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Tangled up in Wood

So it’s summer, although Mother Nature is steadfastly refusing to acknowledge it. What transgression wrought by her cringing East Coast inhabitants has unleashed this punitive repetitive condensational weather pattern for the entire month of June? And will she condemn us to this veiled atmosphere of gray drizzle for the entire summer? The money that I will save on sunscreen, aloe vera gel, and beach parking will go towards Vitamin D capsules ,to sooth the sunlight deficiency that’s causing me to do crazy things like buy stock in Ford, consider taking adult Irish step dancing classes, and eat bunny rabbits.

One typical summery activity for classical music lovers in New England is to abscond to Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony orchestra in rural Western Massachusetts. New Yorkers especially are notorious for crowding into the idyllic town of Lenox, to lodge at $300/night B&Bs, to hobnob with other cultural vanguards, and to tote around picnic baskets full of gourmet foodstuffs that they will feast upon on a blanket spread atop the soft pristine grasses of the Tanglewood lawn. Those who are in-the-know (i.e,  everybody) will purchase tickets for seats in the open-air music shed as rain insurance, but if the weather holds up, they will stay with their blankets on the lawn so they can get sloshed on fine summer wine as the sounds of Wagner, Stravinsky, Mahler, or Mozart erupt into the eerily bug-free country sunset.

Tanglewood season doesn’t officially begin until July, but there were compelling events this past weekend that were worth the trip. On Friday night in the Ozawa Hall (a small venue specifically for chamber music and small ensembles), the world-renown Emerson Quartet gave an absolutely enthralling performance. We sat in the second balcony, which allowed us to gaze upon their baldspots while enjoying their lively rendering of Dvorak’s American String Quartet:

Emerson Quartet

Emerson Quartet

I also enjoyed their performance of Barber’s Adagio, which I immediately recognized as the song that is played during Willem Dafoe’s death scene in Platoon, which is simply the sexiest, most epic death scene in the whole history of cinema.  Good stuff, except… well, the cellist was fairly sloppy. Sometimes his bowing was totally out of cadence with the others:

Cellist's out-of-synch bowing

Cellist's out-of-synch bowing

As if the Emerson Quartet wasn’t enthralling enough, we returned to Tanglewood on Saturday night with many thousands of people in order to see… a live broadcast of the Prairie Home Companion from Tanglewood, starring Garrison Keillor, with special guests Martin Sheen, Steve Martin, and local folk hero Arlo Guthrie!

The view of Prairie Home Companion from our middling-priced seats

The view of Prairie Home Companion from our middling-priced seats

The weather had been uncharacteristically nice that Saturday, and we arrived at Tanglewood to picnic on takeout from Panera Bread and various farm stand produce before the show started.

Tanglewood's Music "Shed"

Tanglewood's Music "Shed"

Then we went into the shed to find our seats. At 5:45pm, Garrison appeared to warm-up the crowd before the broadcast. He roamed the aisles of the shed, singing humorous lyrics about Tanglewood to the tune of “My Girl.” He walked not 10 feet from us and I swooned.

Garrison warming up the crowd

Garrison warming up the crowd

Then the show began. It was thrilling to watch the show live, so I hate to say anything that implies my enjoyment of Prairie Home Companion wasn’t all-consuming, but the show featured wayyy too many Heather Masse songs — at least 7, including her duets with Garrison. Snore. I’d rather hear skits, or…. Steve Martin on banjo!

Steve Martin on banjo

Steve Martin on banjo

What a surprise that Steve Martin can rock out on the banjo! His rollicking twangy style sounded good to my bluegrass-ignorant ears, and I loved his between-song banter. “I wrote this next song, but my wife gave it the title. This song is called ‘When are you going to put down that damn banjo?'”

During the first hour, it started to rain. Everyone in the shed twisted around to watch the rain falling onto the lawn ticket holders, feeling smug about having paid a premium for a seat in the shed. But when the rain didn’t let up, it was the shed-goers who were the least prepared for the dash to the parking lot.  Apparently the Tanglewood experience isn’t complete until you’re sitting in your car in soaked clothes, one of 10 thousand cars trying to leave the parking lot.

