an unplanned tribute, pizza
BG called Thursday night from NYC. It's always lovely to talk to him, but occasionally, I don't understand the basis of our friendship. It's part stubbornness and part repeated exposure. There is respect, too, even from the beginning when we'd argue till the sky turned dark and light again. Once we had a fight whose aftermath gloom lasted an entire summer. Mutual friends were worried. The piercing silence was getting ridiculous. Then he made some chicken corn soup and invited me over when I had a cold.
BG's roommates were all CS slaves. They included a flaming clarinet player with a penchant for blue glitter lipstick and a culturally confused cat who devoured all tidbits Japonica. Still, in comparison Benetito was by far the most interesting one because he appears to be so convincingly conventional. I've thought about nominating him to "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" many a season, but they already had a token Asian guy on a recent show. [If you're reading this, Benty--take S. out on a date! You've been stuck together seven years and she deserves a little outing now and again.]
He's been known to call friends when visiting a big city to offer to bring them back some oil-free moisturiser and to sleep with his blanket over his head. His rooms are always Spartan, but clean. On his shelves, you will find manuals to C+++++++... nestled next to Kundera and Machiavelli.
The incident of his frugal pinching of TP from our school has been well documented by Feldspaar in her livejournal, but the best part of that was his rationalising the "loan" with some quasi-mathematical formula for calculating efficiency. All I know is that the theoretical wage he used for the cost of an hour's labor (i.e., opportunity cost of spending time shopping for the disappointingly short-lived stuff at CVS) was and still is way above anything I could earn. Nevertheless, he is generous in off-key ways: when some posh tech company gave him a no-strings attached food allowance during interviews, he spent it on a lavish sushi dinner for our house. Afterwards, he carried the leftovers in a clear plastic box which attracted the sarcastic attention of a bookstore clerk. The stringy, probably bitter fellow (how like an unripe asparagus!) dubbed him "Sushi-Bearer" because he apparently followed two steps behind me and V as we giggled at children's books and ogled new Phaidon testaments to modern art.
And what is this secret eccentric doing now? Being ground into his late twenties by the corporate machine and protesting it in little ways that remain unknown to his oppressors, but which bring private satisfaction to their perpetrator. At this new office, he doesn't even have a cubicle. No walls. Just a segmented desk in an assembly line of such waist-high surfaces. Instead of personalising the space like others with pictures of loved ones, photographs of tropical islands, or crazily coloured leis or stuffed animals, he has chosen to leave nothing identifiable. "Gee, BG, when you're not here, it's like nobody works at that desk at all." How ingenious! I love that this peaceful resistance makes so bare and literal all the alienation, dehumanisation, and cheapness of mid-level corporate culture.
Also, to stay the deadness of the brain while being so pragmatic, I am told BG recently raided a local library sale and is now edifying himself with Dostoevsky and Dickens' minor works as well as a fully illustrated guide to Scottish tartans. I'm envious. My books feel more indulgent, although I suppose I'm getting a head start on my MA thesis with voluntary opening of the first page of Li Bai's complete works. Today's post has turned out to be a tribute to a friend I don't speak to often, but who is nevertheless a true north presence.
O and did I mention the first time he introduced me to a friend of his visiting from SE Asia, BG's nearly exact words were: "Meet my friend, Mark. We were in the same armoured-car together"...
* * *
In my last house, each of us eight roommates had our preferential supermarkets. I was a Berkeley Bowl devotee (still wearing the worker union's pin proudly); N liked Safeway, someone else was all right with Whole Foods (I liked their little cakes that J used to bring at night); there were crossover fans of 99 Ranch, which I used to call 99 Cent Ranch for no evident reason; and L was a Trader Joe's fan. I didn't really get into Trader Joe's because their produce could not compete with the divine cornucopia of the Bowl, whose deli and cafe sections were vital to my survival at r video.
Today, however, I have added Trader Joe's to my pantheon of fave Cali places for their dreamy imported chocolate truffles: JS and I went shopping for groceries this morning after a beautiful bike ride (that slight breeze in the gentle sunlight! the smoothness of that whirring, big-wheeled motion!). We decided to make pizza for lunch and picked up fresh dough, onion, garlic, tomatoes, water-bound mozzarella, and whole basil leaves. It was a perfect afternoon of slow sauteeing our homemade sauce over low heat, kneading on a clean wooden board, sipping Cherry Cream soda, inadvertently bouncing to Eighties beats, and a badminton game of funny, peripatetic conversation.
Her apartment was spare and elegant. She had real water and wine glasses and good kitchen knives. The stove range was spotless and there were little toy cars stationed all around the place and tiny folksy birds made of pistachio shell perched on the frigidaire. This has inspired me to put my own house into order so that I may break into blossom as a hostess in the near future. It would be great to finally begin meetings for our domestic arts org.
