a night, a morning, a porch.

Out where my mom lives the crickets and cicadas sing you to bed. I will let them do so soon, but for now I sit on the front porch in a folding chair listening and watching the fields disappear into the nighttime. The air is wet and cool, the heat finally broken, the sky a color field of blacks and purples. A last window of blue is swallowed by the clouds, a sliver of pink is all that is left of the sun. Rain begins to fall lightly, the wind rises, oak leaves tremble.

The rain is gentle now, but if it weren’t, I am in the country, where there are forests and fields and creeks to absorb its excess. Not so 500 miles south in Tennessee where yesterday floods swept houses, memories, and lives away. It is impossible to read the news like a human when the tragedies come in torrents and fires and earthquakes, some natural, others not. It is easier to be a human when it is just me with a ballpoint and something in front of me that is graspable: a line of lightning in the sky, a single firefly copying it in kind.  

In the basement today I found an old journal from when I was twenty-two. The writing is free-associative, spastic, and wheel-spinning, the writer unknowable to himself, hiding on the page. It is ten years gone now and if I am still unknowable, at least I am comfortable with that, if I am hiding anything, at least I can name what it is I’m hiding, like the field in front of me, black but holding green. I will paint this night in this way only once, with hidden colors and hidden feelings: feelings for the victims of a mistaken war, feelings for a burning state, feelings for a friend who has lost someone, feelings for people I cannot share in wide release. In ten years, when I read this again, those feelings will be gone, but this night will still exist, the crickets and the cicadas playing on, the rain ending without affair.

In the morning, the field is green once more, with a plowed path through it where the tractors go. Above the tree line—also green, are brushstrokes of pink and white and blue; all of the colors becoming lighter as slowly as I write this, as inevitably too. When I was twenty-two, I wrote as if I were trying to tap syrup from the wrong kind of tree. I am not sure what has happened since then such that I can sit now so comfortably and write only about the colors I see, the small bee landing every so often on my hand, the cars passing peacefully in the middle of my sightline; if there is meaning to you in this landscape there is meaning, if there is not, there is not.

At the museum yesterday, I found a room of still lifes, small ones, of fruit bowls and cluttered desks, so many vases of flowers; if at one point these were real subjects really held, I now only hold their shadows, lingering longer on a Matisse, a pot of Geraniums on the steps of a porch. When I close this writing I will leave here for Baltimore where the porch will be a city porch on a block of brick rowhouses and tall sycamore trees. By the time I write from there, some of my friends will have evacuated New Orleans, others will be boarding up their windows. If there is any connection between my writing at twenty-two and my writing now, it is that I have never written what I see, only how I see it.

A family of deer emerge in the tractor path and cross it, disappearing once more into the tall plants. The day heats up and my forehead begins to moisten. The wind makes the soybeans move like rippling water and the moment wavers undecidedly between reality and metaphor. I leave off for now, wishing myself at forty-two well, wishing whatever porch he writes from has a nice view. 

Nancy Grossman @ Pratt

I left work feeling I needed to write, my head was crowded. It was a beautiful late summer evening or maybe early autumn and I arrived at Pratt early and sat on a bench in the sculpture garden waiting. I asked a young man where Nancy Grossman was speaking and he pointed to the building right behind us. “Are you a student?” he asked me and I said, no, I’m the public. He laughed and told me that’s the best thing he’d heard, I think he was an organizer and was glad non-associated bodies were showing up. 

There was still time before the start and I felt stirred by the wind and by the pink-clouded sunset, by the sculptures beneath oak trees and the old brick and stone buildings of the college. I wrote a tiny poem about geometry and the space between impressions and then I went inside wondering what I’d find: 

An auditorium loosely filled, lights hanging in metal braces, two empty armchairs on a stage. I didn’t know the work or the man interviewing her, a professor at Pratt, an artist himself, a friend of Nancy’s. They use to have brunch in 1989 at a place on 13th street, I was born that year, now I know 13th street better than some of the streets from my childhood. His name was Robert I think and he kept trying to bring Nancy around to talking about her artwork but she mostly loitered amongst memories of being a young, broke artist in the village, illustrating children’s textbooks to make ends meet. They played a clip of an interview she’d done years before where she says art because I could never communicate with words. So I don’t know what Robert expected she’d say regarding her artistic intent but I was happy with what we got, a tiny eccentric lady with frizzy hair and leather pants conjuring a long-lost world, a slightly romantic one, a 1960’s New York City and a young artist salvaging ingredients from the streets, wood and zippers, leather and pieces of metal; a girl who was broke and lived in an apartment that was more like a subway car, she slept on a cot; the first sculptures she’d sold she delivered to a dealer on Madison Avenue in shopping bags, with a painting tucked beneath her arm for good measure. She said the best part of being an artist “is the whole energy and excitement when you’re in it, this constitutes everything.”