End of Prairie Home Companion with Garrison, Arlo Guthrie & Steve Martin

End of Prairie Home Companion with Martin Sheen, Garrison, Arlo Guthrie & Steve Martin

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By Meredith – June 28, 2009

Here we are, now entertain us

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the official name for the clowns who hand out the Oscars) announced today that, starting next year, the number of Best Picture nominations will be doubled from 5 to 10.

This move would imply that Hollywood is producing soooo many good movies that opening the field to 10 movies is the only fair thing to do because so many cinematic gems were being snubbed. But the truth is…

  • Hollywood just wants to pay tribute to as many genres as possible before picking the biggest crowd-pleasing drama with the most artistic merit. I predict that in the field of 10, there will be 1 animation, 1 action (low-budget), 1 action (big-budget), 1 quirky comedy, 1 movie with a majority non-Caucasian cast, 1 historical drama (WWII), 1 historical drama (non-WWII), 1 drama (Baby Boomer appeal), 1 drama (Gen X appeal), and 1 totally wacked indie with a twisty narrative structure.
    Note that the 1 movie with a majority non-Caucasian cast may be combined with another genre to make room for another Baby Boomer drama.
  • With 10 nominations, Hollywood can now simultaneously pat itself on the back for its small-budget artistic forays while throwing a bone to the poor slobs who can’t understand why Paul Blart: Mall Cop isn’t receiving the recognition it so richly deserves.
  • And after years of pruning the Oscar broadcast to a svelte 3 1/2 hours, now the broadcast will swell to at least 6 hours, to allow sufficient coverage of each of the 10 Best Pictures nominees, to maximize advertising opportunities, and to provide gainful employment to every artistic director, choreographer, and montage editor in California.

Sneer. Last weekend, we scanned the movie listings and there was not one single movie that we wanted to see, even at our independant/foreign movie house. We finally settled on Food, Inc., because at least we’d learn something. So, Hollywood,  what’s going to happen when you’re churning out so many crap movies that you can’t even muster 10 worthy flicks for the Academy’s consideration, and then through a fluke split in the voting, The Hottie and the Nottie is walking away with the golden statue?

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By Meredith – June 24, 2009

Rabbit, Fresh Killed

Warning! This post contains images of dead skinned rabbit!

Food, Inc. made me determined to eat off of the industrialized food grid. So, we went to the Mayflower Poultry Company in East Cambridge (home of the notorious “Live Poultry Fresh Killed” sign, as featured in Infinite Jest). I used to live not one block away from the Fresh Killed store, and it happened to be the same year that I stopped being a total vegetarian and started to eat fish and chicken. Despite my fledgling carnivorous habits, the Fresh Killed store intimidated me. I pictured cages full of squawking chickens, waiting for their turn on the chopping block.  I decided to go when a neighbor told me that they sold fresh eggs, for eggs seemed innocent. I walked into the store and the smell made my nose buckle. It was a rancid smell, with overtones of iron and raw chicken. The people behind the counter starting barking at me, asking me in broken English how they could help me, and my eyes darted around the store, looking in vain for eggs. I saw chicken parts stacked in a display case, legs thighs breasts wings, a mess of goose-fleshed pale yellow skin and knobby bone. I saw freezers full of cow parts. I saw a sign: Goat, $4/pound. Gagging, I backed out of the store and fled home to nosh on some tofu or something.

Fast forward 6 years. I’m a full, unabashed, enthusiastic carnivore who is on a quest to find the freshest, leanest, least industrialized meat that I can. Enter, the rabbit.

The rabbit! We don’t eat rabbit in America, but they’re pretty common eats in Europe. In fact, Mr. P ate rabbit once a week growing up, and has fond memories of being 7 years old and going with his father to buy freshly-killed rabbit from an old man in Brittany, who would select a rabbit, break its neck, and then skin it for them right there. “Did he give you a lollipop?” I asked.

It’s precisely because rabbits are not typically consumed in America that I want to consume them. Rabbit farmers are small-time producers who use clean old-fashioned farming techniques in order to ensure their yields. Unhealthy rabbits don’t breed, and the success of their operation depends on breeding. They don’t use growth hormones, cloning, or selective breeding in order to produce monster fatty rabbits. And no slaughterhouse are involved; the rabbit probably meet its end in the open-air, not surrounded by bacteria-ridden equipment and non-unionized low wage workers.

