my crushes are a little peppering of closeness and admiration. The lout that I mentioned an entry or two back is a prime example of one of my little "loves." She represented everything I wanted to be as a person, as a woman. She led by example, and consequently led me to confide in her about my last two years of turmoil. She also confessed that she went through similar trials when she was younger. I liked her so much, that I did form a professional "crush." Could I have kissed her? No Sapphic tendencies here. But. Maybe. On the cheek perhaps. Oh wait, I did, and she did me. And yet, and yet...There always seems to be a "yet." She disappointed, by not being the woman and colleague she said she was, and the woman and colleague I wanted her so much to be. Perhaps my expectations got ahead of me, but no, I can't turn them off. All humans have expectations; you'd be dead if you didn't have any. So, yelp! Yelp! Yelp! I'm crying out because I cannot understand the rhyme or reason for the things that people do. She is one in a series of yelps! She is one in a series of sharp and quick loves that abruptly fade to darkness. I have been provoked into becoming a professional yelper, but you see, I don't want to be. I just want to go about my business which is to be in business. Is that a lot to ask? But, I also have a crush on this here blog, because it affords me a way to open shop day after day, and tell you dear reader, what's happening here. I have a crush on you too, even though you're amorphous and out there. The relationship is rather one-sided, as you know all about me, and I not a thing about you. But, you care enough to read, and therefore, I have a little love in my heart.

Deep Sniffy, Damn Skippy!

Ever take a long, deep sniff like your life depended on it? It's the silent and under-appreciated wonder work of the nostrils. I don't mean drugs. I mean a soulful sniff. A sniff that signifies everything you want, and everything you lost. A sniff that takes in the surroundings, authenticates the experience, and detects triumph or trouble. Well, I have been a proponent of the deep sniffy my whole darn adult life, and never more than now, when I depend on the "S.S.S." - soul-searching sniff. Deep sniffy, damn skippy! You might inquire here, how many sniffs I take a day? Well, it really depends on how many "F.F.U's" or flake follow-ups I have to commit myself to. Today, with the heat and flakes, and all, a deep-sniffy was necessary, but not the full-on one, as I would probably fall over with an inspired, gestational snift. Oh, snuffle at the thought. I think I've turned part canine. No, no, detractors, not a bitch, but a human-being with a particular talent and sensitivity in the upper or middle region of my face. I use my nose and my nostrils to give or afford me strength, when there is seemingly none to spare. The refuse or rubbish of the crap and/of the creeps are circulating in that dead air just in front of me. Their unsparing presence nips at my heels, they're always there. And then...And then, I take leave of my own wacky personal therapy. It's nothing more than inhalation, but it clears the sullied slate. It wipes out the creeps, the cretans, the crap, and replaces all that with some sort of strange purity, space, and a willingness to continue; yes, until the sniff gets me some success. Sometimes, I admit that I'm sore with the sniff, as it hasn't yielded optimal results yet, but I have to say, that it's getting me through. And there's a long list of creeps that have done me the dirty in the last two years. But who's counting? I'm counting! Damn straight, damn skippy! I'm keeping it straight with my own personal ledger. And just in case, the nostrils, and the deep sniffy are there to back me up.

Sleepwalker

Apparently, I have been calling people in my sleep. In the middle of the night. Okay, just one person has confessed thus far, but think about the throngs of others that have received my nightly call-to-arms, and just didn't want to say anything. Geez Louise! I'm more messed up than I thought. On top of this disturbing news, it seems that I not only sleep-call, but I sleep-eat. I consumed only a tomato, but who's to say that I didn't dither over to the local bodega and pick myself one of those plastic-wrap nasties? You probably want to know how I know that I ate a tomato. Well, I saw the top of it sadly sitting in my sink the next morning - discarded and beheaded. The other clue to my consumption was the bloodied knife, well I say "bloodied" for dramatic purposes only, it was really only some tomato scum from that evil post-midnight romp. I hardly know myself anymore. What's happening? Am I turning into a ghoul that lives and conspires after dark? Oy! But then I thought, well maybe I could use this new sleep-walking stance to my advantage. I can call the no-respondies after dark, and maybe just maybe, they will be frightened into submission. Maybe they will get their act together when they realize that I am no holds bard, and I might, just might, sleepwalk over to them at some point when they're pulling a late one in the office. Creepy, creepy! I'm creeping myself out. But nothing is creepier than maybe being a vampire, or an after-dark fruit slayer! Or a late-night binge eater? I shudder at the thought. No, I am only a sleep-caller, the other, more unglamorous event, was a fluke, a one-off, a completely preposterous cosmic interruption where my body was taken over by aliens who had a hankering for a tomato. These aliens are foodies and had a grasp on the precipitous decline of the tomato season. Oh no. It's me, it's me. I'm the midnight-caper! I'm the thieving magpie stealing delights in the night. What a plight! I would make Rossini proud. In fact, I think that if my adventures were to have a soundtrack, they would fit nicely with his whimsical ditty - "The Thieving Magpie."

Child's Play

I'm back where I started. Or at least it feels that way. It just seems that lately, whenever I establish some forward motion, there's something that stops the chugga-chugga. And then there I am chasing my tail again. I've got to read "The Little Engine That Could" again, cause damn I could use some "I-think-I-can" mumbo-jumbo now. Geez, what do I have to do to pull over this seemingly insurmountable mountain? The woman I respected and admired a little while ago has turned out to be a lout, at least at the moment - she's out of commission. What happens in the interim of people liking me and potentially employing me, and then, these same people falling into the chasm of oblivion, one by one. It's like they're in line. They took a number. "I'll have the tenderloin, and I'll ignore Clover some more. Let's see if she can stand it, or more precisely, stand it out." Chugga-chugga - that's what I've got to keep telling myself. And that's what I had to tell myself the other night when I was sleeping at my parent's house, babysitting my furry sister - the dog, Billie, while my parents are out of town. There I was, next to pitter-patter. Oh, that Billie, she really has some amazing nails that make an amazing noise when she walks on the parkay floor. Pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter, my heart. Is that my heart? Or is that Billie's nails? Here I am, feeling like a child in my parent's home - unemployed, surveying my childhood at arm's length. There are my books, my Barbies, my Archie's (remember Archie and the gang?) Am I still that child unable to break loose? God no. I've always had good jobs. What the hell happened? What continues to happen? Chugga-chugga! Oh, that's right. Break the negative thought process right away, before it sprouts more negativo. Negativo to the Nth degree. No, no it will be fine. I will break out of this. Chugga-chugga! At some point, the kids will be tired of taking numbers, or the numbers will run out, and there will be no more reason to hang my tenderloin on the tender-hooks. Chugga-chugga...Chugga-chugga. Chugga-chugga! Chugga! Chugga! Oh wait pitter-patter, I think-I-can, I-think-I-can, I-think-I-can. I'm going up the mountain again. And if it weren't for my parents going away, and little pitter-patter, I wouldn't have found my dusty "The Little Engine That Could" buried under "The Story Of O," and "Ramona Quimby, Age 8." What does that say about the way my mind has been conditioned to work? No comment. Just a little chugga-chugga. I'll take a number now. And, oh look, it's number one.

Wearing It And/Or Momo

I've decided to wear what I'm talking about. In that, I had this harebrained idea the other day to make a NY Hates Me t-shirt and wear it around town. A walking billboard; that I am. What a joy it was to advertise something that could potentially benefit me, rather than pay for a label, and do their advertising for them. Screw that. I went to a place in the Village, and customized my very own tee. I asked for a lower-case "ny" next to a heart with a slash and then "me" to be scripted across my chest, and then under it, around the navel, this here site: "nyhatesme.com." And for added effect, another "nyhatesme.com" on the back-side of my tee, around the shoulder blades. "Isn't this overkill?" The man in the store demanded. "I want to be purposely unsubtle. After all, I only have the one tee now, and I need to be bold. I need more people to be aware of my site and my plight." "Uh, okay, whatever lady. You're the boss." And within fifteen minutes time, there it was, the tee to end all tees. All black lower-case lettering, big and bold, and a giant red heart with a slash. I went home, took off my elegant dress, you know the one, the one that got me respect last week, and slipped on the tee shirt. I left my apartment, first unsure, a little insecure, and then I remembered the "certainty stance." Here we go. Tee, take me to Union Square. Yah, yah! People wanted to be in the know in the Square. What's "nyhatesme.com"? Why does NY hate you? We love you! I'm going to look that up when I get home. Yes, my harebrained idea was working double-time. In fact, maybe if I wear the tee everyday once or twice a day, I will get a more of a following. What do you think? You know wear down the resistance and all that jazz. I've been wearing the shirt, and it's starting to smell a little. Wear and tear. I have to wash it, but I'm afraid that the lettering will fade, and I'm not ready to be washed-out just yet. So maybe a few more wears. I was thinking of wearing it as evening attire as well, maybe with a little belt. Watch out Bill Cunningham. I'm taking the city by storm. Fashion-wise.