Art by Nancy Grossman

They showed her most famous works: leather heads covered in zippers and straps, terrifying gimped nightmares, I’ve not seen them in person but felt frightened just from the slides, a very visceral impression. He tries to get her to talk about their origin but she maneuvers away from the question, mentions depression briefly, not elaborating. I cannot blame her, hadn’t she just told us that her art comes from an experiential immersion in her craft? These are terrifying visages, trapped and tortured beings, would you have a woman so small reenter the worlds in which they were born, right here on stage in front of strangers? Don’t you think they’ve come out of her for a reason?

She tells us advice given to her early on in her career from an artist already established: you make one and then you make another. And I think, how liberating, I will write this and then it will be gone and I’ll have room for another. In the meantime it is good to know I am not the only one who has been so broke he has more hole than shoe. Were I so bold, I’d ask if there were a stage for me somewhere in the future.

Bravas @ Healdsburg, CA

We swim in a river and it is perfect. It is a local spot a local recommended. We are not from here: Healdsburg, California. There is a long drive home ahead of us, but first we’ll eat. We land at a tapas restaurant called Bravas, a block from the town square. We go because it comes recommended by a local, but not the one who told us about the river spot.

We walk right through the restaurant, past the half the kitchen open in the dining room, and down porch steps into the backyard. It is 95 degrees out on a Sunday afternoon but in the tree shade it is much cooler than that. We are happy, me and my girlfriend.

I wonder out loud if I can be a food critic. We decide that if not a food critic, at least I can write about food. I have neither a refined palate nor a lame one. But maybe if I sit down and think about food, in the way that writing forces you to, then perhaps my palate will deepen.

But also, maybe not.

Regardless, it is hot out and I crave Sangria. My girlfriend orders a drink called Watermelon Watermelon Watermelon Watermelon. It is July and I am happy to hear the word watermelon repeated as many times as it cares to be. Our drinks come and if it is a refreshing contest, hers wins. It tastes of mint and lime and of course watermelon. It is a beautiful pink color, like snap dragon flowers. My Sangria is less refreshing, but still so. It tastes maybe a little watered down, as if it had been sitting in ice too long. But these are things I do not know. I am not a food critic.

She has me take a picture of the ingredients even though both of us know we will never recreate it. We order a modest four plates and the first comes out promptly: Pan Tomaté. It is toasted bread with diced tomatoes and olive oil. There is no salt and pepper on our table because it is that kind of restaurant. We ask for some and they bring it, not at all offended. The flavors are buoyed by the most common spices. It is a simple dish and maybe a poor choice, we could prepare this at home easily.

But still, we are happy. The backyard is pleasant despite an angry woman behind us who does not receive her check as speedily as she desires it. I sympathize with the server, I have been in her shoes.

We order an Andalusian gazpacho and it comes in a small glass in the classic way. It is a sherbet orange color and looks thicker than we know gazpacho. It is heavy and creamy and is our least favorite. We ask the server about the cream and she says it is not cream but bread crumbs and the consistency is typical. I don’t think we knew what gazpacho was. The refrain of this story is that I am not a food critic.

Our last dishes are proteins: Cider Braised Chorizo with Shishito Peppers and Duck Meatballs with Tomato Sofrito and Green Olive Tapenade. The meatballs are tiny sandwiches and this time a little too salty, but it all works with the tomato and tapenade. If this sauce had been on the toast from earlier, I would order it again. The chorizo is smoky and juicy and the grilled peppers have a crisp crunch. I don’t think I can convey more than this, I do not have the palate nor the language to compliment one: our food is good, but short of great. Were I ever here again, I would seek out a local’s curation; I have the feeling we did not uncover the highlights.