So we went to the Fresh Killed store and bought a rabbit. Now, that’s such an easy thing to say — “we went to the Fresh Killed store and bought a rabbit.” But even after all these years of meat-eating and all these good reasons for wanting to eat rabbit, it was mentally difficult thing to do. The enormity hit me when the young black man at the Fresh Killed store said “You want this one?” and held up an entirely skinned dead rabbit, head and eyes intact, for our consideration. (He did cut off the head upon request).

To properly convey what I’m talking about, behold:

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I felt completely squimish around the rabbit, so Mr. P took responsibility for preparing the rabbit. He felt no such queasiness:
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So I absconded to the living room couch with a book. After awhile an awful racket coming from the kitchen permeated my consciousness. Banging, thumbing, some grunting. “What are you doing?” I called, putting down my book and going into the kitchen, to see (Eee! Eee! Eee!):
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I was under the impression that the rabbit would be roasted, but apparently the French prefer to stew their rabbits. (In fact, they prefer to stew everything, in wine, with carrots, celery, and onion. Could this explain the French paradox? If grilling, roasted, and frying meat oxidizes cholesterol and makes it unhealthy, perhaps the French escape this by stewing.) In any case, the finished result tasted like lean chicken:

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By Meredith – June 23, 2009

No, what do you REALLY Think of me?

This morning a co-worker sent out a prominent email in which he misspelled my name as “Mereditch.”

“Interesting typo,” another co-worker remarked, studying the keyboard to figure out how in the world that c could have slipped in there.

“Mereditch” has rapidly become my new unfortunate nickname, fanned by the funness involved with saying it (rhymes with, um, “witch”), and maybe by the fact that it’s fitting, and also probably because it’s another rainy day during a particularly rainy June and the only sun to be seen is in our smiles.

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By Meredith – June 22, 2009

Movie Review: Food, Inc.

Food, Inc., a searing expose and engrossing documentary of the food industry based on Michael Pollan’s An Omnivore’s Dilemma, is a real tearjerker. Seriously. I teared up about five times, including:

  1. When Mexican immigrants who were recruited by Smithfield Foods to work in the world’s largest slaughterhouse in Tar Heel, NC (butchers 32,000 pigs a day!) are dragged out of their trailers in handcuffs at 4am by authorities who were tipped off by (surprise) Smithfield Foods, who use immigration raids to discourage unionization.
  2. When an elderly seed cleaner in Indiana is hounded out of business by agribusiness giant Monsanto, who views the centuries-long practice of seed cleaning as a threat to the patent of their genetically modified soy seeds and relentlessly harasses small farmers with lawsuits and intimidation.
  3. When a dogged food safety advocate discusses how her 2-year son hemorrhaged to death after eating a hamburger tainted by e-coli, a virus that breeds in a cow’s stomach when it is feed grain instead of grass (which, of course, most cows are nowadays in order to fatten them quickly and cheaply).
  4. When a Hispanic family who eats Burger King hamburgers for breakfast laments their ability to buy fresh vegetables because dad’s diabetes medication costs too much. Why does a hamburger cost 1 dollar yet a pound of broccoli costs $1.99?
  5. When a hidden camera at the Smithfield slaughterhouse captures the terrified squeals of pigs on the killing floor.

Everyone in America should see Food, Inc., and be forced to contemplate what has become of their food supply. This movie is more disturbing than King Corn, Fast Food Nation, and Super Size Me put together. Yet it’s not an angry, ranting movie. The filmmakers are merely lifting the “veil” that’s been placed over the American food supply and showing us its disturbing imagery. The fact that Food, Inc. is shocking and disgusting is, in itself, shocking and disgusting.