And then there is Momo. My darling Momo. At least that's my affectionate term for good old Wolfy. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Whenever I feel down, I put on some Momo and I feel instantly better. Have always felt better listening to Momo since I was a little girl. I think I have every piece he ever wrote in my giant CD collection (yes, I still have CDs). So, you might think that I might be in heaven with the Mostly Mozart Festival upon us. I am. I was having a not so nice day, and then I went to Avery Fisher for a pick-me-up, and I was certainly picked up and thrown against heaven's doors. The program this evening was not all Momo, just one selection, but his peers held him in good company. Oh Momo, what you have done for my ears and my heart and my days and my nights. And all the other people in the world who have lived and died and who have loved and listened to your music. I was thinking of wearing the tee shirt tonight, but I didn't want to detract from your music. And who thinks about NY hating me, when I'm loving you so much!

Teensy Weensy

Apparently, I'm just a wee bit off. I'm millimeters away from making it happen. Just a flick of the wrist or a slight step in one direction will yield big results. The teensy weensy movement in the right direction is the mainstay logic of the motivational speaker Tony Robbins. And while I've never been a bopping head for motivational, go get 'em speakers, I have to say that Robbins' spiel made a lot of sense. In his need to improve his golf swing from abysmal to passable, he changed his movement ever so slightly, just a hair, and then all hell broke loose, or for that matter all heaven broke out and greeted him with a warm hello.

The thing that really got me was the "certainty" stance. Robbins did not call it that, but he said the difference of posturing yourself, literally and figuratively, with a stamp of certainty makes all the difference. While the difference in being completely certain and confident, and disillusioned and dejected are a couple of inches. It's is the mere difference between regal: shoulders - back, face - open, as opposed to slumped and sad. I tried on the confident stance and the dejected one back and forth, along with Robbins who had it down pat. The difference is a flick of the switch. I decided to take the confident stance out for a walk. Shoulders back, bust forward a la Sophia Loren, face open, eyes gleaming. What a response! Robbins is on to something! I got what I wanted. I got respect. I got adoration. I got taken seriously. Then a little later that day, just for a lark, I wore my slumped self out, and I was a veritable doormat. Ignored, bumped on the street without apology. I was invisible. I was a ghost. Scrooge that! I don't care if I fall over backwards in my effort to keep the back back and the bust forward. Gee, I'm even going to e-mail the contagion of no-respondies with the certainty stance. I'm on the phone following up with you. Guess what? You can be sure I'm erect. I'm now certain Clover. I'm exchanging the bad arc for the good one. I'm millimeters from making it happen. Like Robbins, I'm on the upswing.

No Respect

I can't get no respect. No respect. These are not my words, but they're my sentiment. The late Rodney Dangerfield and I seem to have something going, something in common. I spend my days loosening up the pretend tie that hangs around my neck like a noose. And while I don't have a funny routine to turn out my particular hell, I can tell you assuredly that I get no respect. No response, no return on investment, no nothing. Some friends say don't take it personally - this is a mad mad world we live in, it's not you. Others say change how you act, change what you believe in, change how you look, change what you find funny, and what you don't. My eyes are popping out of my head in disbelief, like Rodney's. How do you weather this type of disappointment for so long? What is the God damn glitch? My wiring is still there though. I can still get myself to have hope, to believe someone when they tell me that something is going. I believe and I believe and I believe until those same people fade into this horrible Gremlin mass of oblivion, never to resurface again, at least not in the meanwhile. How can I not take it personally? When this keeps happening over and over again, like some bad fine-line crack in an LP's lining. I'm taking in the same shoddy sounds of the needle chafing its snag. I get no respect. No respect.

Okay, I got a little respect yesterday. But only the superficial kind. The kind that comes and goes when you're wearing a nice dress, and you look good in it. People were nice at the stores, on the streets. But still, I know that the dress has to come off at some point, and then I'm just left with my skin, and a phantom phone ring. I get no respect, no real respect. It hasn't been the story of my life, but the crux of the story these last two years. What the f---? How's it going to be tomorrow?

Amazon is selling Rodney Dangerfield's "The Ultimate No Respect Collection" for under thirty dollars. Rodney, are you rolling around in your grave? People are respecting that you get no respect with their dollars and their time. I have to admit that I never cared much for your routine, but yesterday I realized your genius. Yes, I had no respect, no respect, and now I do. Rodney, tell me something, when will I get the respect? Not the fleeting, good-looking dress kind, but the kind that lasts, for my work, and my time, and my mind? I'm loosening up my fake tie as I write this.

Miracle Whip

I've had a lot of ideas about what to write. A lot. Too many. But nothing stuck until yesterday when I was on the bus. If you can call it that. It had the regular proportions of a bus, but it really was an infernal vessel containing all manner of human misery; a habitation of fallen angels. I'm not being the least bit dramatic. This was for real. All the passengers were crammed up against each other, sweating, most of them morbidly obese, some sitting taking up two or three seats with their amazing girth, snoring or burping. While the bus was full-up, the driver kept admitting more and more sad, big people, almost as if he thought the vessel would burst on impact, and cease to be. I must have inherited the sweat, blood, and tears of a hundred different DNAs - all co-existing, transporting, intermixing, by sheer close proximity. I'm not claustrophobic, but I was feeling a bit closed in, I have to admit. There was no where to breathe, no where to go, this is where the human design is ending up? Fat and immobile, sleepless and restless, stagnant and unhappy. I had to get out of there. My life depended on it.

My experience there on this and in this sub-human realm recalled a scene from Woody Allen's "Stardust Memories." Allen plays Sandy Bates, a successful comedic film director who wants to delve into serious subject matter. He's on a train that is clearly overrun with misery and depravity. He peers out the window, and there across the way, is a train with beautiful, happy, healthy people. It's a wonderful party, and he wasn't invited. A beautiful woman from the heavenly train blows a kiss at Sandy, and then her train departs. Two trains passing in the night and all that. Sandy wonders to himself why he's not on the "good" train, just as I wondered why I was not on the "good" bus. Why haven't I been at the party? The last two years has been a long, depraved journey of sniveling and sucking up, when all I want is pride and posture. I've worked hard. I have a good education. I'm young. I'm vibrant. I'm sick of being on the bad bus, I've done my time in purgatory; this damnable eternity that I am trying desperately trying to break. And then I saw it. The billboard that displayed a favorite American condiment: "Miracle Whip." I would never eat it, it sounds like mayonnaise's poor cousin, but I thought what a great name, great words standing side-by-side. A miracle that is whipped up, like good froth out of nowhere. That's what I need, some extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention. A miracle that would intervene in my bad bus affairs. I'm willing to work for it though. Just give me a chance. Something out of thin air sounds a bit far off, but nevertheless welcome, especially when you're in the bad bus/train looking at the good one.

