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Two Thousand Seven Hundred and Eleven Leaves

Saturday, January 4, 20200

The Talmud. You might have heard of it, you might not. I grew up knowing that it existed, but within the Reform and Conservative Jewish traditions, it’s not something we spend a lot of time studying. We more or less stick with the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. If you’d have asked me, even a couple of days ago, what the Talmud is, I’d have said it was a collection of laws and commentary on the Torah. Turns out, that’s only partially right. It’s a collection of laws and commentary on Jewish life, back in the day, though it derives its essence from the Torah. I imagine it as a somewhat dry reading, but then, when one (or at least I) casually thinks about reading the Bible, that same thought comes to mind, though the reality is anything but – having read through it many a time in my life.

It looks daunting. It is daunting. You can see how it’s sort of divided into sections. If I understand it correctly, in the center is the heading, that part is obvious. It’s immediately followed below by the Mishnah, which is a written down version of the halakah, rabbinic law, as it was codified in the early 3rd century CE. Huh, I always assumed the Talmud was far older than that – that’s surprise number one, what’s known as the Babylonian Talmud, which is sort of the official one (I gather there’s an earlier one called the Jerusalem Talmud) came together in the 4th century. You can see that the style of writing changes about halfway down, and then lopes off into an L, that’s the Gemara, which is the rabbinical analysis on the Mishnah it follows, and is written in Aramaic. The inverted L to the upper right of this is Rashi, who was a medieval French rabbi who wrote, I gather, the single most authoritative and complete commentary on the entire Talmud and Torah. The L to the left and below is the Tosafot, commentary by rabbis and sages from roughly the 12th and 13th centuries. Some pages have another L outside of that one with more, and, I guess, lesser rabbinical commentaries, which would be placed below those margin notes on the left. Those margin notes are cross references to other texts for “further reading”. The margin notes to the right are – if at the top, further cross references, but ones that were added centuries later, and if down towards the bottom, “glosses”, or “short comments” by later rabbis who felt they had to get their two cents in – sometimes, apparently, useful, sometimes, cryptic. Did I mention, daunting?

I had vaguely heard about Daf Yomi, which means, loosely, “a page a day”. It’s a sort of loose knit, world wide community of people, some of them avid scholars, many, however, not, who undertake to read (and gain some understanding) one page of the 2711 double paged leaves (the photo above is just one side of “a page”) of the entire Talmud. Every day, without exception. It takes around seven and a half years. I’ve heard various estimates – some people spend 10-15 minutes a day doing it, some spend an hour. Given that most who undertake this are not ancient language scholars, and the Talmud is written in a combination of ancient Hebrew and Aramaic, most – probably all – people who head down this rabbit hole read the Talmud in one translation or another in their native tongue.

When it popped up as a conversation on one of my favorite podcasts, Unorthodox, sponsored by Tablet Magazine, I thought… why not? I mean, I could have as easily asked, why? One of the podcasts members, Liel Leibovitz, was diving in, and setting up a new podcast, where he would, five times a week, take 5-10 minutes to discuss the day’s (or two days’ at a time in two cases a week, I assumed one was because of not wanting to record a podcast episode on the Sabbath, I’m not sure what the other one is) tract. At the least, I could commit to listening to a 5-10 minute podcast, and see how it goes. He also recommended following along on the webpage or phone app called Sefaria, which provides a lightly annotated version of the Talmud in English. I downloaded it and took a look, and it looks to be about 10 minutes of reading, maybe less, each day. So, at least at the start, I’ll give that a shot, listen to his podcast – and hey, 15-20 minutes a day, I can do that… right? We shall see. [I later added in the short emailed commentary from MyJewishLearning which you can subscribe to.]

I’m not going to do a daily post on this, as I don’t feel like filling this blog up with 2711 mini posts. So I’ll create a page with a sort of Twitter, or slightly longer, comment on what I thought of the day’s venture (link below).

I guess (assuming this goes well), I’ll divide this up the way the Talmud is divided – it’s in six sedarim – “orders”, or “books”, each divided into masekhot – tractates of varying number (but 63 in total), and each of those is divided into chapters that cover, if I am getting this, a particular overarching topic (525 in total), and each chapter is then divided into the different pages, each one featuring one or more mishnah (remember, the rabbinic law or Torah bit that’s being discussed, and 4,198 of them in total split up on those 2,711 pages). So, away we go….

Link to my Daf Yomi commentary

 

 

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Books (Reviews), Commentary

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Coloring Inside the Lines

Friday, December 6, 20190

There are, apparently, great decisions being made, behind the scenes in corporate boardrooms. We’re not talking about whether to maximize shareholder profits over social good, or hiding the latest instance of embezzlement or child labor use. We’re talking about The Color Of The Year. Now, I’ve seen, year after year, when Pantone announces their color and all my design-soaked friends go into a frenzy. Apparently all of them have clients who redecorate, repaint, or are reborn once a year in the official Pantone color, so as not to be left behind. The Joneses and all that. This year, I gather, many are feeling a trifle miffed, as Pantone has selected as its 2020 CotY…

… Classic Blue. This, I gather is “uninspired”. Yet, no doubt, they will still rush to slather paint across walls or trimmings in this venerable color. But, who is to say that Pantone is the be all and end all of color choice? Every paint company out there chooses their own – and one, this year, Valspar, has offered up a palette of a dozen colors, refusing to commit to just one, so we’re going to discard them on the waste heap of poor choices.