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By Meredith – June 21, 2009

Inspector Harry

Last night after dinner, I settled down with the book How Starbucks Saved My Life, a recent autobiography by a former high-powered advertising executive who, at age 63, was forced to take a job at a Manhattan Starbucks, mostly for the health benefits. I’m about 1/4 of the way through his cute fish-outta-water story, but it’s not kindling my inner insatiable reader. I do like the author’s descriptions of his new humble life at Starbucks, and how he went from a ‘Master of the Universe’ to cleaning toilets and fetching pastries, but he frequently indulges in tedious, lengthy reminiscences of his youth. Like “I was nervous for my first day at Starbucks, oh! that reminds me of my first day of school 55 years ago! I liked how my boss talked to me, oh! that reminds me of my 6th grade teacher who once invited me to her house for tea and who I saw at the DMV years later!” I hate to stereotype about People of a Certain Age, but once they sense they have someone’s ear… they milk it.

So I was so ready to be distracted by the unfamiliar noise emanating from the living room. What is that noise? Oh, the television.

I lazily padded into the living room and glanced at the TV, which was showing something from the 70s, judging by the character’s garish fashion sense and the equally-garish quality of film.

“What are you watching” I asked Mr. P.

“It’s called ‘Inspector Harry,'” Mr. P said, with a flourish of enjoyment. “I used to love these movies.”

“‘Inspector Harry?'” I focused on the television and saw a grizzled Clint Eastwood having terse words with a mustachioed man in a suit.

“Do you mean, um –” and here I started shaking with mute mirth. “Do you mean ‘Dirty Harry?'” And then I exploded in giggles.

“DIRTY Harry!” Mr. P exclaimed, snapping his finger. “That’s it!”

I laughed for about 2 minutes. Mr. P thought my reaction was rather excessive, but he probably wasn’t imagining how Clint Eastwood’s legacy would be vastly different had the movie been called “Inspector Harry.” And for sure he wasn’t imagining a hybrid of the infinately catchy “Inspector Gadget” theme song and Dirty Harry: “Duh-duh-duh-duh-da! Inspector Harry! Duh-duh-duh-duh-da! Woo-woo!”

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By Meredith – June 18, 2009

And You’re a Peon

3 years ago, Katie Couric became the first female anchor of a weekday evening news show on a network channel, precipitating a flurry of navel-gazing news articles about if ole’ fluff news Katie was ready for the job, if America was ready for Katie, if the women who loved Katie on the Today Show would follow her to the evening news, and just how long CBS would perpetuate this bizarre female anchor experiment before sending Katie to a morning news show, where she can bake whole-wheat scones and preside over mini-fashion shows along with the other smiley girls.

One of these articles took a critical view of Katie’s hard news qualifications. My recollection of this article is sketchy, except that the writer discussed Katie’s admitted use of mnemonics to pronounce all those hard words. For instance, for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Katie used “I’m a Dinner Jacket” [Ah-ma-dinn-e(r)-jahd(ket)]

Perhaps REAL (read: male) news anchors don’t need mnemonics in order nail Arabic pronunciation, but for amateurs like me who can order a fattoush salad in 6 different ways without even garnering a glance of comprehension from the guy at the Lebanese deli, well, Katie’s little trick worked wonders. I, too, could correctly pronounce “Ahmadinejad!”

Except, what always comes out when I refer to the man is “I’m a dinner jacket”, because it’s so fun to say, and because it drives Mr. P crazy. Over time this has been shortened to just plain “dinner jacket,” as in, “I can’t believe Dinner Jacket tampered with the Iranian election! Effing Dinner Jacket!”

So today, in support of all those crazy beautiful Iranian youth who are risking their lives to protest a potentially rigged election, I say… down with Dinner Jacket!

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By Meredith – June 17, 2009

Don’t worry, it’s legal in Vermont

For the past 2 weeks, South Station has been completely draped with advertisements for a new flavor of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream called Flipped Out. I’m talking about total 100% advertising saturation. While taunting/tempting people into consuming a potentially ruinous junk food is peeving, it is an improvement over previous blanket marketing campaigns in South Station for soon-forgotten movies and cable television shows, for at least Ben and Jerry’s brings to mind universally happy themes, like outside-the-box product peddling, socially responsible companies, and jolly chubby hippies.