Sandwich Envy

I experienced pure and unadulterated envy the other day. Sandwich envy. This is not metaphorical. I was sitting in a very pleasant cafe with my mother. She was taking me to lunch. The cafe specialized in fresh soups, salads and sandwiches. The BLT entry with a choice of country or Italian bacon called out to me from the heavens. I started to form spittle on the corners of my mouth, and my eyes glanced upwards like one of those Botticelli women sprawled on the grass or splayed on a giant half-shell. But I couldn't partake. For the love of the pig, and its cow cousin, I've been avoiding their flesh, and for the love of a waist, I've been avoiding bread and pasta. It's a sad state of affairs for me, because I'd rather indulge in a nice hearty piece of bread any day than a scoop of ice-cream or a slice of chocolate cake. But, and according to my father, if you eat dough, you look like a dough. So the summer bathing suit season wins out here. I made a small exception in this small cafe though. I reasoned with myself that if I sacrificed Porky's flesh, I could stand to be temporarily porky with two slices of fresh bread. My mother got the BLT, and I, an unthrilling grilled squash, radicchio, and mozzarella sandwich. I saw it from afar, and I instantly knew, like you do when you smell an overripe melon, that I made a rotten choice. Perhaps it's the workings of my overactive imagination, but the waitress seemed to very gently set down my mother's tantalizing, fresh BLT, that displayed its own overriding joie de vivre, and plopped my flattened grilled vegetable poo-poo platter before me. My mother took a satisfying bite, and smiled. She knew she made the right choice. I took a bite of mine, and it was everything I thought it would be. Nothing. I parted the two pieces of nine-grain bread, and there were barely any innards, one small and shriveled round of squash, and a wilted radicchio leaf. I was sad, and knew that the waist Gods were looking down at me, and pointing their finger and chuckling. This is what I get. I see how it is. And then I looked behind me, and there it was. The sandwich to end all sandwiches. It too was a vegetarian option, but glistening with dew, fresh, delectable, sprouts, avocados, halvarti cheese stacked to form a colossus. It had my name on it, except it didn't. It was some other girl's. And she wasn't admiring it nearly as much as I was. I was shafted; like I've been so many times before this these last two years. I've been shafted because for some strange reason NY hates me, and won't hire me, and I can't even get a nice hoagie. I was enraged. My mom noticed that I was resentful and pained, and offered me a bite of hers. It was delicious. But I wanted the girl's wich. I left my stinky pieces of bread on my plate, and brazenly asked the waitress for another. "I'll have what she's having." "To go," the waitress asked. "No, for here," I said defiantly. I was all of sudden full of joy. I soon will have licked the envy and the pain. I waited and waited. My mom finished the BLT, and then pointed out into the distance. It was coming, my good-luck, all will be well elixir. Except when it came, it was no where near as nice-looking as the one the girl had. In fact hers was still sitting there in pretty delight. I wanted to trade with her, like I used to with the drab Garbage Pail kid cards. She saw me looking and laughed, and muttered something about how the grass is always greener.

Panhandler

A and B go side by side. And never the twain have met more than in my case. Accosting and something short of begging, A and B, have been my two primary preoccupations these last two years. It seems that these two preoccupations were in my eventual make-up, as A, B, and C, for Clover, are a definite alphabetical and familial trio. Maybe I should change my name? Nah. Clover is supposed to be lucky, right? Not so. At least not during this last chunk of time. In fact, my name has been playing me for a fool these last twenty-four months. My mom always told me I could change it if it was too "flower-power" or something. And even though it seems that I have been reduced to a common panhandler lately, clawing and nagging my way towards the holy land of permanent job status, I can't help but think that the sentiment and the strength of the name will take effect again. Sort of like Superman overcoming kryptonite, regaining his special supermanny powers. Perhaps doing my time as a panhandler is a panacea for the rest of my life. Perhaps I needed to suffer a little, a lot for a time. Perhaps I needed to accost and beg for every crumb of human decency, approval, recognition these last two years - perhaps I needed to learn it and do it the Joan Rivers way.

Rivers was on Charlie Rose last night promoting the documentary "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work." She is a piece of work. Funny, smart, and indestructible. Really. Nothing seems to steam-roll her, and if it does, she scrapes her flattened self from the pavement, dusts off, and moves on. I have always been a fan, but never more than yesterday, when she described all her trials and tribulations. She has always landed on her feet, despite her nine long lives. She has begged and clawed and accosted without shame. She is a panhandler if there ever was one. She yanks and yanks and yanks on the bus's bell cord, until it has no choice than to come to a screeching halt. Rivers runs the show no matter what. Frankly, A,B, C, and J should be in closer proximity.

Flight of the Valkyries

I've been known for my sometimes eccentric musical taste. It's a title I bear with pride and plumes, although it sometimes has gotten me into a little trouble. At college, I received a few noise complaints, not for the quality of the music (Miles Davis' "Bitch's Brew") or even the loudness quotient, but for the unsightly repetition. After taking it home, I must have played that album a week straight, with no breathers, except when I went to class. My fellow dorm neighbors were incensed. I can't really blame them, but I didn't do it out of mischief, repetition is how I get into the middle of the music. This is how I understand it, this is how it eventually lives in my ear for life. It's important for me to know every nook and cranny of the song, the aria, the piece, the movement.

First, the walk-man, CD-man, and now the I-pod have all indulged my wayward fancies of unilateral obsession with the music du jour, they encourage my habit, and their machinery indulges my walk-about-town set to a soundtrack. Lately, I have been listening to a lot of Wagner. I always have, but more recently I've been paying special attention to that gob-smack of sweeping and swelling orchestration - "The Ride of the Valkyries." I have several different versions played by several different orchestras. I like to hear the nuances of the music, and a particular orchestra's take on it. In other words, it has been on repeat. But only in my ear. The "Valkyries" afford me some time out, some perspective, strength, and infuse me with tough-girl appeal, I become a Valkyrie when I listen to this. I am the chooser of the slain. I will decide who will die in battle. It ain't going to be me. No matter how hard the day, no matter how many rejections, or non-answers I get, I am whole when I listen to the ride of my sisterhood. I will preside over Valhalla, it will not preside over me. Over the last two years, I've learned to handle and persevere. "The Ride of the Valkyries" is my battle-cry. A word to the wise: don't get on my black-list. Wagner's on repeat.

Uh-peggio or Ah-peggio?

I sometimes think my life is divided, rather simply, into "uh" and "ah" moments. Uh, do you like me? Uh, do you want to hire me? Ah, you like me! Ah, you want to hire me! They're just a vowel apart, and yet these rudimentary interjections can mean a world of difference between them, and a world of difference, good or bad, to the person on the receiving end of doubt or delight. I for one, not only think my daily life rocks between "uh" and "ah" (I've suffered more "uh" lately), but my "uhs" and "ahs" seem to fashion themselves on something more musical, more dramatic. Operatic. My "uhs" and "ahs" don't come in shrink-wrap, they come big, crashing, swelling, small, cowering. Fortissimo! Forte! Pianissimo. Piano. Crescendo! Diminuendo. So, in other words - singing words, my day is spent in the manner of Maria Callas. Pride and disappointment all wrapped into a series of scales or arpeggios. I wake up with expectations. My expectations go something like this, on a progressive scale up the proverbial piano. "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes" AH! Glory is in sight. Eternal sunshine. Then, rather suddenly, right before the curtain, and Act II, things come crashing down, expectations dashed, thunder, rain. "No, no, no, no, no!" UH! I am Madama Butterfly rising and falling one or more octaves a day, played top to bottom. This is a role I didn't sign up for. No bows, no applause, no roses. Just the same scales up and down, my voice is hoarse, my soul is hoarse. I just want "ah" for a while, no hesitation, no doubt, no pause, just "ah." Smooth and fast. And it would only be fitting to respond to an "ah" with an "ah." Smooth and fast.

Going To Church/Cut-Outs/Death By Coleslaw

The guilt is mounting. I haven't written in a week, and three experiences will flit through my fingers, unless I commit them to my blog. So here goes. I will start with the top down, or the most satisfactory experience to the most stinking and dreadful.

I attended the Tony's yesterday, and while I covered them many times in the past before, it was my first time attending the ceremony, and it was a lot of fun. Everyone was in their "Sunday best." It seemed to me that this must be the closest thing to going to church. Blasphemy? Scandalous? No, it's a comparison that works for me. People are dressed nicely, sitting in seats that kind of look like pews, and honoring their own type of God, or Godliness that comes on stage. The theatre is a type of religion that involves a whole lot of faith, reverence and worship, and really, the belief in creating and creation. Radio City was the House of God yesterday, and we were all the participating adherents, because we were honoring our fellow-man, neighbor, colleague. Now, what's more holy than that?

