Here’s my little quixotic, rhapsodic essay on life at the (now-quaint?) point of week 7 in quarantine, as we lived it in Utrecht, Holland. Published by The Farmer General, which casts a culinary eye upon the world, my focus was on food, comfort, and finding meaning in the quotidian during troubled times. Real talk: it was just another excuse to thumb through Amanda Hesser’s 2004 memoir-cum-cookbook, Cooking for Mister Latte, in which she waxes on about salt air and fresh oysters and little butter and prosciutto sandwiches for long airplane rides… I’ve basically been trying to be her intern these 16 years since. No word on that as yet, but I will surely keep you posted on my progress…
Category Archives: Around Town
“Art and China after 1989”
Today, the Guggenheim exhibit “Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World” closes here in New York City.
I did not go expecting to see any works of great beauty. To be sure, there were none. But so, too, did I not expect to see a view of China’s artists straining so mightily—and exclusively—under the weight of the CCP regime. That is the singular narrative. Portrait after portrait, list after list, needle after needle, video after video: oppression. I wondered: could there not be even just one alternate voice, one perspective from a slightly different angle that had turned its head not to the sun but, instead, toward the sky?
Continue reading
Writing As Resistance
It is possible to write your heart and your mind, both, to the point where they meet each other. There, they will shake hands and say “hello”. They will make small talk and exchange pleasantries. They will ask about wives and children. They will laugh. And you will shake your head at their fine demeanor and grand talk. Because you will know them for what they are, for they are yours. More here.
Gunna Press This Damn Duck If It’s The Last Thing I Do
When life gives you cooling weather, I say, smash a duck inside the wicked confines of a duck press. These and other thoughts on the change of the seasons, the need for inhumane yet nourishing sustenance, and much, much more in my recent essay on the glorious la presse a canard.
Goodbye to All That
Because everything is ephemeral and nothing lasts forever and if you want to keep it around you’ve got to build it yourself, I’ve grabbed this piece I wrote for Gawker and just want to put it here. Today I read of the site’s demise and pending shutdown, all of which has sent the New York media society abuzz. So it goes. And, so, goodbye to all that! I, for one, am looking forward to seeing what the kids come up with next…
Centuries of Eloise
Channeled the original Doyen of the Plaza for a new article-sized dose of time-traveling snacks and treats, curtesy of the New York Public Library‘s newly digitized selection of menus. Come swan around with me, nibbling patties of frog legs and sipping every last mint julep we can get our hands on. As my dear friend’s three year old daughter queried this past weekend, “What about raisins?!” Indeed, we’d kindly like a silver dish of those too please! Thank you!
Last Call
Thrilled to have a new piece up on the freshly revamped yet ever-glorious Farmer General, edited by superstar Sarah Kanabay. The issue, titled “Don’t Call It a Comeback”, features stories of summer kitchens and pie and ghosts and the phrase “silvered fingers” to describe that particular discoloration that happens when you root around in the dusty nail bin at the hardware store for too long. How true! Mine is about addiction in its many forms and guises. Thank you, Sarah!!
Writing for the Union Papers
What fun to put this piece together, and I loved providing a keenly nod to the glorious MFK Fisher in my chosen nom de guerre.
Onward, spring semester!
UPDATE: This piece was awarded First Place by the UFT Labor Communications Council, with special citation for Best Work by a Member, 2016. Huzzah!
KGB Bar Reading, NYC
Great kicking fun at last night’s lit reading at the KGB Bar. Loved the theme of “New York Stories”, the diversity of styles, and the inimitable Pat Zumhagen who organized. Sweet night in the city!
Why Can’t I be a Bureaucrat?
There are a lot of things I love in life: coffee, croissants and a real newspaper in the morning; slipping between the closing doors of a departing subway train; Annie Hall. But few things top the feeling of publishing a new poem.
Caroline M Cooper 