Dear Reader, you might conjecture an association about my newfound dietary restrictions and a blog post about Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. Like, poor Meredith obviously can’t stop thinking about all the yummy processed foods she can’t eat! I cannot discount your sneering pity entirely, as I have been thinking about food an inordinate amount of the time in the past 10 days, but most of the time, I’m worrying about the availability of food that I can eat. Rarely am I daydreaming about the food that I cannot eat. In fact, I have yet to endure any real cravings, and my resolve is hardened on occasion by simply watching strangers eat. People with beefy backs and wobbly guts, stuffing burgers and pizza into their mouths, their jaws pumping frantically to pulverize the refined processed foodstuffs so they can swallow it and take another greedy bite. I mean, come on, life’s too short to be staring longingly at someone else’s donut and wishing those could be my carbs.

Besides, ice cream has never been a force my life. Sure, I wouldn’t kick a scoop of vanilla bean out of my dish, but I never polished off a pint of Phish Food in search of emotional solace from some crushing life blow. That’s what cigarettes, wine, and punk rock were for.

Flipped Out is high-concept ice cream, innovative in its presentation if not its flavor. The ice cream eater is supposed to “flip” the container over a dish and then squeeze the container to let the ice cream slip out. Then, the brownie is on the bottom so that it may be swollen with melted creaminess, and the fudge is on the top, magically melting into gooey syrup. But, how many Ben and Jerry’s eaters actually take the time to use a dish? Won’t most of them simply rip open the cartoon, grab a spoon and start shoveling, perhaps pausing to reflect bemusedly on the presence of hot fudge at the bottom of the container?

What really caught my eye about Flipped Out was this particular panel of advertising in South Station:

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I love this little wink-wink joke, to be shared only by like-minded citizens of enlightened jurisdictions. This past weekend as I scuttled underneath New York City via subway, I walked through a station that had gotten a similar Ben and Jerry’s Flipped Out treatment, only I did not see the panel about marrying fudge, ice cream and brownies. Perhaps Ben and Jerrys did not want to seem inflammatory to the citizens of a non same-sex marriage allowin’ state, or more likely, smug.

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By Meredith – June 16, 2009

Conjoined Cherries

Even in season, cherries are still $4.99 a pound, a price that would give me pause, except: Hey, cherry season comes but once a year. If I don’t buy cherries in June, then I’m never going to eat cherries. And that would suck.

So there I was at dinner, popping cherries into my mouth while Mr. P enjoyed his cheese course, and I came across a perfect identical set of conjoined cherries.

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When is a picture of a cherry potentially NSFW? Well, how about…

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We were curious to know: One pit or two?

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By Meredith – June 15, 2009

I Walk the High Line

After 2 solid days in New York City, I returned early this afternoon via a Greyhound bus. (Sure, Greyhound is more expensive than the other fledgling bus lines, but I’ll pay a premium to ride a bus with shock absorbers that’s not driven by a tiny Chinese man hunched over a wobbly steering wheel who is attempting to set a new land speed record on I-95 while converging upon every bump in the road.)

“I had such a nice time seeing my friends. We did and saw sooo many things!” I bubbled to Mr. P as I hunkered down over my mid-day repast of animal flesh with a knife and fork. “Look at my pictures!” I handed him my camera, which he turned on in play mode, only to find:

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“What is this thing?” Mr. P demanded, giving me that Lucy, you got some ‘splainin’ to do look.

“Oh, um, that was an interesting drawing that we saw at the MoMA,” I said lamely. Improbable but true, and the next photo served as evidence of my claim that we were in a museum, not in a seedy Men’s Restroom:

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A lovely drawing, when compared to Penis Hat, although the material is a drag:

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Besides the MoMA, I also have pictures of the first phase of the HighLine, the former elevated railway-turned-pedestrian park that just opened last week. I had read about this unique re-use project in the New York Times and was gratified to see that the rave reviews were justified. I loved promenading alongside the thematic landscaping with a relaxed crowd of curious pedestrians. So un-typical-New York.

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Eariler, as we walked around the West Side of Manhattan in search of the High Line entrance, we spied a box of fixed seating that hangs over the street from the High Line. From a distance, the people looked like a moving billboard:

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When we found the High Line, we discovered how relaxing it is to sit in the box and watch the traffic disappear into the dreary horizon. Sort of like watching a river flow, urban-style.

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By Meredith – June 14, 2009