Chapter 26: In which Fosco's culinary adventures become ridiculous.

JennyT has the coolest job. As a very important executive in a company that imports bronze Buddhas from Thailand, she frequently gets to visit the SF Bay area. You may recall her previous visits in the last few months, chronicled heah and heah. And remember that time she and her husband, the Swedish Meatball, visited Santa Cruz? Yeah, me too. That was fun.

Last week, she was back! And we spent a drizzly afternoon eating our way across San Francisco. I've mentioned before that JennyT and I both consider eating to be the primary touristic activity, but this time we took it to an absurd level.

We began at Fosco's new favorite place in the whole universe (even more than The Watergarden!): the Ferry Building. This place is a foodie's absolute DREAM! No wonder Rachael Ray began her San Francisco episode of "Tasty Travels" there. JennyT and I started with lunch at retro/hipster burger joint Taylor's Automatic Refresher (and, may I add, James Beard award winner!). I enjoyed my Texas Blue Ring burger (bleu cheese, bacon, bbq sauce, topped with an onion ring) and garlic-parsley fries. I wish my cell took better pix, because those fries were smackin'.

We then browsed through the specialty shops in the Ferry Building Marketplace. However, we kept running afoul of a twenty-person production crew in teal polo-shirts filming an episode of some show called "Take Home Chef." As far as I can tell from my 20 second perusal of the website, it appears to be some sort of cooking show with a chef/gigolo. It all looked a bit dodgy to us in person: the "chef" was wearing pancake makeup and appeared to be a graduate of Handsome Boy Modeling School. And whenever we tried to shop at a store, the crew would show up and push us out of the way. It was so not cool. Who would have thought that you need a twenty-person crew to film a show that I've never heard of?

Eventually, Johnny Fancypants and his cameras left and we were able to get down to serious dessert-hunting. We stopped at Miette for pastries. I had a delicious chocolate cupcake capped by a perfect Taj Mahal dome of marshmallow cream. JennyT enjoyed a dark chocolate tartlette. So buttery was that crust!

Of course, preparations had to be made for future desserts, and Fosco found himself enthralled by the creations of boutique chocolatier Michael Recchiuti. At $50/pound, Fosco was unable to buy the five pounds that he wanted. However, he still managed to buy at least one of almost every assorted chocolate (which he consumed later that evening while in his pajamas). His favorites:

• Bergamot Tea
  
• Cardamom Nougat
  
• Tarragon Grapefruit
  
• Honeycomb Malt
  

and, although it was a little strange, Fosco is still a bit haunted by the Star Anise and Pink Peppercorn chocolate.

After leaving the Ferry Building, we realized that it was time for a second dessert and so we headed over to SoMa to enjoy the brilliance of Japanese creampuffs at Beard Papa. I had never had a Beard Papa cream puff, but nothing says delicious like beards... Have you seen this Beard Papa guy? Clearly, this is a gentleman who enjoys cream puffs.



Will it surprise you that they are delicious? They are, although the best thing about the whole experience may be the whiff of fresh creampuff that greets you at the door.


Although they are a franchise, it seems that you're out-of-luck unless you live in the Northeast, California, or Hawaii. Or Japan.

Next, JennyT and I did our only non-food-related activity for the day: we paid our respects at the Tower Records Wake/Going-Out-of-Business Sale (at the oldest Tower Records in San Francisco--since 1968). On the day we went, the CDs were 70% off. The DVDs were even cheaper. I bought that Radiohead documentary and a bunch of emo-ish CDs (how is it that they were still on the shelves? Oh yeah, everyone but me hates emo.) The nearby "Classical Annex" was already shuttered--classical fans had cleaned it out weeks ago. I think JennyT bought some store fixtures. This was a particularly poignant activity for me, as I spent probably thousands of dollars as a college student at the Tower Records in Harvard Square. Probably half of my classical CD's are from that store. Alas.

Shopping made us hungry. And so, we headed for dinner at hole-in-the-wall hipster hangout Emmy's Spaghetti Shack in the Mission District. It's really pretty brilliant, actually. The spaghetti with meatballs is killer--and I mean that. Spaghetti is not an easy dish to make interesting/memorable at a restaurant, but Emmy's does it exceptionally well. I also enjoyed a delightful Lime Basil Mandarin Martini (pictured at right, a la John Mackey): Ketel One, Lime Juice, Basil Simple Syrup and Orange Water. Yum! The one drawback with this place was that JennyT and I were seated between two tables of foul-smelling bohemians (you know, like the characters is Rent). I have written at length about the problems I have with the Left's lack of hygiene, but this was just gross.

And just think: if I hadn't had to rush back to Santa Cruz for a social engagement, JennyT and I might have been able to have Second Dinner together as well!

It's the end of the quarter. Do I feel fine?

Whew. It's over. The Fall Quarter is finally over and, now that Fosco has slept for a week, it's time for the recap. Ergo, we have Fosco's post-quarter wrap-up...

1. Fosco was warned that the quarter system is noticeably different from the semester system and it's true. The problem is that 12-14 weeks of work are condensed into 10 weeks of class. This isn't a major issue with lecture; however, it is extremely problematic for writing a paper--it turns out those missing weeks are necessary.

2. I spent most of the quarter writing what turned out to be a thirty page paper on the Slovenian theorist Slavoj Žižek and his Hegelian-Lacanian rehabilitation of the Cartesian Cogito.

I spent most of the quarter reading almost all of his oeuvre, vacillating between repulsion and ambivalence. I think I ended up somewhere near ambivalence.

Following Ted's admirable example, I will excerpt a couple of paragraphs from my paper here. These paragraphs occur near the end of my argument as I transition to my conclusion:

Žižek’s third objection to Heidegger contrasts with the first two in that it lacks sustained development in his work: in fact, it appears only in an endnote. However, I want to claim that this criticism of Heidegger is the most telling in that it exemplifies most clearly Žižek’s project and reveals him at his most strangely hermeneutic. In an (endnote) discussion of the differences between Heidegger’s early and late phases, Žižek notes that both phases share a similar style: “they are both ‘deadly serious’ […]. What is missing in both cases is joyful irony, the very fundamental feature of Nietzsche’s style” (Ticklish 67 n.16, emphasis in original). As Žižek never elaborates on this apparently meaningful feature of Heidegger’s style, I do not want to develop an argument here to justify this criticism (although it is certainly easy enough to imagine one). On the contrary, I prefer to read this criticism as a symptom of a preoccupation of Žižek’s own project. While this endnote functions as a denigration of Heidegger’s style, it also serves as a celebration of a philosophical style of “joyful irony” and “playfulness” (as one possible opposition to the “deadly serious”)—a style that Žižek ascribes (rightly) to Nietzsche. However, at the same time, there is another practitioner of joyful irony present in this endnote: Žižek himself. After all, it is Žižek who conducts interviews with himself (Metastases 167-217), discusses cultural differences in toilet design (Plague 4-5), who begins his most philosophically-accomplished work with a discussion of film noir (Tarrying 9-12), and who, even at the height of pure philosophical seriousness, interrupts his explication to recount a dirty joke (too many examples to cite). It is Žižek who titles chapter divisions things like “It’s the Political Economy, Stupid!” or “Toward the Theory of the Stalinist Musical.” And it is Žižek who (unfortunately) in the first paragraph of the introduction to Enjoy Your Symptom! exclaims (in an homage to Thomas de Quincey) “How many people have entered the way of perdition with some innocent gangbang, which at the time was of no great importance to them, and ended by sharing the main dishes in a Chinese restaurant!” (ix). How many, indeed.