Staying in the blue realm…

…Porter Paints, or, I gather it’s more commonly referred to as “PPG”, has chosen Chinese Porcelain as a more greyish shade of blue. And…

…the well known Sherwin Williams has headed full tilt into the darker ranges with Naval.

But what if you aren’t feeling blue? Perhaps something leaning green. Starting with the very earth-toned…

…Back to Nature from Behr, which to me looks more khaki or tan than green, but apparently just shades into the verdant world. Or something light and springy…

…like Tranquil Dawn from Dulux, or…

…Dunn Edwards’ Minty Fresh. But perhaps, as I might, you prefer something with a bit more oomph…

…I quite like the Dark Seafoam Green from Toptal, and I appreciate that they haven’t gone all silly in the head with naming it. I mean, much as I like this darker shade…

…the apparently newly introduced Adeline from Graham & Brown – Adeline???? Really? Who named this and do they still have their job? Then again, I do like the color. Perhaps as a window “treatment”?

But, this is all very blue and green, and I’m sure there are those who want to go to the other side of the color palette, and not to despair, two companies have gone all rosy glow on us this year…

…coming in with First Light from Benjamin Moore, and…

…the sort of skin-toned pink of Romance from HGTV Home, which is a division of Sherwin Williams, up above, contemplating their naval….

So many choices. So important. I almost want to bring back the meme of the 2019 Pantone color of Impeach (not a real thing)…

…but since I predict that’s gonna turn out to be a disaster, maybe not.

 

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You Can Keep Your $3 Bill

Friday, October 18, 20193

I’m not Queer. I’m Gay. Clinically, I suppose Homosexual. But, I’m not Queer.

I was recently chastised for not “being woke” and “accepting my Queer identity”. Well, sorry, but I don’t have one of those. “If you’re Gay, you’re Queer, you just haven’t accepted it yet” was the response. Well, no, if they were the same thing, if it wasn’t a separate identity tag, we wouldn’t need both a G and a Q in that ridiculous alphabet soup of 2SLGBTQIA+. We’d pick one and stick with it. We’d come up with one term to encompass us all, and we could have one letter. Maybe a superfluous letter like C. I don’t know what it would stand for, but it would be far easier.

Sidebar: When I first moved to NYC in 1982, I was fairly active politically in gay politics, and I became a volunteer at what was then NGTF, the National Gay Task Force. I became part of the “inner circle” of people who met at least once a week, usually twice – I was one of the two people who setup, ran, and trained the staff for the “crisis hotline” that we started around that time. And, I was part of the debate that went on for many long hours in 1985 over whether or not to change the name to NGLTF, the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force. I came down on the side of no. Not because I didn’t understand the argument from the lesbians who proposed it, but because I felt that it was a slippery slope to ending up with, as I put it above, a ridiculous alphabet soup, as one group after another came forward to demand an addition to the name. Those of us in that group ended up being the minority, and the executive board passed and changed the name. We were assured that it would “never happen”. Thankfully, somewhere along the line, as it did actually happen, the board decided against ending up with the N2SGLBTQIA+TF and the organization became simply known as The Task Force. I think it kind of loses something there, but maybe that’s just me.

See, I’m from a generation where the word queer was an epithet, something that got said to you while you were being slammed up against a locker in the hallway. It was used just as often as fag, the other major slur thrown out as a fist smashed into your jaw. It was, perhaps, a trifle more polite among genteel society, who might never tell a fag joke, but held nothing back when telling a queer one. Sort of the equivalent of sambo, spook, or spade for Black people in place of nigger (I’m going to use a few terms in this post that I would never normally use, because I want them to make a point – I hope never to use them again).

And perhaps that’s why it was “chosen” as one to create a political/social identity. “Reclaiming the word” from the haters, much as some in the Black community reclaimed the word nigger, though at times modifying into nigga, perhaps to show some sort of difference, or evolution, or perhaps it’s just an Ebonic shift [Edit: John McWhorter, one of my favorite linguists, has a whole section of one of his podcasts devoted to the difference, I stand corrected.]. The problem is, as it is for many Black people hearing that word, that queer to me still brings up all those old associations of hate. I’m not interested in putting in the work on my psyche to shift my view and make it a positive thing, burying the past. It’s no surprise that while this movement started in the 1980s, the word queer has primarily been adopted by younger generations, ones for whom the word already has begun to lose its sharp edge while they were growing up. Someone throws it at them and they can proudly claim it for themselves.

But for me – hey, let me adopt the vernacular of the day – it’s a trigger word. You get to have yours, you want me to be woke enough to accept that there are words that trigger you? Fine, you better woke up yourself and accept that your word choice is one for me. I’m not going to demand that you don’t use it, I am going to demand that you accept that it’s not the word for me, and that no matter how many times you say it proudly, I’m going to cringe, and find it offensive. And while I understand your desire for me to use it when I refer to you, it’s a word that I simply won’t use – I’ll do my best not to offend you by using a word that’s not your preference, but I’m not going to use a word that for me, retains its derogatory meaning.