And now not speaking of the good, or the holy, or the even remotely human, let alone Godly, let me let you in on this depraved tale of a man so repugnant and arrogant that he reeked of the Seven Deadly Sins. He was definitely not in attendance yesterday. I will introduce him as "Cut-Outs." C.O. had B.O., boorish and odious. He is called "Cut-Outs" because that's in fact what he was doing, when at his bequest, I arrived at his studio to be interviewed for a possible job that I didn't even want. I was being courteous, he was cutting-out photographs for a collage. I spent the time dressing, transporting, and presenting myself. I had done my research on his company, he, did not even look up from his stack of cut-outs. Fed-up, I finally said: "What are you doing there? An art project? Our appointment was for 3:30pm, no? You asked me to come, now look me in the eye. I deserve, at the very least, your undivided attention, not to look at you divide paper." And then a great Clint Eastwood line from "Dirty Harry" came to mind, and while I didn't say it, I thought it. "So what do you say Punk?" Cut-outs looked at me for a second, almost as if he heard Clint's words behind my unmoving mouth. "How old are you?" he said, almost throwing-up the question. "I'm young, are you?" I said. He ignored the question, and surprise surprise, went back to his crafts. He continued to ask me what I had done, where I'm from, and again how old am I. To which I replied, "Cut-outs, next time don't invite an applicant to come, if you have no intention of knowing anything about them. Obviously, we don't see eye to eye." And then a beat later, as if he were in perfect comedic time, he said, "let me know if you want to do the two-day trial. It's of course unpaid. Tell me something, why did you call me cut-outs?" There was nothing to say. I looked at him blankly and left.


I was walking in the Chelsea Market the other day. It already wasn't such a great day. It was pouring, and I was poring over my non-permanent job status. And then the inevitable happened. I almost cracked my skull open, and then blood would be pouring out, instead of rain, and anger and frustration. I slipped on some coleslaw that some luncher had neglected to clean up after himself. I slipped, fell backwards, and then my mother who was walking next to me, caught me just in time, as mothers tend to do. And while my head was intact, my skirt was not. The violent slip backwards had tried its tender seams, and ripped all the way up; exposing some of my backside. The other lunchers laughed. Again, such schadenfreude! The coleslaw was the deadly kind - mayonnaisey and camouflaged in the imperfections of the Market's floor. What a terrible end, death by coleslaw. It would have been a little more comforting if death was a possibility by a food I actually enjoyed.

The Great Gig In The Sky

I'm looking for that great gig. You know the one. The one that makes you want to break out into song, and croon from the guts, "Ooh-aah, baby, baby - yeah, yeah, yeah" - like in the manner of the hysterical-sounding singer Clare Torry in that strange, haunting track, that bears the same title as this here blog. I can temporarily steal that great set of words from Pink Floyd's unparalleled album "The Dark Side of the Moon" to drive my own narrative - of looking and finding my "perfect" permanent job. I can change around the original intent of the subject of the famous music to fit my needs. I'm selfish when it comes to getting across my singular message. You've heard it before. And now you'll hear it again. My gig is here and it's there. It's busy making itself known to me in fits and starts. I'm starting to get a feel for its shape; its previously ghostly image is becoming more and more apparent, on human terms. And while sometimes it feels like the great gig is still sky-bound, its delicious tangibility is within lip-smacking proximity. This professional engagement, this gig, as pithy as that sounds, for whatever reason has been whirling around and around my head for the last two years; like some naughty God-forsaken butterfly. And here I am, the goof, with the faulty net. I've been close, but no cigar. But it's high-time to sing out, to proclaim, to claim like a pro what I've been searching, and now, what I'm finding. I'm in accordance with Ms. Torry, the great gig only remains in the sky, because its earthly existence is heavenly, and finally within my grasp.

"Bottoms Up" Or Schadenfreude

No matter what the circumstance, a wet bottom is an unhappy bottom. And that's just what I had yesterday: a wet bottom. My disillusioned derriere would have been better off, had it come from a Memorial weekend jaunt in the pool or in the sea, but my dampness was not caused by anything of that sort. And if you might feel inclined to poke some fun at me here, and suggest that I peed myself, well I'm not the incontinent type. This is how it happened. I was walking in the West Village, searching for a business card, and because walking and wallet-wading is not a talent of mine, I decided to sit down on a cool inviting marble ledge surrounding some shoddy-looking plantings which lay outside of a post-war, white-bricked, door-man building. I sat down, and thought to myself, wow this marble is very cold, ultra-cold, and WET! I jumped up in horror, realizing that I completely soaked the back-side of my skirt, and water was busily running down my legs. The door-man started to howl with laughter, I mean really howl. It was a cartoony-type cackle that seem to generate and proliferate from its own noise-making. This door-man, with a name-plate, reading "Robert" was having a blast at my expense. I squeezed out the water from the ends of my skirt, and walked up to rascal Robert. "Hey, Robert, don't mean to be a kill-joy here and interrupt your fun, but couldn't you have told me the marble was wet. Really wet. I mean you saw me sit-down, and it seemed that you almost gave me your approval to sit-down." To which Rasputin replied, "Hey lady, it's a marble planter." It's true, he had a point, but it did seem decidedly dry, I guess marble has trompe-l'oeil properties. I was visibly rankled, but Robert was having the time of his life. "Well you don't have to laugh so loudly or so consistently," I said sadly. "Didn't your mother ever tell you not to laugh at someone else's misfortune?" "Whatever lady!" Hee-hee, haw-haw. Well, bottoms-up. God knows, I have hit it before yesterday, but somehow it made itself painfully known at that moment, and so did something called "schadenfreude." You know the word, well Robert does at least. "Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others." Bless the Germans who came up with a word that sounds exactly like what it means. Now, what's German for "F--- you" Robert?

Special Entry

I was a VIP yesterday. Truly. No use denying it. It felt fine to be a part of a small clientele that come-and-go as they please, and come-and-go in such a respectable fashion. In fact, if I were to do nothing else than come-and-go easily and without any hitches, I think I would be a fully contented human being. It has always been enticing for me to have a special door, entrance/exit of of my own, not even a room of my own, just a door, or a flap, like one of those nifty cat/dog doors, where pets can to-and-fro to their hearts content (apparently, according to a rudimentary Google search, there are "ultra-high" performance pet doors. Who knew? How about a high-performing human door?)

Here, you might wonder, how is it possible for someone like me, who has been looking for a permanent job for such a long time, to have access to a high-performing flap that allows for easy gliding to-and-fro-ing? Well, yesterday, I was a "Very Important Passenger." Yes, you heard me. A VIP that glided through the "Special Entry" turnstile in the subway. All this about a hifalutin elitist flap, and I come up with the pedestrian "Special Entry." Well, it might sound pathetic or paltry to you, but it meant a lot to me; even if I purposely misconstrued the meaning and usage of "Special Entry." I figure this: if I pay my way on that God-forsaken subway, I might as well feel regal using the anointed "S.E." I could tell that fellow passengers thought I was quite odd in the way that I passed through the turn-stile, actually waltzed/sailed/zipped/cruised/sallied through. "Sallied?" what a great word, probably a word bandied about in the fabulous conversations between Audrey Hepburn's Holly Golightly, and George Peppard's Paul Varjak in "Breakfast At Tiffany's." But aside from that aside, I have learned over the last two years, that I have to treasure these small funny things that make me feel better, no matter how small, petty, and non-sensical they might be. After all, if I don't honor the illogical, I will inherit the "mean reds" like Holly, and that wouldn't be too pretty, now would it darling? It would be tres terrible, and why should anyone begrudge me my fun? If they do, quel rat!