Why is Žižek trying so hard? At the beginning of this essay, I quoted Denise Gigante’s characterization of Žižek: “rather than importing interdisciplinary texts and events to his own theoretical perspective, he functions as a ‘vanishing mediator,’ mediating between various theoretical points of view” (153). While I agree with Gigante that Žižek does function as a mediator between theoretical points of view (while refusing to provide an identifiable “Žižekian” theoretical conclusion), I would insist that there is nothing “vanishing” about Žižek’s performance of mediation. Rather, Žižek’s style is calculated to prevent his vanishing—when you are reading Žižek, it is impossible to forget that you are reading Žižek. Žižek’s pose here is interesting in that it seems to gesture toward what Foucault identifies as one of the fundamental characteristics of hermeneutics: “one does not interpret what is in the signified, but one interprets after all: who posed the interpretation. The basis of interpretation is nothing but the interpreter, and this is perhaps the meaning that Nietzsche gave to the word ‘psychology’” (278). In a very real sense, Žižek is offering this possibility to us, his readers. By mediating, yet refusing to vanish, is the ultimate activity in interpreting Žižek actually literally interpreting Žižek?

Yeah, I know: it's hard to believe this is what I get "paid" to do.

3. I think my first experience as a TA for an English class was successful. My students were pretty amazing, actually. I was particularly thrilled by the student who approached me after our final section and said "Thank you for not being an asshole." I'm thinking about making this the primary tenet of my pedagogy: don't be an asshole. It's not bad advice, actually.

Of course, it has been five days since I turned in final grades and I've already gotten one student complaint... Does that make me an asshole?

4. Next quarter, most of the faculty in the Literature department will be located in the new Humanities building. As far as I can tell, this is the UC's devious plan to ghettoize the humanities. After all, the new building has no ceilings (it was over budget by that point...) and no sound-proofing in the walls (true!). Even more interesting, the story making the rounds has it that History of Consciousness Professor Angela Davis has likened the new building's concrete interior to that of a prison. And she should know. For some reason, I don't think the sciences have to deal with facilities like this.

Watch this space for some non-academic updates in the next few days...

Fat Studies hits the big time [rimshot].

Fosco is a conference whore. Last fall, he presented a paper at the Midwestern Popular Culture Association Conference on a Fat Studies panel. Now, according to the NYTimes, Fat Studies is huge [giggle]. Read about it here. It was an excellent conference, actually. And the Fat Studies people (several of whom are quoted in the Times article) are really interesting and helpful.

For your consideration, here is an excerpt from Count Fosco's paper presented last fall. It was entitled "Can Fat Men Be Gay?: The Tension Between Obesity and Homosexuality Within Gay Male Culture":

To the extent that, to modern sensibilities, male sexual desire and fatness are unimaginable together, the animosity of gay men toward fatness becomes more explicable. Being gay in our culture is, almost by definition, a matter of sexual desire. The gay man identifies himself as possessing a certain type of sexual desire—a desire that, to a greater or lesser extent, focuses on other men. Gay pride, the explicit use of the “us” that Savage employs in his discussion of hate crimes, is, in this view, a solidarity based on sexual desire. Savage identifies with this group because he has similar desires. If Gilman is correct in suggesting that the fatness and desire are viewed as incompatible, Savage’s exclusion of fat gay men from his idea of “us” becomes more understandable: if fat men do not have sexual desire, they cannot be included in a group that is defined by sexual desire. In this view, the answer to the question of this paper’s title is clearly “no”: fat men cannot also be gay.
[...]
I am not suggesting that all of gay men’s antifat prejudice is due to the belief that fat gay men do not share the same desires as they do. There are plenty of other negative stereotypes about fat people that gay men, like everyone else in the culture, are exposed to on a daily basis. I don’t want to downplay the other negative stereotypes about fat people, like that we are lazy or lacking in willpower. And I certainly don’t want to discount the powerful anti-fat attractiveness norms that have developed in our society, such that fat people are automatically coded as disgusting. However, I do want to suggest that some of the prejudice that gay men feel toward fat people, as well as some of the anxiety that gay men feel about getting fat, is attributable to the belief that fatness is incompatible with sexual desire. Fatness, then, strikes at the root of a gay man’s self-definition; it is easy to see why fatness becomes threatening. Although the multiply-determined nature of anti-fat prejudice makes it difficult to combat, this analysis suggests that, in order to combat this prejudice among gay men, the realities of fat sexual desire need to be asserted. The belly-dancers-of-size need to be seen at more than just the gay pride parade—we need to see them on television, rub elbows with them in the bars and clubs, and, yes, even read about them in our erotica. Only then will gay men truly begin to build a solidarity based on sexual desire.

Okay, so maybe this wasn't the most academic paper that Fosco has ever written... but it sure was a hoot to present. However, I have no doubt that there will be more opportunities for Fosco to do some good Gay Studies scholarship. Here's to the fat, fat future!

Happy Birthday, Parson Yorick!

On this day in 1713, Laurence Sterne was born in Clonmel, Ireland. Fosco has for years now been a fan of Sterne's masterpiece, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. This quarter, however, as a TA for the 18-century novel, Fosco has come to appreciate Sterne even more. His modernity is uncanny: in Tristram Shandy, Sterne managed to write a postmodern novel in 1760--at least 200 years before the such a category was even recognized.

Sterne work can be difficult, but it is extremely rewarding--mostly because it's hilarious. For the course this quarter, we read Sterne's travel novel, A Sentimental Journey, in which Sterne's alter ego, Parson Yorick, embarks on an impromptu journey to the Continent. This is no traditional travel narrative, however. Parson Yorick spends most of his time flirting with filles de chambre, mocking previous travel writers (like Tobias Smollett), and finding excuses to cry.

Here's a charming excerpt from A Sentimental Journey, in which Sterne makes fun of Smollett in the guise of "Smelfungus":

The learned SMELFUNGUS travelled from Boulogne to Paris--from Paris to Rome--and so on--but he set out with the spleen and jaundice, and every object he pass'd by was discoloured or distorted--He wrote an account of them, but 'twas nothing but the account of his miserable feelings.

I met Smelfungus in the grand portico of the Pantheon--he was just coming out of it--'Tis nothing but a huge cock-pit, said he--I wish you had said nothing worse of the Venus of Medicis, replied I--for in passing through Florence, I had heard he had fallen foul upon the goddess, and used her worse than a common strumpet, without the least provocation in nature.

I popp'd upon Smelfungus again at Turin, in his return home; and a sad tale of sorrowful adventures he had to tell, 'wherein he spoke of moving accidents by flood and field, and of the cannibals which each other eat: the Anthropophagi'--he had been flea'd alive, and bedevil'd, and used worse than St. Bartholomew, at every stage he had come at--

--I'll tell it, cried Smelfungus, to the world. You had better tell it, said I, to your physician.

I love it. That response is the eighteenth-century equivalent of "Tell it to your therapist." How can you not love Laurence Sterne?

Gratitude Journal

What are you thankful for? Fosco tries not to be too thankful, because well, Oprah seems to think it's a good idea... (and that's a good enough reason to avoid it). But, if Fosco has to make a list of what he is thankful for, this is it:

• the 99-cent monster taco from Jack in the Box
  
• the new Thomas Pynchon novel--I can't wait for Holiday Break to read it!
  