But, even more so, in this presidential campaigning season, I’m finding it offensive from those who are not a member of either the Queer or Gay or Lesbian or… you get the idea… communities. Elizabeth Warren, who is not my “cup of tea”, I often agree with her on what the problems are, but rarely on what the solutions are, is the worst offender. She stands up in front of crowds and bursts out with how happy she is to be in front of her “Queer brothers and sisters” or some such. Not 2SLGBTQIA+, or any variation of, or speaking those out in their individual words. No, she just lumps us all as one big Queer Community. And it grates on my nerves every time. I mean, even Mayor Pete doesn’t do that, and he at least would have some claim to be a part of the generally identified group.

Now, let’s try a thought experiment. Or two. Let’s go to a Trump rally. Remember when Trump said that he was “a real friend of the gays”? Imagine that he said “I’m a real friend of the queers”. Imagine that he stood in front of a group of Black voters and said, “I’m a real friend of the niggas”. Or the Jewish community and said, “I’m a real friend of the kikes”. Etc., etc. But okay, I get it, Donald Trump is way and below “not my cup of tea” for many of us. So let’s go back to Warren, or one of the other Democratic candidates who has, on occasion, thrown out the word queer (though as best I can think of, she’s the only one who has used it on its own, a couple of others have either used the acronym or spelled it out with gay, lesbian, bi, queer, trans…). Imagine Warren standing in front of a group of “ethnic” voters of appropriate stripe and saying, “I’m so happy to be in front of a proud group of my nigga/kike/spic/wop/towelhead/nip/chink brothers and sisters”?

I’m guessing you can get that that wouldn’t go over well with a whole lot of them. And you know what, “queer” doesn’t go over well with a whole lot of us.

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Game On – The Shell Game

Saturday, October 5, 20190

Many moons ago, or, to be more precise, just over seven years ago, during July and August of 2012, I started a little “game” based on the old encyclopedia game, but updated using Wikipedia. There’s a whole explanation, and video, on the original post over on my SaltShaker blog. I had good intentions, as it was just sort of a nice break from only writing about food and wine, but in the end, it only lasted for six posts, and then just passed into oblivion.

That has happened on and off again with writing ideas, like my thought two years ago to start a series of commentaries here on political stuff… which lasted exactly one post (the fallout from various friends after sharing it was just more wearying than it was worth). But I’m feeling in the need of a diversion again – this may only last a post or two, we shall see. I decided rather than picking up from the last post in the original game, to give Wikipedia another shot with a “random article” pick, and see where it led my thoughts.

So, the page it led me to this time was that of Dizoniopsis coppolae, a type of marine sea snail found in the Mediterranean (pictured above… very pretty, no?). Now, I could go on for a bit with various bits and pieces about sea snails, I have no doubt. And maybe even a recipe or two, which would probably be best suited back on the other blog, but I thought instead, I would head down the rabbit hole (the sea snail hole?) of the who, related to this snail. As the Wikipedia page notes, this snail was first described by “Aradas, 1870”. A bit of research leads me to one Andrea Aradas, of Catania, Sicily.

Sr. Aradas was a Sicilian zoologist, who had started out as a medical doctor, something his father, Fernando, pushed him into. I have no doubt that their were family squabbles aplenty when young Andrea headed down the path of researching and teaching about mollusks rather than staying the course of medicine. In the end, however, he was rather important in his field… Malacology… which we’ll come back to in a moment, having discovered and/or described numerous species over the years, amassing a huge collection of both live and dead specimens, along with a lot of research into prehistoric echinoderms, and in the end, creating Sicily’s first science museum, the Zoology Museum at the University of Catania, which still exists to this day, and donating his personal collection to the museum.

Now, most of you know I love words, and so, seeing a word I didn’t know, I immediately headed there. Malacology is a branch of invertebrate (no spine) zoology specializing in the study of mollusks. I had no idea that mollusks have the second most number of species that have been discovered of any phylum of animals, after arthropods (insects, which doesn’t surprise me as coming first). Mollusks include snails and slugs, clams (and presumably other bivalves), octopuses and squids. Those who study malacology are, not shockingly, called malacologists. I also learned that there’s a second term, not to be confused, which is Conchology (and, by connection, conchologists), which is the study of the shells of these same mollusks, but not the creatures themselves.

And that, was kind of where my random wanderings took me. I’m sure I could go on and keep going within this arena, but I will pick that up on the next installment, assuming there is one. Instead, I wanted to circle back to Andrea Aradas, who in addition to the dozens upon dozens of mollusks he first described, also has the distinction of having gotten to name, or had named after him, six particular species of mollusk. And since we started off with a pretty picture of shells, I thought it only fitting to finish off with those half dozen, as best I could figure out from online photos (and yes, I “lifted” these photos from various places on the internet)….