Lavender Legion

I've been told that a drop or two of lavender oil placed on the temples and wrists has a calming effect on frayed nerves, and a soporific effect on insomniac tendencies. I also found that if I place a lavender sachet under my pillow just before I go to sleep, those strange little itinerant thoughts, you know the ones: semi-mythical and magnificent, where anything and everything that seems difficult and laborious and far-off, can seemingly be achieved in the here and now. Last night, these lullaby thoughts were informed by the delectable scent of lavender, and played out a nice sojourn to the South of France. There, they grew robust from good wine, cheese, and composed salads, and wooden shutters, and the smell of the sea and of course lavender, everywhere you look. A legion of lavender. Who knew that three dollars could buy a mini holiday, transport to a sublime location; a location that sits square in your mind's eye, a location that wafts up every now and then; like the gentle breeze that is carried from the sea's movements onto your lap. And then I awoke to the sirens and the scrappy sounds of New York, with the occasional improvisational sounds of a bird's song, and oh, the smell of lavender, it was still there. Strong and forceful, an olfactory adage, whose presence let those lullaby thoughts from the night before live into today. And today's quest is to gently nudge New York to love me, because France already does.

Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.

Droppings

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's super-turd! It was lovely out, breezy, light, peaceful, I was looking pretty spiffy, and I was in good spirits - having come from a very promising meeting with someone I respected. I walked into the busy streets of Times Square, and at that precise moment, I could have been a walking billboard of smiles, and sparkling eyes, advertising the effects of natural mood enhancing - when someone who you admire gives you the time of day. And then, SPLAT! Gee, I thought to myself, must be a leaky air-conditioner, or a myriad of other wet things that squish around in and on the Great White Way. But no, it was just a giant deposit made by a passing pigeon, almost looked like the slime spewed out of those nasty ghosts in "Ghostbusters." And as the detritus kept moving down my arm, I kept thinking, wow, this is luck be a lady, and that lady is me. People in the streets inevitably saw the creeping slime, and moved away from me gently, I paid it no mind. Perhaps I'm nuts, but this was a funny confirmation that maybe things are finally looking up. I went to the Marriott Marquis and washed off my arm, and then noticed some of the droppings had reached the right sleeve of my jacket, so I doused it in the sink. Guests of the hotel, or tourists that were about to see the musical next store inquired about my hand-washing, and jacket-soaking. "What happened to you dearie?" "Oh, a bird shat on me." "That's terrible, how gross." "Oh, no it's fine," I replied, probably looking a little batty, with one of those Woody Allen pasted smiles on my face. "Haven't you heard? It's good luck." "Oh dearie, you're great, what an optimist!" "Good luck getting that out of the sleeve though." "Thanks, it's no problem at all." It's really not. I am so happy to have had a good meeting that restored my faith. I was starting to feel like a battered woman with trust issues. But good things are being reinstated slowly but surely on this strange curve called life.

How Are You?

It's amazing what carrying a few plastic bags with some sweat on your brow can do. It's the one-two-three glamour dissolver that draws exasperated looks and shrugs. That was me on the subway today. I was looking and feeling far more attractive and appealing earlier in the day, but somehow the heat, the bags, the sweat, brought me down to a level of protracted poverty-stricken pallor; I was the bag-lady in the car. Then, the unimaginable happened. No, I was not kissed by a frog-prince. Wish I was. It was, in retrospect, quite imaginable actually. Even apropos. Someone I knew, an acquaintance really, got in the car, and sat across from me. She saw me, disheveled, although, frankly, she wasn't looking her best either, and pretended not to see me. But I was feeling frisky, and I thought some active mischief would do me no harm, and even help dissipate the droplets of sweat on my brow, like in the spirit of condensation or something. Maybe I would even form a cloud that would hover above my head for the duration of the ride. That would surely draw some glares, especially if my cloud started to produce rain. Anyway, I digress. So, I decided to say hello to the woman across from me. She twisted her eyes from her important reading, and said hello back. "How are you?" she said, with pursed lips and crinkled brow. "I'm fine," I said. "It seems you almost have as many bags as I do," when she looked disapprovingly at my plastic companions. "Mmmm, yes." Her eyes went back to her important reading, and then, as if she wanted to be the good Sunday samaritan, continued with the line that really gets my inner goat. "Everything fine?" "Oh, yes, all is fine here," I heard myself say to her. What was I talking about? Everything was not fine. I wanted to say to her, if you look up from your stupid book for more than a nano-second, you'd see I'm not fine. I'm hot, and agitated, and annoyed by the fact that it's been two years, and someone such as myself, who has a lot to offer, cannot seem to be able to offer it in a permanent way, or at least offer it in the spirit of a permanent job. And someone like you is looking down at me and my bags; when you have just as many as I do, maybe even more. Except you're working. You did not quit your job like me, even though you probably want to. You have not suffered the quiet inequities I have, and you don't know how tired I am - of this bull, that is supposed to be evolving, or so our government and elders say. Everything is just passing along - right along with no noticeable "positive" blips. The woman, really a sacrificial lamb in my fleeting ferocious anger, went back to reading though, and I, to my scribble in my notebook - formulating this here blog. And as I am reliving this minor incident, I have to say I am not sorry for my previous thoughts and reaction. I also remember from a dusty corner in my brain, that the last time I saw this woman, I was getting into a black sedan, all dolled up, bag-less, save for a clutch, looking radiant, while she descended the gross sticky subway steps to go back home. Turning tables, and all that...It's kind of funny. I really wish her no harm, it's just that she/hers was the most immediate in a long line of strained replies.

Stop-Up

I was stuck, all alone, in my gym elevator the other day, and while it was only for a couple of minutes it was significantly terrible. I imagined myself never getting out, immobilized in some sort of ironic purgatory, where the apparatus's simple function of up and down had been halted, and I was snagged in the crosshairs or cross-wiring. There I was, unable to go about my life, just stagnating, lodged-up, cemented into a circumstance I had no business in. Gee, I thought, this scenario sounds vaguely familiar. Not vaguely, actually, resonantly familiar, so familiar it makes me want to choke, and run for the hills. Except, I don't have the comfort of the hills up ahead because I've been caught in a major snag, unable to wriggle myself out from in it. So I see the hills, but I cannot experience them just yet. It's a total tease. During these last two years of looking for a permanent job, with hopes and promises that flare up for a time, burn slowly and then die-out, the stop-up has been more than a mean case of claustrophobia, it is no-find-job-o-phobia. Like the faulty elevator caught between floors one and two, whose red alarm button was mysteriously not on duty, there is no tangible "help" button to be pushed insistently. When you're caught between jobs, you're your own best self-help button. It's lonely when no one wants to know you very much, and when no matter how much you fake the smile, it's still strained. But, eventually you get rescued. By yourself. The experience of the stop-up provides an uncanny ability to apply knowledge that is held in reserves, like survival water in a camel's hump; this ability comes rather readily and magically from some seeming fairy potion that helps you manipulate your environment, however small and narrow it may seem at the moment. The space eventually has to expand based on your powers to envision the hills just up ahead. I was rescued eventually from the elevator muck-up. It was no knight in shining armor, but a female gym employee who was nice, but didn't really understand the seriousness of events, she was only driving-by, until she herself would be stuck in the stop-up.

The Stretch

People who know me, know that I often feel the need to stretch. I'll break into stretch as a character in a musical would into song; I'll be going about my business, and bam, I feel the need to expand and extend, to enlarge and distend. Really, I have often thought it to be a way to reevaluate my physical awareness and capabilities - a cause to reach and continue from one point to another. I think the urge was borne out of one of my voice lessons at college, where my instructor advised that I stretch and bend over, and life would have a new and easy meaning; the day's events would somehow brighten as I curled upward. And guess what? No matter what - I feel better after a good, deep stretch.

Now, "the stretch," has taken an all new meaning and status. The stretch of time looking for a permanent job, the length of it, of reaching out to people I know, I have worked with, and people I don't know and perhaps will work with at some yet undisclosed time in the future. And of course, there is the matter of stretching my patience beyond the ordinary and normal limits; of extending my scope in my job search, and being a human putty, malleable, flexible, adaptable, stretched hither-nither, until I hit the final stage of search. And then, what a satisfying stretch it will be! I think I'll celebrate this occurrence with a split, or at least I'd attempt one. I'd be an elastic, ecstatic Elena. A supple Sue. A flexible Fanny. And as my teacher said, life will be brighter apres la stretch.