• "Veronica Mars"--if you aren't watching, you're a loser. Even if (like someone who will remain nameless) Kristen Bell reminds you of a muppet.
  
• the word "macaca"
  
• Eiswein (Hint: this was a special Thanksgiving treat today at Fosco's dinner...)
  

Happy Thanksgiving from Santa Cruz.

Showing Off Santa Cruz

You may remember JennyT's last visit to NorCal. Well, apparently the metallic paper business is treating her well, as she was back in San Francisco on business again last week and this time, she brought her Swedish Meatball husband, Mantis, along as well (you may recall that JennyT and Mantis were Best Couple Ever nominees not too long ago). This time, they stayed an extra weekend for some sightseeing and a road trip to Santa Cruz last Saturday. That's them right there in Fosco's living room (looking purposefully cranky).

The best thing about JennyT (well, okay, one of the best things) is that she, like Fosco, loves the "eating vacation"--the vacation where one visits as many different good restaurants as possible. Of course, we always find ourselves rubbing up against that damn "three meals a day" limitation of the human body. But we fight it valiantly. Mantis, on the other hand, likes to walk on vacation. And walk and walk and walk. He spent most of his week (while JennyT was in business meetings) exploring a rainy San Francisco on foot. But, Santa Cruz is Fosco's territory, which means that we mostly ate and did not walk.

JennyT is such an experienced vacation eater that she managed to find a restaurant that she wanted to try on the drive from SF to Santa Cruz. Well-played, mon ami, well-played. I had never heard of the Bay Area chain Hobee's, but JennyT and Mantis recommend it highly. They arrived on Fosco's doorstep with an entire Hobee's blueberry coffeecake (with cinnamon-sugar crumbles on top!) for Fosco and it was delicious. Fosco will drive up to Hobee's someday soon. You know what else is good about Hobee's? The picture at right (from their website) of their president. He's kind of a tool, huh?

After another (typically) exceptional lunch at Gayle's, I got to show J&M my fave Santa Cruz sights, including the West Cliffs:

The crazy Steamer Lane surfers:

And the view from the Lower Campus at UCSC:

We took the requisite nature hike through UCSC Central Campus and everyone was duly impressed with the mysterious redwoods. We visited a local "attraction" (more on this later). We had a deliciously sushirific dinner at Shogun on Pacific Ave. In all, it was a delightul day with two of my favorite friends.

Which leads us to the question: when will you visit Fosco in Santa Cruz?

Halloween: The Carnivalesque OR The Return of the Repressed

Everyone kept telling me that Halloween in Santa Cruz is a "thing"--as in, a thing not to be believed. This seemed strange to me as I haven't taken Halloween seriously since, oh, around 1985. Maybe five years ago, I dressed up--but that was only to attend a party. So Halloween being a "thing" here is pretty strange to me.

But Fosco is nothing if not a good sport, so he dressed up.

You know those "conceptual costumes" that are really popular with college students? The ones where they dress up as an idea or a pun or a phrase? And all because:

• college students are too clever for their own good.
  
• they're broke and it's easier to make a clever sign than to buy/rent a full sexy nun's habit.

Well, Fosco hates those kinds of costumes. Hates them.

And yet... Fosco is ashamed to admit that his empty pockets (did you know that UC grad students don't receive their first paycheck until November 1? It's true.) and excessive cleverness got the better of him, causing him to resort to costuming himself as... A THEORY. And not just any theory, sadly, but Lacan's Theory of the Divided Subject (the barred S, for those of you who are keeping score at home). I'm not proud of this, but luckily, there are no pictures.

I do have pictures of better costumes, such as those worn by Best Couple Ever nominees Michael and Laurel. As you can see below, Laurel is Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, despite the fact that she is unquestionably lovelier. Michael is tricked out brilliantly as Canadian hockey announcer (and all-around nutjob) Don Cherry.



The Santa Cruz Halloween thing involves going downtown (to the Pacific Avenue shopping district) and people-watching. How could this be entertaining? I guess I forgot to mention that 15,000 other people do the exact same thing.

And it's true: I could not believe Halloween in Santa Cruz could be such an event. For almost ten blocks, Pacific Avenue was packed with thousands and thousands of people in costumes, many/most of them drunk. What were the popular costumes? It varied, not surprisingly, by gender.

Popular Male Costumes

• Nacho Libre
  
• Borat
  
• Ghostbuster (I know! Can you believe it? I think that was my 1985 costume.)
  
• Jedi
  
• sheepfucker (we saw THREE! see one below)

Somehow this guy (whoever he is) fails to be appropriately embarassed. Sigh.

And for women?

• sexy devil
  
• sexy butterfly
  
• sexy angel
  
• sexy cowgirl
  
• sexy woman

Or, perhaps it would be more succinct this way...

Popular Female Costumes

• whore

I really wanted to take a picture that would illustrate this point, but I felt a bit uncomfortable taking pictures of scantily-clad whore-women. Finally, I snapped the photo below from a distance. As far as I can tell, each of the women in it are a different variety of whore...


Does this make anyone else uncomfortable?

As a grad student in literature, there are two ways I like to think about this kind of Halloween event. On the one hand, the downtown scene seems clearly an example of Bakhtin's "carnivalesque"--the state of social disorder/misrule in which authority is (temporarily) overturned. I always thought this sounded like fun; now I'm not so sure. If Santa Cruz Halloween is a good example of the Bakhtinian Carnival, then it's actually pretty scary. Last year at SC Halloween, there were seven stabbings; this year, with increased police presence (and floodlights), there were only two (plus several melees). Although most of the violence seems to be gang-related, it's still pretty scary to be in the middle of a huge crowd where

1. identity is almost totally concealed
   
2. most people are intoxicated or high
   
3. the police (despite being nearby) aren't close enough nor powerful enough to re-install order
   
4. there are plenty of non-costumed middle-aged male spectators standing on the streets ogling the lingerie-clad women

Now, I don't want to live in a police state (did I ever think I would start a sentence like this?), but there is something to be said for everyday norms of public interaction.

The other way of thinking about Halloween is in terms of the Freudian "uncanny"--as the "return of the repressed." But what does this mean for Santa Cruz Halloween? My colleagues and I are puzzled. All of the sexuality on display on Pacific Avenue would seem to be a good candidate for repression IF these costumes weren't so similar to what women wear to go dancing every other weekend of the year. It's hard to consider this spurt of Halloween over-sexuality as a return of the repressed, if sexuality isn't repressed in the first place. Are our notions of Halloween now absurdly out-of-date? Has it become a holiday devoted not to the scary or the uncanny, but to the frankly sexual? I think I would feel more comfortable about this if it weren't just the women who ended up dressing like whores. Can I see some sexy men next Halloween?

Oh yeah, and it was freezing that night (well, actually around 45, but that's cold for here...), so Fosco got a smidge of a cold.

I am Lazarus, come from the dead

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all

You have just experienced, Dear Readers, a characteristic Count Fosco disappearance. But fear not foul play (unless one counts the pernicious influence of Slavoj Žižek as foul play). No--for the last two weeks, Fosco has roamed the Underworld, feasting on pomegranate seeds, and yet... he has been allowed to return to the world of the living.

I have come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all.

You see, it all started with Halloween...

From the Annals of Poster Hermeneutics

The irony is that I saw this sign on the way to my seminar on theories of textual interpretation (aka, hermeneutics).