Aradasia Gray, 1850, today reclassified as Coralliophila inflata

 

Atrina aradasii, 1851, aka Pinna aradasii, though now reclassified as Atrina fragilis

 

Cernuella aradasii, 1842

 

Limopsis aradasii, 1842 – fossil remains

 

Murex aradasii, 1883

 

Pectunculus aradasii, 1842, which, I think, is this one, though hard to find, and appears to have been reclassified as Glycymeris violacescens

 

Whither goest this game next?

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Flotsam, jetsam, lagan, and derelict

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The E Files #4

Monday, September 2, 20190

Jeez, it’s been almost two years since I’ve posed anything on this blog. Then again, it was originally designed just as a place to archive my published work, and I haven’t been writing for any magazines or newspapers over the last couple of years, so no surprise there. But, just to toss a little fun into the world…there’s always more email stupidity to share….

______________

“We are on our honeymoon. My new wife is a bit of an artist and has an eye for design. She will not eat from plates that do not fit her personal tastes, nor food that is on the plate in a design that she doesn’t find suitable. Before we book, would you please send photos of the plates and the dishes you’ll be serving and she’ll provide the feedback necessary to have them meet her standards. Looking forward to enjoying our experience with you.”

“I’m sorry, we have no space available for you the dates you’re asking about.” [And jeez man, good luck in that marriage, you’re gonna need it.]

______________

“I didn’t really care for last night’s meal. Starting from the fact that I hate Peruvian food and don’t really like Italian, and I was hoping your place, since those are your specialty, would change my mind, but you didn’t. As such, your restaurant and you as a chef are a failure in my mind. Perhaps you should contact another chef to come in and show you how to cook those cuisines in a way that would make it so someone like me would find them palatable. I mean, it’s just an amateur’s opinion, but you asked for feedback.”

I don’t even have a response to this one. I just filed it away in the appropriate place.

______________

We have a standard procedure for after someone requests a reservation and we accept it – we send them a detailed reservation confirmation and also a separate link for paying their deposit. If we haven’t heard back from them after 3-4 days, we send an email just confirming that they got both, as sometimes things get caught up in spam filters, or simply lost in the shuffle of day to day email inundations. If we still haven’t heard from them after 7-8 days, we send them a polite cancellation notice. Amazingly, I would say 8 out of 10 times, we get a response to the cancellation within an hour or two, apologizing and re-asking for the reservation, that things got lost in the shuffle of life, which we almost always do. 1 out of 10, we never hear from again. The last 1 out of 10 go something like this one….

“I don’t know how you run a business being so pushy and rude as to simply cancel someone’s reservation that they asked for. I’m a busy person, and it was on my list to get back to you, but I just hadn’t gotten to it. I expect you to immediately restore my reservation or if not, provide compensation.”

“First off, while I understand that people like you are busy, so are we, and we waited a full week before cancelling, it’s not like we only waited a day or two. All we would have needed would have been a quick email saying that you’d get to it shortly and you were still planning on keeping the reservation. But we’d be happy to put your reservation back on the books, though at this point, as the date you wanted is coming up this weekend, we’d have to have your deposit today or tomorrow.”

“See, that’s what I mean by pushy and rude. I’ll get to it when I get to it. You can wait. Your timetable means nothing to me.”

“Well, with apologies then, I’m not going to put the reservation back on the books, I have my business to run. Let me turn this around for you [I knew from his reservation request that he was an attorney.]… As a lawyer, if someone called you up and said they had a court date in two weeks, and wanted to hire you to represent them, I’m going to assume that you’d ask them for a retainer of some sort. And if after three or four days you hadn’t heard from them again, you might try to reach them to see if they still wanted you to represent them. And if you still hadn’t heard from them after more than a week, with the court date just a few days away, you’d probably take them off your planned calendar. And if they then called you again a couple of days later and demanded that you still represent them, and “maybe” they’d pay you or maybe not, you probably wouldn’t take their case. Would that be about right?”

“My time is valuable and can’t be wasted on people like that. I have a real job. You’re just a cook with a home business, it’s not the same thing. Your little hobby has no value to society.”

“My time is just as valuable to me as yours is to you, my “hobby” is how I earn a living, and, historically, a whole lot of people have said much the same thing about lawyers and their value to society. Have a nice time in Buenos Aires.” [Isn’t that a nice way of saying “Fuck you!”?]

______________

The setup: On our online reservation form, we have a statement above it that says “other than for private events, we don’t offer vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free options at our communal table dinners, nor onion/garlic/chili free – we use a fair amount of all three of those”, and in the form itself, “Any food allergies or dietary restrictions?” Guest makes a reservation for 3 people, roughly a month ahead of time, indicates “N/A” in answer to the question on the form. The day of the reservation, I receive an email…

“Just confirming that we’ll be there tonight, with bell’s on, and that you have a vegan option available for us?”

“I appreciate you confirming, on that we’re all set, however, we don’t offer a vegan option, and you had indicated that you had no dietary restrictions that we needed to consider. I’m afraid we don’t have a vegan menu – everyone eats the same thing, and the menu is already in progress.”

“We don’t consider being vegan to be a restriction, and by law you’re required to provide us with vegan menu items. We expect you to do so.”