Sprout!

There's a funny little article in the current New Yorker about the actor Christopher Walken, whose starring in the wacky Broadway production of Martin McDonagh's dark comedy "A Behanding in Spokane." The article talks about Walken visiting his childhood home in Astoria, and then there's a funny little quip about Walken marveling and reveling in the eventual sprouting of his avocado pit - which he suspended in water with three toothpicks two months before. "Look, my avocado is growing," he said. "Isn't that great? It's been sitting there for two months, then it did that." I think it's kind of wonderful that an actor of his stature and fame is so pleased by his developing taproot. It also reminded me of why I liked his particular brand of wackiness, and it got me to thinking about myself and my experience these last two years. I have something in common with the avocado taproot. I am in a state of suspension - direction and options are endless, but not evident at the moment. I keep waiting in suspense - buoyed by an invisible support - in the form of the eventual laws of nature; of a pit growing, sprouting after a long gestational period. I believe in my talents and the things I have to offer, even though I've been floating around in this murky no-man's land for a while now. The weather and the fact that Spring is a sproutin' is helpful, and serves as a good reminder, that even after a bleak Winter, a young shoot can always spring up, and set forth with her belated but nonetheless, stalwart plan.

Dove In The Wreckage

I feel like Judy Holliday at the moment. Or at least, one of the actress's zany characters. Maybe you know the ones I mean? The ones that no matter what - precipitate farce; farce happens to them, farce happens to me. Far far-out farce, the kind that is kind of tragic, but at the same time a little funny, because it just keeps coming, gushing really, and it's so darn illogical. Just yesterday, I received a letter from an unknown name but familiar address - the address of my friend who just passed away. I thought it might, maybe, be a letter from his family acknowledging my heartfelt condolences written on my best Italian note-paper (my friend loved Italy). Or perhaps, a last minute note from my friend just before he passed away and sent only now. Or a note from the heavens with an earth-bound address so as not to set off suspicions. Or a small inheritance. But alas, it was none of the above. It was instead a bill for services rendered, or not-rendered. It was a bill from an unknown woman bearing my friend's address. In effect, it was a sham bill charging me for my ten-year friendship. Oh, the inanity of it all! And because I feel like Judy Holliday these days, or one of her naive, vulnerable, tender angels that suffer iniquities intently, with a teeter-totter walk, dimples, and squeaky voice, I thought instead of taking it all in, I would just have a hearty chuckle and a quizzical look on my face that reads "this can't really be happening, can it?" Not possible. I'm just having a bad two years full of hot-air, and buffoonery. Opera buffa with real-life sets. However, as much as I want the bull to roll off easily and efficiently, I have to be honest, that the series of events in the last two years have hurt as well. My funny-bone has been knocked one too many times. Even Judy might have permitted one of her cinematic incarnations to let out a brassy cry along with an embarrassed giggle.

-

Last week, while sending out resumes, and cover letters, I peered out the window, and saw a dove nesting in a filthy construction site. The delicate beauty of the dove juxtaposed alongside the coarse dirt and scum of the site made me sad. To my mind, this distressing tableau was a microcosm of all that is going wrong in the world - of man's encroaching step on nature, on animals, on the environment; of an animal having to make do with the little space he has left, even if that space is polluted. I identify with the dove, not only empathically, but I feel I am sort of like the dove. I am trying to go about my life, pressing on with my career, but I've temporarily chosen hostile ground to set up my nest. The construction can't go on forever, there has to be a resolution right? Eventually, later that afternoon, the dove got up and out of the site. I think she went to follow the sun, having had enough of the wreckage and the curious dawdling presence of farce.

Flights Of Fancy: A Posthumous Letter To John Updike

Dear Mr. Updike,

Please allow me to introduce myself: I'm Clover Lalehzar, a native New Yorker, born and raised in the West Village. I am writing you today because I just read your wonderful essay: "Is New York City Inhabitable?"
In full disclosure, Mr. Updike, I too, am having some trouble with the city, a lot of trouble, and I would like to refer to your grievances - delightfully and poignantly described - as you can only describe them - in your essay.

I started out adoring every nook and cranny of this "magnificent disaster," as Le Corbusier aptly coined it, but lately, especially, in the last two years, I have found that this city, which was always prone to its own set of faults, and imperfections, has now managed to morph into a feral outpost of blind busyness, negligent ne'er-do-wells, habitual silent hysteria and unhappiness that fills every subway car, cross-walk and grocery store. Here, you might say, dear Clover, this has always been the case, this IS the New York persona. Lucky you, who have been spared the city rearing its ugly monstrous head in your direction. But alas, Mr. Updike, I've noticed a steady decline in the integrity of the place itself, and of course, in some of the people who inhabit this crammed-up island. "There are so many faces, costumes, packages, errands - preoccupations, hopes, passions, lives in progress" on these city streets, yes, these "lives in progress" make-up the machinery that keep this island afloat. Sometimes though, these lives are not progressing, but stagnating. The woman on the corner you gaze at quickly from the window of your cab is full of hopes and dreams, "h's" and "d's" that precariously hang-on the ever-shifting whims of people in charge.

I do agree with you, that the "country's greatest city is sinking into a chasm of itself," not because we don't have the potential to lift ourselves out of the mire, neatly and hero-like, but because the foundation on which we walk is fast eroding, and us New Yorkers are complacent - to fight would take too much energy. Why not dine out instead, go to the theatre, the opera, the ballet, hear some Jazz, drown out the continual drone of the demons that live below - in the vastness of the city's guts, and intestines. Gotham's underbelly can be bribed, can be fed, can be silenced for a time, until it starts in again, in its continual and unremitting effort to blackmail all its citizens.

"Even a sunny day feels like a tornado of confusion one is hurrying to get out of, into the sanctum of the hotel room, office, friendly apartment." These days, for the past two years, I can only avoid the scuffle outside, by retiring to the warm environs of a friendly apartment - music, smell of stew simmering, but, I long to have a second bunker in the form of an office, an office where I can produce good work, where the work is regarded well, and I am compensated decently and fairly for that work. Does this sound outlandish Mr. Updike? Does this sound unreasonable for a native to be enabled to work in her native land? What would you propose I do? What would you propose I do that I'm not doing? Move out? Move away? Far, far away? After all, you left your floor-through apartment on West 13th Street in 1957; something had to be untenable for you to leave a floor-through on West 13th Street in 1957.

The city's "vitality and glamour is ironically rooted in merciless skirmish and inconvenient teeming; familiarity with crowdedness and menace is the local badge of citizenship and the city's constant moral instruction features the piquant proximity of rich and poor." I am guilty of this collective complacency. I have averted my eyes on the subway, on the street, in the park when someone in need has asked me for money, for eye-contact, for food. It saddened me, made me feel ashamed, and cold-hearted, "but instead of standing up for greater justice I sat back for greater ease." I am a New Yorker, capable of a cold shoulder, an understanding of high-culture, and a brisk walk. It's just that in the last two years, as others' have averted their eyes, I am more sensitive to the hush-hush decline of the city's values. You see Mr. Updike, you're quite correct when you write that "...the friendliness lies in our wishing it to be so than in any confirming reality; returning only later, one finds the shops have changed, the chummy clerks are gone, and one's name has been erased from the computer." My name has been erased from the computer, Mr. Updike. How do I get it reinstated? Do I want it reinstated? After all, I too "fight the rising panic that I won't be able to get out" of this city, "being in New York takes so much energy as to leave none for any other kind of being." Now, exactly where in Massachusetts did you move? I could benefit from some flights of fancy.

Sincerely,

Clover Lalehzar

In Defense Of "Non-Professional" Resume Writers

Can I say phooey?