Besides the four we ordered, there are thirty or so small plates on the menu and also Paella and also large family portions of fried chicken and rib chops and crispy trout. If my girlfriend cared for saffron, I would be in for the paella without second thought. It is a dish I’ve craved since 2007 when I had it last in a Boston restaurant while visiting my sister in grad school. I am sure this is a footnote that a seasoned food critic would not include, but I am not a food critic and I do not know the rules.

The meal draws to a close and for small plates we are plenty satiated and not out very much money for a low-tier fancy place: $60 including tip, four plates, and two drinks. In sum, we arrived happy, and now all done, we leave happy.

I do not know what real food critics have in mind to impart upon their readers. But if you did read this through, then I hope you can imagine what it may be like if you were to go to Bravas in Healdsburg California on a hot Sunday afternoon after swimming in a river with someone you love. And if it does spark your imagination in any kind of way, then I wish for you to go and order whatever food you want and whatever drinks. It is your impression that matters, I am just one person who ate at one place one time. But if you do go, and are looking to me—a non-food critic— for any suggestion, it is that you should not pass on the Watermelon Watermelon Watermelon Watermelon. Summer is almost over.

July 28, 2019

Bravas Bar de Tapas

420 Center St; (707) 433-7700. www.starkrestaurants.com

Open for lunch and dinner daily. Full bar. Reservations accepted. $$$

Recommended: Watermelon Watermelon Watermelon Watermelon

Slow Violence @ The SF Art Book Fair

The city smells like trash but otherwise it is a beautiful afternoon. I bike from the Embarcadero to the Dogpatch in a not very direct way, this is not Brooklyn and I don’t know it like that. I park my bike and lock it. I know I am in the right place because there are people milling about who look like me: hipsters in t-shirts and jeans and sneakers, some with geometric tattoos and others with cool haircuts. Maybe this is Brooklyn.

The San Francisco Art Book Fair is in an art gallery and event space on Minnesota Street called the Minnesota Street Project. It is a two-storied hall with rooms jutting off either side. There is a wooden staircase on the far end that is also bleacher seating. I walk in and the place is packed. The vendors are set up one after another behind tables stacked with all sorts of books: expensive-looking hard-covers, glossy art journals, zines printed on construction paper. There are more than 100 vendors set up, some from as far away as Italy, others from just across the Bay Bridge.

Between the tables goes the crowd. There is a lot of saying excuse me and shimmying to get by. I stop at some tables and leaf through some books. I almost buy a collection of emails from artists to artists, I almost buy the complete record of Keith Haring’s journals, I almost buy a poster of a skull swallowing the Statue of Liberty. Mostly I look about to see if this fair is for everybody and decide mostly it’s for white people, probably ones who went to college, probably ones who read the New Yorker and have opinions about public radio. I am all of those things. I am the correct audience.

But am I the correct audience to a talk about slow and violent hardcore music in turn-of-the-millennium Italy? I thought I was.

Were I an endorsed critic, one who is paid to provide unique analysis and thoughtful opinion, I would maybe insert here certain failures of this lecture and then expound upon them. But I am neither paid nor endorsed. So maybe it is enough to say terms are not defined, thesis not explicated, and conclusions not drawn.

What is successful is the frequent pauses to play thumping and dark European techno tracks. I enjoy watching the audience of art-professionals nodding their heads to 200 BPM and laughing to their friends as they do so, as if to say, I can hang! I imagine what hanging looks like in the industrial European clubs where probably you’d be ostracized for wearing ear plugs and leaving the dance floor after only one song. The lecturer tells us of an all-night party held once a year in a club with a glass roof and when the sun comes up all the fogged-up condensation drips and the club rains sweat.

She says the music is violent and I don’t disagree but I am not sure why it is violent. She says it is slow but she plays fast tracks and slow tracks and doesn’t say which fall in the genre and which don’t. I am confused but I don’t want to be.

Uploaded by Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam on 2018-11-22.

Michele Rizzo - Higher | Music Lorenzo Senni

She says the music is born of disaffection in Northern Italian post-industrial cities. The parents were let go when the car factories closed and their kids sought visceral relief. Is slow violence disaffection? Is slow violence plus the dance floor cathartic? Sometimes you leave a lecture with questions. I leave wondering what questions I should even ask. Defining terms is important, especially when the implication of those terms lands unequally. I don’t know if I can stomach an artist talking confusingly about violence in a small and historical subgenre of dance music when she doesn’t define what violence is and makes no mention of who or what it is inflicted upon.