I would have stopped by, but I'm pretty sure it would have been too late by the time I saw the poster (and besides, I'm not very good in dangerous situations).

God Hates San Francisco

Fosco does like the occasional author talk, although unfortunately any future talks at Bookshop Santa Cruz are now totally out of the question, thanks to the store's nasty opposition to raising the Santa Cruz minimum wage. (If you're a Santa Cruzian, join the boycott!) But it was Fosco's personal assistant Geoffrey this time who dragged a worn-out Fosco to the Capitola Book Cafe last night to see geological (and more) essayist Simon Winchester.

Anyone who has read Fosco's recent journey across the country on I-80 (see Achives "2006-07-09" and "2006-07-16" below and to the right) knows that Fosco is fascinated by geology--especially the violent kind (sedimentation is, let's face it, a little snoozy). However, Fosco is a bit of geology snob: he prefers Princetonian and Pulitzer-Prize-winning John McPhee to "bestseller" authors like Simon Winchester. Of course, the problem is that Fosco has never actually read Simon Winchester... But Geoffrey has, and so there we were last night at Capitola Book Cafe, where Winchester was promoting his book about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

It turns out that Simon Winchester is really smart and entertaining. If I had known he was British (and an Oxonian), I wouldn't have resisted reading his books for the last few years. I'm not going to summarize his whole talk, which, interestingly, was a talk and not a reading (talks being preferable to readings, in my book); however, I will note three points he made:

• He characterized the governmental response to the 1906 earthquake as something of which Americans should be "proud," in contrast to the governmental response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 (of which Americans should "ashamed.") He also noted that the governmental response to the next San Francisco earthquake (and the clock is ticking) is likely to be bad, unless we start preparing now.
  
• He traced the historical accidents by which the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake could be blamed for the rise of American Christian Fundamentalism. Apparently, one of the most influential Pentecostal ministers in LA made a prediction three days before the Earthquake that God was going to send a sign. The next week, his church was overflowing and the Pentecostal movement was born.
  
• Sometime in the next 2500 years, the volcano under Yellowstone Park is going to explode, completely burying the entire Pacific Northwest under tons of ash. Of course, as Winchester notes, the human race will be extinct by then (even Americans!).

The thing that made me saddest about the 1906 Earthquake (I mean, other than all that death...) was that it destroyed the 1000 room Hotel Nymphomania. It seems that SF was Fosco's kind of city even then.

Here's a pic of Winchester preparing to sign a book for an aging hippie (ah, Santa Cruz...).


Oh, and here's a startling tidbit: according to Winchester, there is a 67% chance of a 6.5 magnitude (on the Richter Scale) earthquake occuring on either the San Andreas or Hayward fault by 2025. The San Adreas quake would flatten San Francisco; the Hayward quake would destroy Berkeley and Oakland. Assuming that Fosco remains in Santa Cruz for the next six years, basic probability theory explains that there is a 33% chance that the devastating quake will occur while he is here. Of course, either quake would be much less damaging in Santa Cruz, but still... Yikes.

The hantologie of Diamanda Galas, OR Cabaret in the Underworld

Fosco is a secret Goth. Sure, he doesn't participate sartorially in the movement, preferring khakis and button-down oxford shirts. However, he does frequently wear eyeliner. And, whenever he takes of those "which high school clique would you belong to" quizzes, he ends up as Goth (with Emo Kid a close second). (Strangely enough, Fosco was not a member of either clique when he actually was in high school, but these cliques were merely incipient back then.)

Perhaps Fosco's advisor Jody can sense his hidden gothness, as she suggested yesterday that he cut out of his evening class early in order to see Goth chanteuse Diamanda Galas in Santa Cruz last night. Although Fosco knew almost nothing about Diamanda Galas, he was willing to go for several reasons:

• the title of the show was "Guilty Guilty Guilty," which is really an irresistible title. How can that be bad?
  
• it was described as a "program of tragic and homicidal love songs and death songs." How can that be bad?
  
• he had actual faculty permission to leave class early to attend a concert. How can that be bad?

Before you think that I'm setting you up for some ironic reversal, let me make it clear: the concert was PHENOMENAL. Now let me tell you about it.

Diamanda entered the auditorium from the back and walked spotlit down the aisle to the stage where she took her seat at a piano enveloped in fog. She certainly makes an entrance. She was dressed in black, of course, looking a bit like a less-purposefully sexy Elvira. For her first song, the curtain behind the piano was lit deep funeral-home blue, with a red spot on the piano. The opening chords were funereal (and there was some electronic distortion added to the sound). This was all great fun, of course, as Fosco likes a good spectacle. But then she opened her mouth...

And THE VOICE came out.

That's actually a direct quote from Fosco's notes (he was taking notes for you, my pretties). Right in the middle of the page, after his descriptions of the show so far, Fosco suddenly writes: "THE VOICE."

Her voice is not like anything you have heard (at least on this side of the grave). She opened with "My World Is Empty Without You," a track that is available live in iTunes (should you desire to hear it). You can get a sense of THE VOICE from it, but you have to imagine hearing it in person. This is not a pleasant voice, rather, it COMMANDS. It seems it can do almost anything, actually. Over the course of the program, she yowled, she whispered, she howled, she screeched, and she did some kind of thing where, like the throat singers of Tuva she produced two notes at once. According to one of the press clippings available on her website:

Galás plays the piano like driving rain slapping on concrete, and she sings like a demon going to war, a Valkyrie scatting, a lizard queen seeking revenge for the dead… Galás is profound, rigorous, vocally unlimited, terrifying and utterly compelling.

That sounds about right.

The program was almost entirely covers (as far as I can tell), but I would be surprised if the ordinary listener could recognize most of them. She did a version of "Autumn Leaves" (at least I think it was "Autumn Leaves") that can only be described as Evil. There were several songs in French (one of them supposedly an Edith Piaf cover--imagine that, if you can) and one in Spanish (I think, although it could have been Italian). The final encore was the bone-chilling "Let My People Go," which haunted me for the rest of the night.

It is no accident that I used the verb "haunt" here. I would like to suggest, in a Derridean moment, that there is a "hauntology" (or hantologie in French) at work in Diamanda Galas. She reminds us of what is not there in these songs (and in music in general). This is music that acknowledges the power of ghosts, of the dead--and, perhaps, channels those spectres into actual appearance.

As I struggled throughout the concert to figure out how to describe her, I finally settled on this metaphor: Diamanda Galas is what Cabaret is like in the Underworld. By the "Underworld," I mean the Greek Underworld (specifically, probably the Asphodel Meadows) where normal souls are not rewarded with Heaven or punished with torment, but rather mill about in a less-pleasant version of life on earth, haunted by memories of their life on earth and desirous of news of the living. This is what Diamanda Galas evokes for me. And I hope she is in The Underworld when I get there.

The other question that I kept thinking was this: does David Lynch know about her? And, if so, why hasn't she appeared in one of his movies yet?

Two Truths and a Lie (Part II)

Let's talk about a new series of posts. Every so often, I will collect three tidbits of info that don't really deserve their own entry and then squish them together... Oh, and one of them will have something to do with lying. I did this once and I like how it works. So let's go, let's go, L-E-T-S-G-O!

• Stephen Colbert has issued the call to arms:
  

  We’re at war here, singles. Pick a side. You can be married or you can be gay.

  I know I've chosen my side, although I might prefer to have the singles team up with the gays to fight the marrieds... But oh well.
  