Yes. Phooey. Phooey on job sites that market themselves as the end-all "helper" and super salvo in solving your job-less woes by making you "job-full." Apparently, becoming one who is "job-full," and hence "joy-ful," comes at a price, a hefty one, that can be paid in installments, or up-front, in one heap, with an incentive - in the form of a ten percent discount. I must tell you here and now, that I have never landed a job worth scrap by using one of these "job" sites. But, as I've been looking for a permanent job for some time, I decided to invest quite a few hours in applying online to various job postings at various sites, that for some reason have been named in honor of quick-witted animals or ghouls. You, as applicant, though, need to possess quick-wit, spunk, and some knowledge of yourself and reality to get through some of the anointed resume-building suggestions. The following are my non-scientific findings.

Yesterday, I applied to a few jobs on one of the designated job sites. Within a few minutes, and then again today, I received e-mails on how I am "sabotaging" my chances in becoming gainfully employed, because my resume, shall we say, or according to the site, "lacks luster." Maybe, some fortifying cream conditioner would help the problem some? The "expert" writes "the ideal resume is airy, clean, and uncluttered, with the effective and strategic use of white space." And here I thought and dare I say, that a resume was supposed to be something of substance, not simply white paper with a clever sheen. I apparently also come across as a "doer," not an "achiever." What does this mean? So, the job search process has been whittled down to a game of semantics, and I the "doer," not the "achiever" have suffered a verdict of guilty with respect to my ideas about and non-allegiance to the site's conclusions on the three "V's": verbatim, vernacular and verbiage. Clearly, me and the fox/monster are at odds.

The "expert" also claimed that I had "at least one spelling/grammatical error" in my resume, and I would be better-served if I had a "new and fresh pair of eyes" to peruse my illiterate rendition at a low-cost of $399. If there's anything you can say in my defense, it is that I am a good, maybe great speller, with hawk eyes that can spy a misspelling from a mile away. If my hawk eyes were feeling lazy, I have a mother who also possesses similar attributes, and a great capacity to catch offending misspellings within a second. So there, site, you're clearly in over your head, and do not know the level of spelling bee you're dealing with.

The other funny business went like this. In order for me to be considered for a job worth my "impressive array of expertise," I must highlight my strong-points. I, must for example, when "selling myself" to potential employers, write in bold, that I am a "high potential reporter and producer." That one really made me cringe, and squeeze my tushy*. If you're in fact a "high potential reporter and producer," would you feel the itching need to write it in bold letters on your C.V.?

So, fox/monster, in defense of "non-professional" resume writers, I must contest all your suggestions and findings, and tell you, with all my heartfelt gratitude, that I am pleased that you find my resume wanting...I would not like it much if you gave me a gold star for the strength of my "clean" margins, and my "airy" summation of years working and schooling. I also am disgusted by your taking advantage of people who clearly find themselves in an unpleasant situation, and perhaps are driven by desperation, to pay you six installments of $399. Shame on you, and phooey. As my mother said earlier, your shamelessness and crappy non-sensical advice made her "want to burp." Next time I'm at the pharmacy, I will be sure to reach high-up and pay for the $3.99 "length and strength" conditioner for fragile and hard-to-grow-permanent job status, it's a tonic that helps repair split means to ends, and a salvo that's far cheaper to spread all over my C.V.

*General Note: I squeeze my tush when I'm embarrassed for someone or something.

The Umbrella Plot

"The pretty Rain from those sweet Eaves
Her unintending Eyes --
Took her own Heart, including ours,
By innocent Surprise --

The wrestle in her simple Throat
To hold the feeling down
That vanquished her -- defeated Feat --
Was Fervor's sudden Crown"


I cannot describe the effect of rain on our vulnerable souls as elegantly as Emily Dickinson did in this poem, but I can tell you about "the umbrella plot" - as I know it to be true. The events in this small narrative involve the anthropomorphic reasoning of a character driven by sentimental leanings, and the lack of a permanent job. The character, let's call her "She," affixes strange importance to the natural phenomenon and power of inanimate objects. For convenience sake, and to drive this mini-plot along, let's say, She focusses her attentions on broken umbrellas; how they dot the streets after a storm, with all their metal glistening points and elbows bent in humble reverence to the great wind that has done their disposable bodies in. She thought to herself, that if she were in the game of "transference," She, would be a broken umbrella for the moment, but a synthetic cubist one though a la Picasso or Braque. As a "S.C." umbrella, She would be capable of being broken up, analyzed, and reassembled in abstracted form, and She, along with people that saw her as "Um-brella," would recognize her special gifts in flexibility and as premiere contortionist - in arranging herself just so, and so, and so that She/Um-brella would be admired from a multitude of viewpoints, and She, and her broken parts would be represented in a greater context, THE CONTEXT. She/Her/Um-brella's surfaces intersect at seemingly random angles, scant of a coherent sense of depth; and devoid of delineation between background/context, and, her/She as object. Um-brella's planes and lines and edges interpenetrate to create shallow and ambiguous space.

She is ambiguous space when She goes to a party, or is introduced to a friend as looking for a permanent job. She wants to just morph into her SELF as Um-brella, scheming to overthrow the "Permanent Job God," that has the power to keep her at points with herself. Strike him down! Arrange/conceive and take action as a plotter would do in a plot; and speaking of plots, what about all her sisters and brothers, all deranged and mangled by the effects of the wind and the rain, strewn here and there, in broken mountains arranged atop the trash bins, and lining the streets, like shot-up soldiers in hostile territory. This is one giant umbrella cemetery She thought. And we umbrellas are devices for mass protection, so why are we treated with disdain, or why are we not made to last? Or why are we made to feel unimportant in sunny weather, after all I, Um-brella could be Miss Parasol.

Touch Down

In the 1958 film, "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof," Paul Newman's character Brick Pollitt, a miserable, self-loathing, and alcoholic aging football hero is mourning the death of his best friend Skipper who committed suicide. Brick's indifference to his beautiful young wife Maggie, played by Elizabeth Taylor, and to the whole idea of life and living is summed up rather beautifully in a poetic monologue at the beginning of the film. In this rant, Brick describes to his wife, that he drinks until he feels the "click," which releases him into the welcome oblivion of intoxication. This is his only means of escape. He hides within the "click."

I was thinking about the "click" recently when my lower back seemed to be all tangled up, tense, and perturbed. No amount of stretching, exercise, or baths would send my back into "click" mode. I was waiting for the the literal and figurative crack/click of the bones resetting, reconstituting - directing themselves to a peaceful detente. No dice. For years now, my back and neck have been the "detectors" and tell-tale shamans for how I am doing in life. The neck and back indicators were initially triggered by carrying heavy gear (camera and tripod) for years at my former job as a TV reporter, but now, the "truth-finding" duo becomes inflamed when I am searching for answers that take longer than they should. For the past two years, looking for a permanent job, looking for that "click," looking for that "fit," is touch-and-go. The "click" - to succeed, the "click" to answer when I am asked what I do, the "click" to sleep peacefully when day is done, I, like Brick, need the "click," although not derived from the same source, but I need the feeling that all is okay, will be okay. I need the "click" of peace. And I know it will come, and it's safely grazing there in the distance, but the manifold fog is obscuring its start-date. Patience is a virtue, but the "click" is a virtue too. "Virtue" is among many things, based on merit, aptitude, valor, and in the order of angels, and celestial hierarchy, I feel that I am on the short-list for the "click-dom", after a long, long time on the long-list.

It's been a long, nearly untenable flight of time; and I don't eat or sleep on planes, so now, I summon the "click," and as I sit here writing this, I can feel the bones in my back settle down, they're anticipating touch down.