I walk out of the lecture room disappointed and see my friend at the end of the hallway sitting on the bleachers cross-legged. She looks somehow both calm and angry. She is still wearing her scrubs from the hospital and tells me she’s just fallen in love with everyone here: everyone is so attractive.

My friend changes out of her scrubs and we walk to a bar stopping for chocolate along the way. I order vodka and she has beer. She tells me a patient that day had awoken from a black-out walking on the freeway. She had been sexually assaulted. My friend performed the rape-kit and got her a meal. We leave after two rounds because my friend has to go back to the hospital. There is a clerical error and the patient hasn’t been discharged yet. My friend goes inside and fixes what needs to be fixed. She comes back and says the woman doesn’t seem to mind spending a longer time there. She is homeless and I imagine if I lived on the street, I might come to value being inside any building at all and if I were a victim of violence, all I’d care about is relief.

July 19, 2019

Ed Levine @ The Commonwealth Club

The Commonwealth Club sits on the Embarcadero overlooking a bridge and a ferry. I use another person’s name to get in, opting for the stairs and not the elevator, glad that I did or I might have missed the brownies, topped with sea salt, containing nuts.

I do not know the people speaking, but I do know my girlfriend who I greet and sit next to, the lights coming down soon after, I’ve only had one brownie, but I think there will be more after.

There is a stage and a screen behind it. On the stage are two white chairs with very sharp angles. A video starts playing about the Commonwealth Club before anyone walks on stage. The video shows clips one after another of luminaries in their fields. I would list them here were it relevant or I remembered, the lasting impression only that it went on too long and was heavy-handed.

Tonight is what is relevant. A food talk, or a food business talk, or the diary of a bad business man. Ed Levine in conversation with Kenji Lopez. The former of Serious Eats and, from what I gather, the latter a celebrated contributor of Serious Eats. I know neither.

On the occasion of a memoir, Ed begins with a childhood spent amongst communists at the edge of Queens and Long Island. A borderland place, where urban grit meets manicured lawns and somewhere nearby Shea Stadium, before it was decrepit. As Ed describes it, his family’s kitchen table was more city than suburb, all fire and politics, the nightly news precedent over food; but thankfully his grandmother on Sunday is all schnitzel and matzo ball. A few hundred miles north in the same years my dad eats an identical diet: Edward Murrow and latkes.

Ed’s parents die in his teens and Kenji paths his old boss toward the narrative, not to gloss over grief but because there is only an hour. A first calling to music, booking village venues for jazz acts, producing Dr. John who died the week before: How he made it to 77, I have no idea. This draws laughs. I think about gumbo, crawfish etouffee, and boudin, and agree with his sentiment, becoming worried for the heart health of my New Orleans friends.

His twenties were spent eating corned beef and zoning at the Village Vanguard, a place I passed 1000 times but never entered and a sandwich I’ve seen on the menu but never ordered, opting always for pastrami. He falls in love and has a kid, attempts normalcy at business school and advises the audience against it. I feel my girlfriend stiffen at my side.

So far I feel plot summary and not main course: a telling of his start in food, a lucky book deal and a talented debut, an early adoption of blogging and then what sounds like a 10 year struggle for solvency. Debt piles on, from friends and family. His wife, he implies, was near to leave him, but then a lucky break, a benevolent buyer. We’ll handle the money, you eat the food. An inch to the left and this man might not be on the stage right now and his wife not in the front row.

If there is a through-line it is to follow your dreams, or more apropos, your appetite. Pursue your dreams unto the edge of financial and personal ruin, and then keep pursuing them.

I do not know why, but my hands are clammy, and they have been the entire talk, I am thinking about those brownies and plot summary, the men on stage who say good food writing is about the story, not the flavor, the spice blend less important than the person who blends it.

What I’ll take home of this talk is what is immediate: the pleasant air between two men very different and yet very comfortable with another. A subtle moderator meets a rambly interviewee, the two aligned over a bowl of Bolognese. I can lean back in my chair when I’m eating alone at a restaurant and listen to the camaraderie at the table next to me, I can feel good that people in this world have found their place-settings when maybe I haven’t yet found mine; It is all okay, being welcomed by strangers to join their table, to share in their stories, to take nothing home with you more than a full stomach.

The lights rise, there is applause. People circle into their groups outside and share brief words before embarking into the summer evening. I go there too, but only after another brownie. Or three.

June 19, 2019