Another Grab Bag Edition
Because I am planning for a ten days of travel, I’m having a hard time focusing on specific topics today. I thought I’d spout off about some random stuff and hope you still love me by the end of it.
Long time readers know that I occasionally like to post reviews of Italian subs that I’ve eaten. I had one the other day from OK’s Deli that must not have been too exciting because I don’t remember much about it at this point. It’s not a regular feature on their menu. Here’s what I do remember: the meat (ham, salami, mortadella) was sliced thin but it was layered flat so it seemed like one thick cold cut. I like the meat so thin that it’s almost shaved and it gets piled on the bread in little hills. It seems lighter that way. Dare I say fluffy. The toppings were to my liking, although I could have done with a little more red wine vinegar and I don’t recall, sitting here, whether the lettuce was shredded or not. The bread in this case was the real weirdo. It was ciabatta. That was a surprise. Ciabatta is a square and not very dense. It doesn’t hold the dressing very well. I guess that’s why there wasn’t much red wine vinegar. Anyway, I will give the OK’s Italian a 6.75/10 score. I need to find someplace that puts their Italian subs on the exact bread I want even though I don’t know what that bread is.
Paul Auster just died and I’m going to be brutally honest and tell you that I have not read a single word this man has written and I don’t know anything about him other than what I just read in his obituary. But smart people whose taste in books I trust are lamenting his passing in my social feeds, so I think I need to remedy this gap. A lot of other people must have had the same reaction because now all of his books have at least eight holds on them at the library. What other authors would you recommend that you think I may not have heard of? I don’t want to be taken by surprise by another unknown literary superstar’s obituary for a while.
Speaking of books, I think I mentioned I am writing another one. I won’t go into the plot here, but I can tell you it’s speculative fiction. No one seems to agree on what that terms means, but as this essay notes it is often a story that answers a What If? question where the factors can vary from the quotidien to the bizarre. I just read a work of speculative fiction called The Biography of X, by Catherine Lacey, which answers the question: What if the widow of one of the world’s most provocative artists were to write a biography of her late wife, learning in the process about X’s birth in, and escape from, an American South that most closely resembled an evangelical Christian North Korea? Kind of a mouthful of a “What If?”, I acknowledge. It’s very well-written and compelling, but in the end, the reader wants to know more about the narrator, who remains obscure for reasons unknown. I guess maybe that’s the point of it?
Heading to NYC tomorrow. Brook and I are toying with the idea of getting up early on Friday to stand on line to get seats at the Trump trial. I’ll let you know if that happens. I would like to send Judge Merchan a message because I have an idea for the appropriate punishment for Trump’s violations of the gag order. Instead of monetary fines, which are easy for Trump to pay, or jail time, which would make Trump a martyr and also be a logistical nightmare that would distract from the case itself, Judge Merchan should order Trump to use an old flip phone and confiscate his mobile devices. Trump could still make calls, he just wouldn’t be able to “Truth.” If someone knows Judge Merchan, pass this tip along. Otherwise, I’m thinking about writing Merchan a postcard with this idea on it.
Back to packing. If you are in New York this weekend, hit me up. I will have time to hang out while Brook is going to a THE-8-ER performance that I don’t want to attend. I’ll save my theater antipathy rant for another day and buy you a drink.