  At any rate, Stephen is going to be pissed about this: according to results released by the Census Bureau, married people in the US are now outnumbered by singles!
  
  The most interesting things about these data?
  

  Among counties, the highest proportion of unmarried opposite-sex partners was in Mendocino, Calif., where they made up nearly 11 percent of all households.
  
  The highest share of male couples was in San Francisco, where, according to the census, they accounted for nearly 2 percent of all households. Hampshire County, Mass., home to Northampton, had the highest proportion of female couples, at 1.7 percent.

  While it is no surprise to find that San Francisco is the place to live when you're gaymale and coupled, and while it is no surprise (to anyone who, like Fosco, has visited) that Northampton, MA is Lesbian Central, what is the deal with Mendocino County?
  
  Maybe I should think about moving to that swinger's paradise... I hear that Ukiah (the largest community in Mendocino County) has got a hella crazy club scene...
  
  
• Have you heard of this tool named Aleksey Vayner? It seems he's been a viral internet celeb lately, but not in a good way.
  
  
  
  He's a Yale student (it figures...) and it seems that he prepared this totally narcissistic and bizarre video resume (entitled "Impossible Is Nothing") for some ibanking job. According to the NYTimes,
  

  Mr. Vayner’s seven-minute clip, entitled “Impossible is nothing,” presents images of him bench-pressing what a caption suggests is 495 pounds and firing off what is purported to be a 140-mile-an-hour tennis serve.
  
  The tone of the video seems too serious to be parody, yet too over-the-top to be credible.

  As for the footage of him doing the ski tricks? Well, that's only "probably" him. Oh yeah, he also wrote a book. It's self-published and entitled "Women’s Silent Tears: A Unique Gendered Perspective on the Holocaust." And did I mention that it's largely plagiarized? Yesss... I love this story. Read the rest of it here.
  
  
• Fosco's self-promoting college roommate (God bless him), David Lat, is profiled in this article in the Legal Times.
  
  It's a good profile--quite fawning--and it doesn't dwell too much on David's bizarre and unpleasant conservatism. Did you know that David actually requires that his clothes be tailored by seven-year-old Cambodian orphans? It's true. If you want the real dirt on David Lat, now you know where to go...
  
  Oh, and does Fosco get mentioned in the profile? Not exactly, unless you know that Fosco is actually the nom-de-guerre plume of Jeffrey Toobin. But shhhh...
  

Dancing with Myself (Oh oh oh oh.)

Has all this protest talk been killing your buzz? Mine too. Let's talk about something fun and frivolous.

On Friday, Fosco finally made his entry into Santa Cruz nightlife--accompanied by his sexypals Julie, Liz, Aliya, and Maria. This is actually Fosco's preferred modus operandi for being "out on the town," i.e., surrounded by attractive and fasionably-dressed women. He generally believes that some of their sparkle rubs off on him...

We began the evening at the "Red Room"--the fabled Santa Cruz superlounge. And, although Fosco had heard tons of positive things about the Red Room, he still found it to exceed expectations. The Red Room is actually Santa Cruz's answer to a superclub, in a sense: a smoky and casual downstairs bar and a sophisticated lounge and restaurant upstairs. The pic at the right is the downstairs bar, as I haven't been able to find any online shots of the upstairs lounge to steal appropriate.

The lounge is extremely cool. It's dark and red and decadent with red velvet and divans and a fireplace--the atmosphere is tops. The music is excellent: not too young, not too old (what a radio station might call "the best mix of the 80s, 90s, and today"). How happy was Fosco to hear a Billy Idol double play: "Dancing with Myself" and "White Wedding"? Yessssss....

The drinks are fine and not too expensive ($5.25 Tanqueray and Tonics--not too steep). The service is to be expected in such a popular place, i.e., slow. However, our waitress was certainly friendly and, interestingly, a student of cosmetology--she will probably be coloring Liz's hair in the not-too-distant future. In addition, one of Fosco's students works there are some sort of floor manager, however, this did not translate into free drinks for Fosco (at least I don't think it did... I sort of lost count at one point...)

The most exciting thing about our conversation at the Red Room? It turns out that Liz is, like Fosco, a huge Madonna fan (well, we liked her in her pre-Malawian-baby-kidnapping phase). We even both purchased and later sold/lost Madonna's Sex book! And then "Justify My Love" came on and all hell broke loose...

After leaving the Red Room, we headed to Santa Cruz's only gay danceclub, Dakota. Dakota has a really cool space with a nice long comfortable bar in front and a relatively small dancefloor in back. The coat check drag queen/tranny is fierce. Unfortunately, the Dakota experience could have been better. For one thing, there were hardly any gay men there. When we arrived (around 11:30), it was mostly lesbians. As the night wore on, the crowd started to become mostly straight couples and then finally, around 1, the place emptied out entirely. This was odd, but I suspect it was just that the heterosexual people wanted to get back to their dorm rooms to have heterosexual sexual relations. I've been told that Saturday nights have more bois, so that's the plan next time.

In terms of music... well, Fosco has been out of the club scene for a long time, so he doesn't really know what's popular these days, but... the music was pretty bad. Sure there were high points (e.g., "Shakira, Shakira"), but there were also songs that cleared the dancefloor completely. I'm going to suggest that the Friday night DJ is not the most talented spinner in town. Oh yeah, and he played "SexyBack" twice (the second time by "request"). Is it me or did that song die after about twenty minutes? Of course, during those twenty minutes, Fosco was all over it.

Ah, the nightlife... Fosco is glad to be back.

Protest This: A cri de coeur.

Well, it wasn't exactly the March on Washington, was it?

Wednesday's protest by UCSC students on the occasion of the visit of the UC Regents, garnered some media attention, with an article in the San Francisco Chronicle in addition to the analysis in the local Santa Cruz Sentinel. In Fosco's original post on the matter, he poked some gentle(?) fun at the protesters because, well, it all seemed a bit silly.

But the more Fosco reads about the protest and the fallout, the less silly it seems. Rather, it is becoming clear that this protest was colossally stupid.

"Yeah, yeah," you say, "Fosco is totally in league with The Man." He's "corrupted by White Upper Class Privilege." He's "scared to Fight the Power." He's "gone soft" in academia, where he is "complicit with State Interests." I would disagree (although maybe not completely), but it's a pointless exercise for me to try to convince this critic of my leftist credentials. I think it's enough to say these two things:

• I don't approve of many things that the UC Regents do (or have done).
  
• I am willing to nonviolently protest against specific policies (and have done so many times in my life).

Therefore, while I may not be leftist enough, I certainly can be considered generally sympathetic to leftish causes (and not just in an armchair way). And that's why I'm pissed off about this protest.

This is the big problem with the protest: why were the students protesting? Now, I know that there are tons of potential issues that could have been the cause of this protest and I am sympathetic to all of them: student fee hikes (non-Californians, did you know that, by law, the University of California cannot charge tuition? It gets around this problem by charging "fees." Sneaky, eh?), the funding of nuclear weapons research, cuts to humanities programs, a living wage for UC custodial workers, etc. I would love to hold the Regents accountable for all those things. But here's the problem: no one seemed to be protesting those things!

You don't believe me? Let's listen to the students (from the Sentinel article):

"I agree it wasn't the most successful protest, but at least it is a step away from our image as apathetic youth. For your readers blinded by upper class stability (something I admittedly enjoy), I ask that they recognize us as idealistic human beings, raised in their world, but willing to shed our egos and join together for a better world through a fairer distribution of power."