“First off, no, we’re not required by law to do anything of the sort, certainly not here in Buenos Aires, and I somehow doubt that it’s true wherever you live either. Second, we did ask, and your response to our question was “N/A”. While I appreciate the philosophical point of view about whether being vegan is restrictive or not, it’s an obvious question on a reservation form for our menu planning purposes. Sorry, but we have no vegan option, something that we also stated upfront.”

“Restriction is obviously a trigger word, and you know that, being queer and all. I would think you’d be more sensitive about things like this and not be so anti-vegan. Since you’re refusing to let us come to dinner, send us back our money right away, and I think you owe us reparations for oppressing our lifestyle.”

“One, not refusing to serve you dinner, just not serving you a vegan dinner, you’re welcome to come, there just won’t really be anything for you to eat. Two, not anti-vegan, just don’t offer it as a menu option at our communal dinners. Three, being gay has nothing to do with being vegan (and, since we’re on the topic, I find “queer” to be an offensive trigger word). Four, if you don’t come, your deposit is non-refundable, as you agreed to upfront. Let me know if you plan to come.”

“We’re obviously not coming and we’ll be contacting our credit card company to get the money back. You obviously aren’t woke if you find words like queer and fag offensive you should own them with pride. You haven’t heard the last from us.”

Other than an attempt to get the deposit reversed, which the credit card company sided with us, we haven’t heard from them again. Funny how this whole trigger and woke thing only applies to the labels applied to yourself, not the ones you apply to other people.

 

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The E Files #3

Wednesday, October 25, 20171

donotsend
Yes indeed, time for another round of facepalming fun. You know, I used to write and perform stand-up comedy. I couldn’t have written some of this stuff and have anyone buy it.

—————

“We are interested in dinner at your restaurant one of the nights while we’re here. According to your website you’re not open on Sundays, Mondays or Tuesdays. Please put us on your waitlist for one of those three nights next week.”

“I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking. We’re only open Wednesday through Saturday, so we don’t have a waitlist for Sunday, Monday or Tuesday, as we’re closed.”

“Yes, we know, it said you weren’t open those nights on your website, but are you refusing to put us on your waitlist?”

“Umm… okay, you know what, I’d be happy to put you on the waitlist for one of those nights.”

“Just let us know which night to come.”

“Again, we’re closed those nights. I’m happy to put you on a waitlist, but we’re not going to be open.”

“Whatever.”

“Our niece and her husband ate with you last year and raved about the experience. We’d like to attend, but given what we think about their tastes, it remains to be seen whether we’ll enjoy anything you have to offer.”

Seriously, do I even want these people here? Is this just a generally grumpy or misanthropic person, or was that a sort of throwing down of the kitchen mitt in challenge? … We took a chance and accepted, they came, they enjoyed.

“We have no food allergies or dietary restrictions. My girlfriend isn’t overly fond of mussels, but it’s no big deal as long as they’re not a whole course.”

[We have a seafood sauce on a pasta that evening that includes calamari, shrimp, prawns, cockles, clams, and yes, mussels. She eats all of it but the three or four mussels, which she pushes to the side.]

“It would have been nice if you’d have bothered to read our email in the first place. We made it clear that my girlfriend is deathly allergic to mussels, and yet you served her a plate of them. You could have sent her to the hospital and should have offered an alternative.”

“My apologies for the misunderstanding, I was under the impression that she just didn’t like them very much and since they were just a small part of a mixed shellfish sauce, and you’d said it wasn’t a big deal, I didn’t think it would be a problem. She did eat the entire dish but the few mussels on the plate, no? This is why we ask about allergies, but not dislikes, as we couldn’t possibly plan menus that fit everyone’s preferences each evening.”

“What’s the difference? Allergy or dislike, we made it clear that she couldn’t eat them, no matter what.”

Umm, no you didn’t. These are the kind of people who cause problems for people who have actual allergies, when restaurant teams get tired of bowing to every whim of a customer. All it leads to is either restaurants that end up saying basically ‘no substitutions, no special requests’, something that’s becoming more and more common, or, and far more dangerous, chefs who simply decide to ignore requests that think are bogus.

This whole thing about people wanting to come when we’re not open mystifies me. Not that it happens that they want to come on a day or week when we’re not open, but the level of insistence on some people’s part (as above in the first email exchange). With a schedule where we’re not open all the time (what restaurant that isn’t something like a diner is?), and that it may not coincide with theirs, but…

“We’d like a reservation for two for tomorrow.”

“Unfortunately for your timing, as noted on our schedule, we’re on vacation this week and next. Perhaps some time in the future on another visit?”

“We probably won’t be back, we want to come tomorrow. Make it happen.”

“Sorry, but we’re away, I’d be happy to recommend some alternatives.”

“If you had a fucking clue about hospitality, you’d make this work instead of giving me shit. We’re not interested anymore.”

…didn’t bother to respond. I’m sure a nasty TripAdvisor or Yelp review is in the offing.