It's been a fancy kinda day. I burnt my ginger tea to the bottom of the blackened pan (not good, will have to tell S I'm willing to give my first-born hams in atonement) while taking a guiltily long shower--something about these chilly winds at night that make me not want to get out. Time to scrub pots and nurse head (cold threatening to take over again, despite the merciful respite on Friday just in time for wushu and parties). Van Morrison, where are you? The moon is halved tonight.
BG's roommates were all CS slaves. They included a flaming clarinet player with a penchant for blue glitter lipstick and a culturally confused cat who devoured all tidbits Japonica. Still, in comparison Benetito was by far the most interesting one because he appears to be so convincingly conventional. I've thought about nominating him to "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" many a season, but they already had a token Asian guy on a recent show. [If you're reading this, Benty--take S. out on a date! You've been stuck together seven years and she deserves a little outing now and again.]
He's been known to call friends when visiting a big city to offer to bring them back some oil-free moisturiser and to sleep with his blanket over his head. His rooms are always Spartan, but clean. On his shelves, you will find manuals to C+++++++... nestled next to Kundera and Machiavelli.
The incident of his frugal pinching of TP from our school has been well documented by Feldspaar in her livejournal, but the best part of that was his rationalising the "loan" with some quasi-mathematical formula for calculating efficiency. All I know is that the theoretical wage he used for the cost of an hour's labor (i.e., opportunity cost of spending time shopping for the disappointingly short-lived stuff at CVS) was and still is way above anything I could earn. Nevertheless, he is generous in off-key ways: when some posh tech company gave him a no-strings attached food allowance during interviews, he spent it on a lavish sushi dinner for our house. Afterwards, he carried the leftovers in a clear plastic box which attracted the sarcastic attention of a bookstore clerk. The stringy, probably bitter fellow (how like an unripe asparagus!) dubbed him "Sushi-Bearer" because he apparently followed two steps behind me and V as we giggled at children's books and ogled new Phaidon testaments to modern art.
And what is this secret eccentric doing now? Being ground into his late twenties by the corporate machine and protesting it in little ways that remain unknown to his oppressors, but which bring private satisfaction to their perpetrator. At this new office, he doesn't even have a cubicle. No walls. Just a segmented desk in an assembly line of such waist-high surfaces. Instead of personalising the space like others with pictures of loved ones, photographs of tropical islands, or crazily coloured leis or stuffed animals, he has chosen to leave nothing identifiable. "Gee, BG, when you're not here, it's like nobody works at that desk at all." How ingenious! I love that this peaceful resistance makes so bare and literal all the alienation, dehumanisation, and cheapness of mid-level corporate culture.
Also, to stay the deadness of the brain while being so pragmatic, I am told BG recently raided a local library sale and is now edifying himself with Dostoevsky and Dickens' minor works as well as a fully illustrated guide to Scottish tartans. I'm envious. My books feel more indulgent, although I suppose I'm getting a head start on my MA thesis with voluntary opening of the first page of Li Bai's complete works. Today's post has turned out to be a tribute to a friend I don't speak to often, but who is nevertheless a true north presence.
O and did I mention the first time he introduced me to a friend of his visiting from SE Asia, BG's nearly exact words were: "Meet my friend, Mark. We were in the same armoured-car together"...
* * *
In my last house, each of us eight roommates had our preferential supermarkets. I was a Berkeley Bowl devotee (still wearing the worker union's pin proudly); N liked Safeway, someone else was all right with Whole Foods (I liked their little cakes that J used to bring at night); there were crossover fans of 99 Ranch, which I used to call 99 Cent Ranch for no evident reason; and L was a Trader Joe's fan. I didn't really get into Trader Joe's because their produce could not compete with the divine cornucopia of the Bowl, whose deli and cafe sections were vital to my survival at r video.
Today, however, I have added Trader Joe's to my pantheon of fave Cali places for their dreamy imported chocolate truffles: JS and I went shopping for groceries this morning after a beautiful bike ride (that slight breeze in the gentle sunlight! the smoothness of that whirring, big-wheeled motion!). We decided to make pizza for lunch and picked up fresh dough, onion, garlic, tomatoes, water-bound mozzarella, and whole basil leaves. It was a perfect afternoon of slow sauteeing our homemade sauce over low heat, kneading on a clean wooden board, sipping Cherry Cream soda, inadvertently bouncing to Eighties beats, and a badminton game of funny, peripatetic conversation.
Her apartment was spare and elegant. She had real water and wine glasses and good kitchen knives. The stove range was spotless and there were little toy cars stationed all around the place and tiny folksy birds made of pistachio shell perched on the frigidaire. This has inspired me to put my own house into order so that I may break into blossom as a hostess in the near future. It would be great to finally begin meetings for our domestic arts org.
It's been a fancy kinda day. I burnt my ginger tea to the bottom of the blackened pan (not good, will have to tell S I'm willing to give my first-born hams in atonement) while taking a guiltily long shower--something about these chilly winds at night that make me not want to get out. Time to scrub pots and nurse head (cold threatening to take over again, despite the merciful respite on Friday just in time for wushu and parties). Van Morrison, where are you? The moon is halved tonight.
posted by greenyew at 6:34 PM
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