"These people [the Regents] smile real smug like they got your number and it's real frustrating."

"What we did accomplish is making ourselves known," activist Tomasso Boggia said. "We're here and really pissed off."

What the fuck? These kids tried to surround the UC Regents and (some of them) entered into violent confrontations with police officers because the Regents are smug? Or, to prove that they're not apathetic? This is ridiculous.


This protest lacked the two things that make a protest coherent: a leader (or spokesperson) and a message. To me, this seems like Protest 101 (which, if it were going to be taught on any university campus, would probably be taught here...). Where was the message? Who was speaking for these protesters (and if it was the people quoted above, they need to be fired)? Oh and what about some chants? "We're here and really pissed off!" just doesn't have the same ring to it as "We're here, we're queer, get used to it!" (N.B., the queer one has the additional benefit of offering an actual demand.)

And here's the bigger problem: when UCSC Acting Chancellor Blumenthal sent out his campuswide email today deploring the protest, I (and, I suspect, a lot of other people) actually agreed with it. I don't think this is a good thing--I don't like agreeing with the administration. But when the Chancellor says,

What was both unexpected and completely unacceptable was pushing, kicking, biting, spitting, heaping verbal abuse, and throwing bottles and decayed fruit at staff and visitors, as occurred on Wednesday. Staff members, including our police officers, were verbally abused and physically injured. Guests from the community were pushed and spat upon. [...] Students, faculty, staff (including UCSC police), and visitors are all members of our community and are entitled to civil and respectful treatment.

it's hard to disagree.

Ah, my radical little Banana Slugs... I hate to say it, but maybe you could take a lesson from your compatriots at UC Berkeley. This is how they spent their Wednesday afternoon.

UC Regents Open Fire on Protesters

Okay, not really. But isn't that an awesome headline?

The University of California Regents are on campus at UCSC today--for only the second time in the last forty years. The official report on their visit has them participating in "tours, talks, and hands-on activities." What exactly does "hands-on activities" mean? Are they going to pull carrots at the campus organic farm? Pour concrete at the library expansion? Attempt to subdue Angela Davis (hint: bring a Taser)?

Fosco had forgotten about the Regents visit, so this afternoon, he and Michael and Laurel (the Canadians!) headed for the taqueria at Merrill College (one of UCSC's ten residential colleges). On the way, we passed by the new humanities complex (soon to be Fosco's home) and remembered that the Regents were, at that moment, inside at their "public Q&A session." We saw a number of people milling around on the plaza (mostly a bunch of juggling hippies to tell the truth) and continued on our way.

About half an hour later, filled with burrito, we passed again by the building, but now there was a full force (maybe 20? 25?) of police in full riot gear (face masks, body armor, batons) guarding the building. Laurel saw what appeared to be some arrestees (but Fosco did not--he was driving). What, we asked each other, could have happened?

Well, the answer isn't too surprising. As there is no daily student newspaper at UCSC (which is ridiculous when you think about it), we have to rely on the Santa Cruz Sentinel for the story. According to the Sentinel:

In a show of protest to UC policies, dozens of student protestors attempted to force their way inside a campus lecture hall and disrupt the Board of Regents’ second official visit to UC Santa Cruz in 40 years.

Police used batons and pepper spray to subdue the crowd.

You can read the full story here, but actually, by reading the quote above, you have read the full story (I expect more in-depth coverage to appear somewhere tomorrow--I'll update then.)

The best part about the Sentinel's coverage at this point is the series of pictures, including the one you see above (protesters post-pepper spray) and this one:


Fosco's favorite part of this picture is the masked man in the center who remembered to bring his drum to the protest. I guess you never know when a drum circle might break out.

Now, of course, Fosco is no fan of the UC Regents. Judging from their bios, pretty much every one of them is repulsive: the Schwarzenegger ones for being appointed by Schwarzenegger, most of the others for being businesspeople, and the remaining few for being suspiciously underqualified for running the UC system. Add the fact that there is likely to be a very nasty contract battle between the TA Union and these very Regents next spring and, well, let's just say that Fosco would be more than happy to have them trapped in that Humanities Lecture Hall surrounded by drumming hippies for a long, long time.

No, Fosco's only disagreement with most of these protesters is aesthetic. I know that "aesthetic" is a troubled category, but all I mean is that I like me my protesters to wear shirts and not to wear bandanas (oh yeah, and no drums.) Pay attention, hippies: you could win the support of extremely left-leaning academics like Fosco if only you dressed a little better for your protests. If you put on some khakis and let me know the next time the Regents are in town, I'll bring a pack of my grad school pals and we'll do a thing. Is it a deal?

Denouement: 10/1-10/15

Over the last two weeks, while you were planning a week of Oakland A's World Series parties, Fosco was

• revealing his history of borderline inappropriate text-messaging.
  
• making enemies of powerful people in academia.
  
• finding himself thankful for our northerly neighbors--just not for their bacon.
  
• crossing a rainbow bridge into a magical fairy land where lollipops grow on candy trees and gumdrops sprout from the chocolate ground.
  
• convincing himself that Robbie Coltrane is actually a pretty handsome guy.
  
• making a mockery of all that is holy (in classical music).
  
• pissing off his coupled friends.
  
• realizing that running nude combines his two least favorite activities.
  
• going to the symphony... and then snarking off to some Minneapolis homer in the Comments.
  
• making fun of Skeletor Joyce Carol Oates.
  

We're here, we're queer, and we're going to Valhalla.

Hey Homos! Last Wednesday was National Coming Out Day! And as it should be apparent from every single post on this blog that Fosco is queer, he didn't feel the need to write a celebratory post or anything (although he probably should have).

But how happy was Fosco when approaching his Friday afternoon seminar at Oakes College (one of the ten residential colleges at UCSC) to find that his path led over a RAINBOW BRIDGE! Luckily, Fosco has this new camera phone thingie:



The colors are a bit washed out in these pix, but trust me: this baby was vibrant.

Naturally, I love the gayness here. What's not to love about a 100 ft long homosexual bridge?

But, I must point out that this installation evoked a different meaning as well: at the end of Das Rheingold, what do Wotan and the other gods do? They cross into Valhalla by means of a rainbow bridge revealed by Donner's hammer blow. You can be sure that the music was in Fosco's head all afternoon.

Heda! Heda! Hedo!
Zu mir, du Gedüft!
Ihr Dünste, zu mir!
Donner, der Herr,
ruft euch zu Heer!

(Er schwingt den Hammer)

Auf des Hammers Schwung
schwebet herbei!
Dunstig Gedämpf!
Schwebend Gedüft!
Donner, der Herr,
ruft euch zu Heer!
Heda! Heda! Hedo!

Actually, Fosco might like to Schwing Donner's hammer...

Maybe next year, Joyce...

The first few weeks of October are both exciting and frustrating for Fosco. As the Nobel Prizes begin to trickle out of Stockholm, he has to put with the almost daily announcements of useless awards (like Physics or Medicine) until they finally get around to the Literature award.

Fosco loves the Nobel Prize in Literature (as he loves most other literary awards). Actually, the thing that Fosco loves most about the Nobel Prize in Literature is handicapping it. Who will win? Who should win but won't? Who might win but shouldn't?