Have to give points for honesty to this one – a newspaper travel writer contacts me for an interview about Casa S…. this is a paraphrased and much shortened conversation:

“Let’s do the interview on Monday, around noon if that works.”

“Sure, that’s great.”

“And you’ll be preparing a five course meal for myself and two friends who I’ve invited to join me, free of course.”

“No. Sorry, first, we’re not open for lunch, and second, that’s not part of the deal for an interview. You can make a reservation for dinner one night when we’re open if you want to try our food and experience a dinner here.”

“Fine, for the following night. Again, free for all three of us.”

“No, sorry, first off we don’t offer free meals for reviews, and second, we certainly wouldn’t also offer them to friends you happen to invite. Don’t you have a budget from your newspaper to pay for meals?”

“Of course I do, and I’ll need a receipt for the full amount for three of us, but I’m keeping the money – if you want a review, you give me the meals for free.”

“Sorry, but we that’s not an option. Do you still want to do the interview? If not, I fully understand.”

“Yes, I’ll still come for the interview.

Didn’t show up, never responded to followup email.

Nothing like folk who are confident in their own worth!

“We’d like to reserve for two for Saturday evening. We’re both highly intelligent, perceptive, and witty people who will bring a level of conversation to the table that it’s unlikely your other guests are capable of. The format of your dinners, the whole concept, and the ambiance will be a quaint choice for us over the sorts of high-quality restaurants that we normally frequent. However, we do prefer that sort of food, so we’d like your permission to bring in food from a top restaurant for ourselves rather than pay you for your efforts. We’ll of course pay you a corkage charge for the wine we’ll bring and tip the waiter. We await your reply with much anticipation.”

“No, sorry, we don’t have spaces available for you.”

“Your website says you still have spaces available that night.”

“Yes, we do, I’ll leave it to your highly intelligent and perceptive abilities to re-read my first response.”

“The three of us are highly allergic to mayo and there can’t be any in any of our food.”

“Which part of the mayo is it that you’re allergic to, in case we have to avoid one of the ingredients – the egg yolk, the mustard, the lemon juice, or the oil?”

“We’re not allergic to any of those things, just to mayo. Why would you bring those things up?”

“Because that’s what mayo is made out of… other than salt and pepper, there’s nothing else in it.”

“No, mayo is something else than what you’re thinking of, maybe you don’t have a word for it in Spanish.”

“It’s not, and we do, but I’m guessing that one or more of you simply doesn’t like the texture of mayo and you’re not actually allergic to it?”

“Well yeah, it’s disgusting, but that’s like an allergy.”

No, no it’s not at all like an allergy…. “Okay, got it.”

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Flotsam, jetsam, lagan, and derelict

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Flag Waiving

Monday, September 25, 20170

I’ve had an itch. There has been so much stuff going on in the world of politics, economics, and everything else, over the last few years – or maybe it’s just become more important to me – that I want to have my say. And hey, I already have this platform, and while this site may have been primarily a mix of published articles and critiques of restaurants and books, why not critique other stuff?

I know, I know. “You’re a chef, stfu about politics, stay in the kitchen and cook.” Yeah, well, you’re an office worker, a landscaper, a police officer, a hairdresser… so stay in your cubicle, garden, squad car, or salon, and stfu yourself. As the saying goes, opinions are like assholes, we all have one (except for the rare individual with imperforate anus or a similar medical condition, but we’re not going there… oops).

So, I’m going to pick topics that strike me as interesting, or get me riled up, or whatever it may be, and write a brief commentary on them. Plus, maybe it will breathe some life into this blog. Maybe I’ll even get a comment (nasty ones with all sorts of curse words or insults will most likely be simply deleted, unless I can find a way to make your life hell by using it in some fashion). So, onto the show….

You might have guessed from the title, this is going to be about the whole flag, Pledge of Allegiance, taking a knee controversy.

Personally, I grew up with the Pledge of Allegiance. We recited it daily, standing at attention, hand over the heart, and with gusto. It’s ingrained into me. I see people asking questions on Facebook and Twitter about whether the folk who are so riled up about the whole take-a-knee thing are standing and reciting the pledge when they’re at home watching the game. First off, there’s no requirement to do that, there’s a whole protocol for being in the presence of the flag and all that, but you know what, while I don’t stand at attention, I usually find that I’ve pretty much automatically put my hand over my heart and quietly recited the pledge to myself along with the folk on the screen. It’s so automatic I’d have to truly put a conscious effort into not doing it.

I spent a lot of my earlier years in one form or another of public service. Be it in the Boy Scouts, on into being an Explorer Scout with the Ann Arbor Police Department. Be it in Army ROTC for a year and half until being asked to resign because we were back in the days before Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Be it participating in the Michigan State Police summer programs. Be it as an EMT and later a paramedic for the ambulance services in Washtenaw County. Volunteer for the Red Cross, teaching CPR and First Aid. I was interviewed (several times) by the CIA (yes, that one, not the Culinary one) when I was working on my doctorate in psychology, for a profiler position, until I told them I was gay, at which time they offered me a job in the secretarial pool.