Cut And Restored

In the "Glossary of Magic Terms," there's something called "cut and restored," which refers to any "effect" where an object is cut-up and then made whole again. According to the glossary, this is usually performed with rope, string or thread. I was looking up "Magic Terms" today, because of an article I read this morning in the Sunday Times' Metropolitan section, concerning a fascinating man - called the "Millionaires' Magician" aka Steve Cohen, who earns more than $1 Million a year for his tremendous talents in sleight of hand trickery. I am envious of Cohen's gifts in conjuring something out of nothing, and transforming something into nothing. He is in on a world where effects, escape, illusion, and stacked decks reign supreme, and I presume his audience benefits from entry into his magical matrix. I was originally going to write about how the term "cut and restored" sounded like a biographical and poetic description of my last two years of looking for a permanent job, of dreams and expectations being dashed and cut in the long waiting game, and of people in my life who have restored my faith in good things happening, and have restored me from being cut. But, for now, I just want to focus on being restored by a great many people in my life, and particularly a dear friend who I found out only this late afternoon, has passed away rather suddenly. I feel that I can speak of my experience with him, and his passing in "magical terms." He had a unique vantage point or "angle" of the person I was and am; he was onto my "tricks," whether they were "good," or "limited," and he was somehow acutely aware that no matter how far I fell, I would at some unknown point in the future be an "ambitious card," or a selected card that continually rises to the top of the deck after being placed into the middle of that same deck. He too, much like Steve Cohen, allowed me dalliances with escapism, a moment to shut the outside world out, and disappear into myself; with him I could muster up a shiny coin behind my ear, and reinvent myself; I could hit the "reset" button and triumph in the exploratory riffs and rides of the "wild card." When I was "torn up," he made me whole again, when I was "cut-up," he made me whole again. And now while the shock of his "disappearance" is far from wearing off, and the "effect" of the loss is still unknown to me, I see bits and pieces of things he said or did for me. I presume that the bits and pieces will grow as the days without him are etched farther and farther into the future. I've been lucky, up until now, I've never experienced a loved one's death, and so I've been spared a necessary step in life: death. A year or so ago, another dear friend asked me if I ever thought about death or dying. I responded rather quickly and resolutely, that I did not spend a great deal of time thinking about time ending. What was the point? I've experienced all of Woody Allen's brilliant forays into the tragic and comedic transgressions and fixations of death and dying. I've experienced the deaths of two pet guinea pigs when I was much younger, and how I felt a significant dropping point, when one took its last breath. I could feel the weight shift away and upward; almost as if his soul was being reclaimed by the King God Guinea. But that's as close as I've gotten to this scary and saddest of conundrums. My parents were very sensitive in not letting me ever experience a funeral of people close to them. And so death has remained up until now, something strange, out in the distance, something I've had no exposure to. Now, I grope for images of him alive. I see his room, and his tweed jacket hanging off the shoulder of the chair just-so, and I hear his voice, and I wish I hadn't been five minutes late the last time I saw him, less than a week ago. I'm chiding myself for that five minutes lost, all-the-while, I am so grateful for ten years gained knowing him, and how he restored me and my faith in things all these years.

Call-And-Response

I went to see some jazz last night at the Iridium. Trombonist, and brother of trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, Delfeayo Marsalis explored and celebrated Charlie Parker through a variety of musical perspectives. And as he did the Bird proud, I began to think as I always do, just how talented and spur-of-the-moment genius these jazz musicians truly are. This is not a new thought among jazz fans, but I continue to marvel at their maelstrom of melodic riffs; especially their mighty "call-and-response" patterns. Last night, there was anywhere from two to six musicians up on stage, all expressing themselves as a group, and then one by one, trying the music on, wearing it around, and showing it off. They all had a special relationship to time; using and manipulating it to fit the spirit of their music. They were "fitting" and "fixing" time, instead of time "fitting" and "fixing" them. I just love that, and I thought to myself, maybe I can be more "jazzy" in my everyday dealings. For me, it's long past waiting for something to happen - to begin. During this two year period of looking for a permanent job, of going here and there, I've been depending on how the "other side" will react to me, all these calls-and-no-responses have made me question myself. Instead of a long sustained resounding powerful note, I've become a willy-nilly combination of "passing" and "substitute chords." No, I say, no more. I am from here on in, an "altered chord," because I carry around with me my old self, as well as the bits and pieces garnered along this tough riff, I am changed, but I am still Clover. Like the jazz musicians I saw last night, I am tapping my own wherewithal to control time as I wish, with my own instrument that deliberately distorts the pitch and timbre of its time in the spotlight to fit its needs. Spontaneous, independent, and vital.

Ironically enough, the word "jazz" also means empty talk; a bi-polar word that conducts itself in all-or-nothing terms. There must be an etymological angel reigning overhead, for I am now super-hero keen to pick-up an empty-talker's talk and throw it out immediately, rather than dote on their promises of the world served on a platter. Instead, I am supporting my own solo improvisation that takes its cues from its own tempo, and deliberates what an opportune and suitable moment is, and when to take it to new gratifying heights of music-making.

"A" For Effort

I was on the subway the other day, and I noticed a youngish-looking professor marking papers. It was a relatively long commute, and so I spent my time slyly peering at my neighbor's "marking system."  In the end, me and my wandering left eye extended themselves for far too long, and so, in the interest of keeping me and my eye intact, I just asked him how he determined an "A." He was startled, and initially stumbled, and then said rather demurely that an "A" is determined by the quality and persuasiveness of the argument.  I really wasn't satisfied with his answer, but thanked him anyway, and batted a left eyelash in recognition, while my right eye rolled around a bit.  This is bogus I thought.  Can't he come up with something better than that?  Oh, cut him some slack, Clover, he is not Groucho Marx, who would have come up with a wittier, funnier, and smarter retort, chock-full of puns, and precipitous predications.  Oh, poo-p00.  This is what I get when I spy and I pry.  But, hark, there's a bit of wisdom here; like an old-scratch-and-sniff sticker from the Eighties that every now and then, when provoked, can emit its original scent and derivation.  Is that bubble-gum, popcorn, or skunk?  So here's the rub - what's my grade? Do I get an "A" for effort, and a "C+" for results? I don't think I've ever received anything lower than a "B" in my life.  

My qualifications are there, and so is the persuasiveness of my argument - that I want and need a permanent job now.  I'm not sporting signage that reads "Give me a good job," nor do I hold a beggar's cup; I am just hungry for a return to my career.  I think I've been pretty clear in my interviews, in my e-mails, and in my follow-up calls that I am eager, without being desperate, to re-start the system of working and receiving paychecks.  So what's the hitch, and the glitch? I understand the itch.  The whole point of this blog is to express the source of this most complex, and itinerant of itches.  This whole period of time has been supremely vexing, and left me with a hankering that has not yet been fulfilled, a hankering that is fast becoming a lusty and compulsive eruption that is burrowing itself under my skin.  It's a manifold mite, and I don't like mites.  When will my "A" for effort turn into an "A" result?  When will the quality and persuasiveness of my "argument" be understood and answered?  It only takes "A" phone call, "A" note returned, and "A" yes, you're hired. 

Psychic

I got to thinking about the Psychic around the corner.  It's open approximately twenty-two hours a day, and there's no one ever there, no clientele; which leads me to believe that the Psychics are so psychic that they can not only anticipate the future, but they can anticipate the customer, even if the customer is virtual.  All of life's variables are virtual on some level.  I've got to get into this game, maybe not with crystals and palm-reading, but with anticipating a good virtual reality. What does the future hold? Daisies, rainbows, and flying unicorns? A pot of gold? I don't need this type of saccharin tomfoolery, maybe just a bit of the future perfect in my life.  I will have, I shall have.  Sometimes a certain amount of reasonable entitlement works. I have to be honest, over the last two years, my sense of entitlement has lost its hard-on.  I am in need of some vocational Viagra not tomorrow, but yesterday.  But let's get back to the future. The "virtual" is not formally recognized or admitted even though its there in essence and effect. It's a ghost image on a xerox copy.   "Virtually speaking" - which means for all practical purposes - so in the one word, and let me be verbose for a second with my riff - we have "impracticality" and "practicality," living as twins joined at the hip.  The future, as in the virtual, can be both destructible and unshakable.  I am going with the unshakable for now, like a true soothsayer's rock-solid words of wisdom.  I am actively engaged in this course of action. I am actively engaged in the course of re-finding an occupation.  I am actively engaged in the future, without foregoing the present.  I believe in the impossible, in the impracticality of pursuing a dream even when it might be a dud.  The life-lines on my palm prove it.  No where do they read futility.  They outline a time to come for some time to come, until that time drops off, but then at that point, my future, will become part of someone else's past.  But for now, the red neon sign reading "Psychic" has not shuttered yet.