To tell you the truth, Fosco's favorite thing about the Nobel Lit Prize is the perrenial presence of Skeletor, er, Joyce Carol Oates on the media's "shortlist." Yes, our JCO is Literature's Susan Lucci, tapped by both the newsmedia and the betting books (yes, you can bet on this!) as one of the heavyweights for the last several years. JCO's annual candidacy has even led the editor of the JCO infosite to provide this tart reply. Personally, I doubt that JCO will ever win the Nobel Prize for Literature, for the following reasons:

• She teaches at Princeton with previous Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison (Winner in 1993). How many Literature Nobels are they going to throw at Princeton?
  
• She's written somewhere in the neighborhood of, oh say, 6500 books and yet, NO ONE I know has read one of her novels. (Fosco has read more of her novels than he would care to admit, but all against his will. Ask him what that means, sometime.)
  
• She's written (by a conservative estimate) about 9,740 books. Every time you look away, another book by her appears on the "New Books" table. Can the Nobel Committee really come to terms with that kind of oeuvre? Do they care to?
  
• Although she's written roughly 4200 books, a close reading reveals that she's actually written the same 5 books, 840 times each. That's something I expect the Swedish Academy to notice. Eventually.
  
• There's that whole mess with her accusing James McGreevey of killing all those teen vagrants. Stockholm doesn't really like teen sex killings.

So who did win? Some Turkish guy. Actually, to be more accurate, it's some Turkish guy who has faced political repression (a lil' bit) in his home country. Huh. Well, at least the Nobel Committee isn't predictable or anything.

So who should have won? Actually, I'm fine with Pamuk winning. I've never read his stuff, but it seems to review well. I mean, if Margaret Atwood thinks it's okay who am I to argue? (Atwood herself is something of a gunner for the Prize, eh?)

Next year, I'd love to see it go to Salman Rushdie (especially if the Academy really wants to make a statement about creative freedom) or Haruki Murakami (cuz I like him).

Actually the writer I think most deserves it (as he is certainly the best living writing working in English) is Philip Roth. However, he will never win it. Never. Why not? Because I don't see another American Jewish man (who writes about aging American men) winning. It turns out that Saul Bellow won the Nobel Prize that should have, thirty years later, gone to Roth. Time plays such cruel jokes.

Don't worry, Joyce--you still have that cushy gig at Princeton, even if Toni makes fun of you behind your back. And, as this post proves, you don't need to have a Nobel to do that...

"Did a shadow pass?": Learning to fear Kaja Silverman

The problem with graduate school (well, okay, one of the problems) is that four times a week (on average), there is a talk on campus that Fosco would like to attend; however, due to Fosco's workload (or frequent need for restorative naps), he almost never makes it to any of them. His good intention to attend a talk almost always replaces his need to actually attend one. However, every so often, a talk strikes Fosco as unmissable... such as last Wednesday's visit to UCSC of Kaja Silverman.

Anyone familiar with Fosco's interests may find strange his desire to attend a Kaja Silverman talk--after all, he doesn't do much Lacan and absolutely NO film theory (in fact, Kaja Silverman probably watched as many films last month as Fosco watched in the last five years). In addition, Silveman's topic seemed almost deliberately obscure: a (long-past) video installation by Irish artist James Coleman (an artist that, incidentally, Fosco has never heard of). So why would Fosco want to go to this talk?

Because Fosco was Kaja-curious.

You see, Kaja Silverman is not just some Lacanian film theorist: she's a full-fledged Star in the Theory firmament. Kaja Silverman and Judith Butler are the Endowed Chair-holding Titans of that Powerhouse of Interdisciplinarity known as the Berkeley Rhetoric Department. So, regardless of whether Fosco was going to be able to understand a word she said, there was no way he would miss out on an opportunity to see a genuine Theory Rock Star! (Just as Above The Law likes to pretend that judges are rock stars, Fosco likes to do the same with theorists... Hmmm. Now do you understand why we were college roommates?)

And what did Fosco learn from this Kaja Silverman talk? Well, for one thing, she is brilliant. Although that's not a huge surprise--Berkeley doesn't just give you an Endowed Chair for being sassy (that's really more of a UC-Merced kind of thing...). The big surprise is that the talk was actually extremely interesting: Fosco forgot how much he enjoys art criticism talks. But this was no normal art criticism talk--she also managed to provide an extremely complicated meditation on time and space, drawing on Bergson and Deleuze. Did you know that you and I can both be living in different presents? At the same time? Wait... that sounds strangely familiar...

Okay, okay--all kidding aside, it actually was a really amazing meditation on space and time. I don't feel like saying any more about it though, as this blog is what I do when I don't want to explicate theory...

But here's the most interesting thing I learned about Kaja Silverman: she is SCARY. No, really! SCARY! Some of my compatriots in the audience have speculated that she might have hooves, but I don't know--I think she was actually wearing black ballet shoes and I would think it might be hard to get cloven feet into those.

How is she scary? Well, for one thing, she has this habit, during the question and answer period, of shadowing your question with "uh-huh"s until she feels that she fully understands the question; then, she cuts you off to answer it. None of that "wait until the questioner is done asking the question before answering it" stuff for Kaja Silverman. That would waste valuable seconds! The freaky art installations of the world aren't just going to explain themselves, dammit--Kaja Silverman has things to do!

You might think I'm making too big a deal of this, and I probably am. But, I guess I'm still a little surprised at it all. I watched her do it to FACULTY for christsake! Tenured faculty! She was clearly on a level above the mere mortals in the room and wasn't thrilled to have to suffer their questions.

I'm also pretty sure that I saw her outside on my balcony last night. [shiver]

Best Couples EVER: The List.

Perhaps Fosco was a bit insensitive in proclaiming Michael and Laurel the "best couple EVER" in his recent post on Canadian Thanksgiving (at least, that's what several of his other coupled friends have suggested in their emails filled with tearful recriminations...)

The problem of course was with my choice of the definite article. What I meant to say (yet did not--I blame the delicious stuffing that Laurel made...) is that Michael and Laurel are one of the best couples EVER.

Which suggests to me that maybe I need to produce the following list of Best Couples EVER (in random order):

• JennyT and her Swedish Meatball, Mantis (You may recall my recent day in San Francisco with JennyT).
  
• Dan and Carol, my "surrogate parents."
  
• Michael and Laurel (of above)
  
• Ellen DeGeneres and Portia DiRossi
  
• chocolate and peanut butter: Two great tastes that taste great together!
  
• Buffy and Angel
  
• Will and Dorothea
  
• Fosco and Rafael Nadal

Blomstedtiana, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Joshua Bell.

As you well know, Fosco is a lover of the contemporary classical music. But that doesn't mean that he doesn't enjoy a bit of the more traditional repertoire every so often--especially if that means Mahler, Wagner, or, perhaps, a performance led by one of his favorite conductors.

And one of those conductors would be Herbert Blomstedt (or, judging from the photo to the left, you can just call him George F. Will). I think Herbert Blomstedt is brilliant. I got to know him through his recordings with the San Francisco Symphony in the late 80s and early 90s. I consider three of these discs to be the absolute definitive recording of the work:

• Mahler: Symphony No. 2
  
• Orff: Carmina Burana
  
• Sibelius: Symphony No. 2
  

Not to mention his excellent Nielsen cycle and his excellent Hindemith. With my love affair with Blomstedt's recordings, imagine how excited I was in 1997 (or was it 98?) to see him conduct the SF Symphony in a Brahms/Berwald program. I loved that concert... and so, of course, I couldn't resist getting tickets to the SFS last weekend to see Blomstedt conduct Beethoven's Violin Concerto and Nielsen Symphony No. 5.