One of the things that was always present, and it’s been said more eloquently by many veterans, including some who disagree with the take-a-knee stance, was that part of what we were there to protect was people’s right to dissent, people’s right to free speech, people’s right to protest. That’s part of what America is all about.

And I understand the urge, the need, to protest. I’m not black, never have been, never will be. But I am gay, and I am Jewish, and I have had my share of prejudice to deal with. Setting aside being asked to leave the Army and the CIA, I’ve been fired from two jobs for it. In the restaurant business of all places. Going back to my days as a paramedic, I was stripped of being a supervisor because of it. And actually, before that, I’d worked as a security guard on University of Michigan’s campus, and I was stripped of being a supervisor there for being gay too. I’ve been physically attacked for it at least a dozen times that I can think of. I was refused admittance to Yom Kippur services at a synagogue of which I’d been a member for years, when the board of the synagogue took it into their heads to root out the homosexuals. And when it comes to verbal abuse, both for being gay and for being Jewish, I can’t remotely begin to count the number of incidents I’ve been through in my life.

And so, I’ve participated, mostly in my younger years, in protests and rallies and organizations and what-have-you that were in favor of gay rights, or against antisemitism. I don’t do so much of that anymore because I’m simply tired of having life being about a constant battle. I just don’t have the energy to invest in it, I want my energy invested in things that are positive, and creative, and yeah, I know that may be a cop out, but so be it.

So here’s the thing. I viscerally don’t like what Colin Kaepernick did that launched this whole movement. It’s automatic. I’m one of those people who when someone doesn’t stand during the Pledge, or doesn’t put their hand over their heart, nudges them to do so. But I wouldn’t force them to. I wouldn’t call them names. I wouldn’t demand they be punished. Because I recognize that regardless of my personal feelings about it, they have the right to theirs. I recognize that he, and the other players who have now taken a stand, or a knee, beside him, aren’t “disrespecting the flag”, anymore than any other person who chooses not to recite the Pledge is. They’re not “expressing a political opinion”.

They’re calling attention to the fact that after decades of supposed progress in integration and equal treatment, we just aren’t there yet. Be it in opportunities, compensation, inclusion, oppression, violence, or hey, even joke-telling, it just ain’t equal. As a friend posted earlier today on Facebook, “Thinking NFL players are ‘protesting the flag’ is like thinking Rosa Parks was protesting public transportation.”

I know this from my particular circle in the world, when here we are in 2017 and I have friends and acquaintances, many of them who claim to be bastions of tolerance and liberalism, who think nothing of telling fag jokes, or making comments about Henry’s and my relationship that they’d never make to a straight couple, or making assumptions about our relationship based on our age and cultural/racial differences (the latter brings up a whole other can of worms that has allowed me to see some disturbing racism in friends whom I never wouldathunkit of) or thinking it’s okay to comment on their imagination about what my (or other gay people’s) sex life is all about, or imploring me to “understand” why someone, at random, or an employer, or whomever, has a reaction to my being gay (usually justified by some sort of religious context).

To sum it up, while I personally will probably always stand and recite the Pledge, and the flag is something that holds a place in my heart, that’s emotional. As a thinking person, and as someone who believes in democracy, I will also always respect the right of any of my fellow citizens to not to do so. I may not like it, but I get it. And that’s the key point I want to make. It doesn’t actually matter why Kaepernick, or anyone else, chooses not to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Even if there were no racism, no oppression, even if it was all, as the saying goes, rainbows and unicorns, for people of color, it’s irrelevant. We live in a democracy and they don’t have to stand or pledge. That’s their right.

And yes, sure, an individual team owner could choose to fire them for it, legally – First Amendment rights don’t apply to employment situations (unless your employer is the government). And I’d support the right of that employer to do so, even if I don’t think they should, morally – the issues are too important in this day and age. And you know what, it’s a minute at the beginning of a football game. Stand, pledge your heart out, let the players (and spectators) who choose not to, have their moment too, and then get on with the game. And then after the game, let’s get to work on the issues they’re protesting so that one day, hopefully soon, no one feels the need to take a knee.

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Commentary

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The Book Stack #10

Friday, June 23, 20170

jumbled books

Eleven more books for your reading stack!

My Year of Meats: A Novel by Ruth Ozeki (1999)

An amusingly comic look at a weird combination of the world of meat production, Japanese television culture, and family life. I’m not even sure how to go beyond that in describing it, other than to say that it touches on so many cultural tropes, so brilliantly, that I had trouble putting the book down. We have traditional Japanese men and women, we have modern Japanese-American men and women, we have non-Japanese, “wholesome, middle American” men and women, and they all combine into a ground together amazing whole.

Fair warning, you may come out of the book never wanting to eat meat again – after all, to paraphrase a dictum, you don’t really want to watch sausage being made. ☆☆☆☆☆

Malevolent (Cases of Lieutenant Kane Series Book 1)
Requite (Cases of Lieutenant Kane Series Book 2) by E.H. Reinhard (2014, 2016)

I thought it was really well written, engaging. It’s very dark. In fact, numerous people seem to have given it negative ratings because it gets a bit graphic in the details of how the serial killer does stuff, but I’m not all that squeamish about medical/anatomical stuff, so I didn’t find it off-putting. In fact, it made it more real, rather than glossing over it. I also thought that the police side of things was well handled and felt more realistic, with a mix of plodding detective work, noticing small clues, a lucky break or two, etc. Looking forward to heading into the next books in the series. ☆☆☆☆

Like the first, I thought the second book was really well written and completely engrossing. I read through it in about two hours. Basically, the same review as the first book. ☆☆☆☆

The 56th Man (An Ari Ciminon Novel Book 1)
The Godless One (An Ari Ciminon Novel Book 2) by J. Clayton Rogers (2009, 2013)

I’m intrigued, plain and simple. I love detective and mystery and police procedural novels, they’re among my favorites. And I’ve read many a foreign version, which are often particularly interesting simply because of the cultural differences and getting a sense of those through the eyes of a protagonist operating in the midst of their own culture, and one I don’t know from personal experience. Here, we get that viewpoint, in this case of a former Iraqi military and police officer, now working for the U.S. governemnt, and plunked down in the middle of a world that I’m already familiar with. It adds the dimension of our sleuth not just having to solve a crime, but do it within an environment that’s as foreign to him as he is to us. Looking forward to the next volume. ☆☆☆☆

Following on really liking the first volume of this series I was looking forward to another mystery/police procedural in the same vein as I headed into the second book. While the characters remain, instead this volume heads into the world of Middle Eastern politics and personal revenge on the part of the protagonist. And, while still well written and compelling, it’s a story that comes across as a bit unbelievable. ☆☆☆☆

vN: The First Machine Dynasty
iD: The Second Machine Dynasty by Madeline Ashby (2012, 2013)

The idea of artificial life forms, be they machine intelligence, androids, robots, petri dish grown clones, or what-have-you, often makes for an interesting sci-fi premise and story. At the same time, usually with other than brief glimpses into the thoughts or subroutines of the entity in question, the stories are almost always told from the perspective of a third person, usually human. I imagine that’s because it’s easier to approach the genre from there – how do we, humans, deal with, interact with, etc., etc. This book flips that around and approaches the entire story from the point of view of one “vN”, as she comes to grips with, in essence, her “coming of age” in a still dominantly human society. It’s well done, intriguing, and in the opposite of what I normally find with these sorts of stories where it occurs to me to wonder “what’s this look like from the android’s view?”, I found myself thinking, “oh wow, we’d never have come to that conclusion…”. ☆☆☆☆

Following on how much I liked book one, I was really looking forward to book two, and it didn’t disappoint. Picking up within moments of the finale of the first book, this one launches full tilt into the conflict between humans and vN, the “androids” who are essentially the other dominant species on the planet by this point. And things escalate from there, coming to yet another finale that leaves things open for another volume – which has been added to my wishlist for when it becomes available on Kindle. ☆☆☆☆

Debt of Bones (Sword of Truth Prequel)
Wizard’s First Rule (Sword of Truth Book 1) by Terry Goodkind (1994)

I started this series as part of working my way through a list that was published on Buzzfeed of the best series of fantasy novels out there. I’ve sort of made it my audiobook listening for while I’m working in the kitchen when I’m not overly involved in what I have to pay attention to. As such, I’ll admit, I miss some stuff here and there – and it’s an extremely long book (4 hours of audio for the prequel and 34 hours for volume one), so it took awhile to get through it. ☆☆☆☆

I really enjoy the world that Goodkind has designed here, and the interaction of the various factions. I also like that while the book is a part of a series, and I’m looking forward to the rest, it’s a self contained story arc. At the least, while there are things left open to develop in the future, the main thrust of volume 1, the battle between our protagonist, a “Seeker”, Richard Cypher, and the antagonist, a sort of dark lord, Darken Rahl, actually comes to a quite satisfying conclusion. And in the prequel, we are introduced to some of the key characters and the events which start them down the path that begins in book one. ☆☆☆☆

Pandora by Anne Rice (2010)

I read the book that started this whole enterprise (and pretty much the whole genre of vampire stories in its modern incarnation), Interview with a Vampire, so many years ago I barely remember it. This one just popped across my reading stack as a last minute something that someone had left a paperback in a hotel room and I picked it up and started in on it. Not my favorite genre of reading, but an enjoyable and relatively quick read, so thumbs up, but not enough to grab me to run back to more of the books. ☆☆☆

The Big Bow Mystery by Israel Zangwill (1892)

Generally considered the first ever “locked room mystery”, the book is less about the mystery than it is about the characters involved in the investigation. Extremely well written prose. As the readers, we’re afforded little in the way of detail – we’re not party to the investigation itself, we don’t get to see any clues, we aren’t privy to any interviews or depositions, such as they may have been at the time (this book was published in 1892, London). Instead, we get to listen in to the thoughts and occasionally the conversations, of the various witnesses and one of the principal investigators, who is outside the police force. As such, most of the enjoyment of the book comes from the intricacies of their observations and musings. The end result may or may not be a surprise, it depends on how close attention you’re paying to those various inner monologues, but it’s not the result that matters in the last pages anyway. ☆☆☆☆

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Books (Reviews)