A "Beethoven Violin Concerto" + "Scandinavian Symphony" program actually suggests to me a digression, as I saw essentially the same program last October in Minneapolis. I was in town for a conference and was strolling down the Nicollet Mall (brrr... that city is COLD) when I passed Orchestra Hall and noticed the Minnesota Orchestra program for that evening featured the Beethoven Violin Concerto (with Christian Tetzlaff) and Sibelius Symphony No. 4.

As I had recently read Alex Ross on the Minnesota Orchestra and their hot new conductor, Osmo Vanska, and
as my greatest dream in the world is to someday become Mrs. Alex Ross, and
as Vanska is considered to be an expert on Sibelius, and
as I lurve Sibelius 4...
I had to get a ticket.

Strangely enough, the revelation of the evening was the Beethoven: Tetzlaff was exceptional and, though I had never paid much attention to the piece before, I came away with a strong affection for it. I was a bit disappointed with the Sibelius: Vanska's tempi were too slow and the piece lacked focus. It felt draggy and dull. And Minneapolis's Orchestra Hall is a TERRIBLE space. Do not buy a balcony/tier seat there under any circumstances.

So it strikes me as a bit of an odd coincidence that again this October I saw essentially the same program (but, luckily, someplace warmer and sunnier... and with a better concert hall).

Let's talk about that concert hall: Davies Symphony Hall. I think there are good reasons to like Davies. The first is that it cuts a graceful profile from street level: (Note the chunk of Henry Moore sculpture in the lower lefthand corner.)

The second best reason to like Davies is that, even if (like Fosco) you are a Second Tier ticket holder (yikes! poor people!), the Second Tier hallway actually contains the best features of the building: the two open-air semi-circular balconies. The views of the city (and City Hall) are spectacular: And luckily, Sunday was the perfect day weather-wise to spend some time on the balconies, enjoying the air.

[N.B.: guess who got a camera phone last week...]

As I already mentioned, I was in the Second Tier. And not just any part of the Second Tier, but the... last row.

Here was my view of the stage:

It might look far away, but it wasn't really. For one thing, Fosco is farsighted. For another, it's music for chrissakes. And, for another, Fosco has a neat pair of opera glasses.

Oh yeah, do you want to hear about the concert now?

The soloist for the Beethoven was Joshua Bell who is, as you can see in the photo at right, super hunky. In the past, Fosco has been suspicious of Josh Bell's musical credentials for several reasons: 1) He is super-hunky (which makes one wonder if he is the product of label marketing to middle-aged women, a la Josh Groban) and 2) he occasionally releases CDs with names like "Romance of the Violin." On the other hand, he did record Corigliano's music for The Red Violin and an interesting recording of the Maw Violin Concerto. So I'd been conflicted...

It turns out that Joshua Bell is really good. His tone is lovely, although perhaps a little too sweet. As a special treat, Bell composed his own cadenzas for the piece and they were quite interesting. His cadenzas were extremely allusive, quoting Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14 (and probably some other works that Fosco didn't recognize). This was an excellent performance.

And the Nielsen? To tell the truth, Fosco has had a great deal of trouble liking this symphony. As much as he likes Blomstedt's recordings, this is one symphony on disc that leaves him cold. The live performance changed this response only a little. The orchestra was in full force and sounding great, but the symphony still didn't compel me. I am torn between blaming this on the work itself or on Blomstedt. The one exception: the last few minutes were arresting. At the final moment, Blomstedt brought the orchestra to the point (because it's sure not a resolution that is achieved) and it was energizing. I would have loved for this moment to be able to go on for a long time.

Some general thoughts on the orchestra itself. The strings are excellent, the brass is powerful and authoritative, but something is not quite right with the winds. Throughout both works, the winds really stood out from the sound of the rest of the orchestra--there was almost no integration. I found this really distracting and bit puzzling, as the wind performers of the SFS may be the most distinguised group in the orchestra (at least judging them as soloists on recordings). I don't recall this problem the last time I saw the SFS (which was five years ago), so I don't know what to make of it.

On the way out, Fosco couldn't help but notice MTT's assigned parking space was occupied. Was he really there on a Sunday afternoon when he wasn't conducting? And in case you were wondering, it was some kind of Chrysler (though not a current model). If I were MTT, know what my ride would be? A rickshaw pulled by a shirtless Jeremy Bloom.

"I'm thankful for Don Cherry, eh?"

Fosco loves Canada and he's not ashamed to admit it. Five years ago, he and his good buddy Liz went to a conference in Toronto and fell in love with the country: so friendly, so progressive, so calm. Canadians just don't seem to get worked-up over things that Americans do (homosexuals, evolution, etc.) We made a pact then that we would try to get jobs in Canada, a pact on which Liz has made good and Fosco is violating--at least for the next 6-7 years.

Now although Fosco loves Canada, he hasn't always loved Canadians--at least not as friends. Fosco had a Canadian friend once and things ended very badly.

But this time, it's going to be different, because Fosco has met Michael and Laurel and they are absolutely cool and funny and smart and the best couple EVER. And yesterday, Fosco went to their house for his first ever Canadian Thanksgiving!

Michael and Laurel are absolutely wonderful hosts and they put together a truly remarkable spread for the occasion--all vegetarian, even! (Recall that Fosco does enjoy vegetarian food if it's the right kind). I was even a bit surprised to find myself enjoying, of all things, the Tofurky. And have I mentioned that Laurel makes the most remarkable homemade cup of coffee ever? You think she's fetching you an ordinary cup of coffee, but then she returns with something creamy with a head of foam--it's the most luxurious surprise and I recommend it (I wish that I, like my pal John Mackey, remembered to take pictures of the things that I eat and drink...)

Of course, it wouldn't be right to celebrate a holiday from another culture without learning a bit more about that culture and Michael and Laurel were happy to oblige with some interesting Canadiana. I think that the most fascinating thing I learned is that there exists a hockey announcer named Don Cherry. Apparently, he's 1) a Canadian national treasure and 2) totally insane.

You can get a sense of him from this brief commercial for Quiznos:


As you can see, he has this thing for high collars and pimp suits. If you really want to see what kind of suit this guy is capable of wearing, you should check out this clip (Don appears at approx. 2:30).

And it's not just his sartorial sense that is problematic. Apparently, Hockey Night in Canada (for which he announces) had to be put on a seven second tape delay because of his penchant for saying borderline offensive things. Like what? Well, how about this (during the 2002 Winter Olympics):

I've been trying to tell you people for so long about the Russians, what kind of people they are, and you just love them in Canada with your multiculturalism. They're quitters and evidently they take a lot of drugs, too.

I wish I could disagree with Don, but I've been trying to tell American people about the Russians as well--but you love them in American with your multiculturalism.

I'm trying to think of an American equivalent for Don Cherry, but I'm not sure he translates. Sure, John Madden continues his rapid spiral into madness, but, as any close listener can tell, the redneck conservative in the booth is his partner Al Michaels. There was that whole Jimmy the Greek thing, but nobody thought of him as a national treasure. Probably the closest we get is Lee Corso, and that, my friends, is a goddamn shame.

Which reminds me: someday ESPN is going to have to stop having students in the background of their "College Gameday Live" broadcasts...
Unless, of course, ESPN is tacitly agreeing that Lee Corso loves cock.