And Another Thing

I also met Melisa before I saw Akira Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress, and when Princess Yuki made her appearance, I immediately recognized her. It was Melisa herself, with the same dangerous spark in her eye, the same royal bearing, the same energy. (And, I was to find out later, the same red shorts.) Yuki, played by Misa Uehara, has no love interest in the movie, and frankly needs none, because she kicks ass all over the place. Thankfully, Melisa wants me around, even though I’m not as strong nor as silent as the great Toshiro Mifune, who plays the Princess’ main general and bodyguard.

I met Melisa before I met Rob and Laura Petrie. But as soon as I saw television's favorite couple, on Chicago's own MeTV, broadcast channel 23, I was struck by the resemblance of my future wife and the young Mary Tyler Moore. I would never go so far as to compare myself with Van Dyke, who dances better and sings better and is taller and is generally more beloved, but we're similar in one respect: We marry the prettiest girls. 

Except I did in real life.

Being Santa Claus

So many houses to visit, so many miles to fly. This holiday season, we did some fast traveling, the Mrs and I, and if we skipped your house, you'll just have to be better next year.

Having spent the previous holidays in the workshop, we decided it was time to bring joy to those bright and eager faces so accustomed to our presence nearly every year prior. So we hitched up the sleigh and drove through nine states, and flew over another eight, arriving just before Christmas and returning home once the twelve days had counted their course.

At one of our many stops, it has been the tradition for many years that someone, usually an older relative or helpful neighbor, has dressed as Santa and had the youngest generation on his knee, giving each child a few pointers for the next year (provided beforehand by the parents) before giving each a gift from his satchel. I had been the second youngest of the youngest generation--and always on the knee--until three years ago, when my cousin's wife gave birth to two wonderful twin girls. They have since been followed by a third sister, and this year by a cousin, the first boy of the fourth generation. Christmas Eve, which had been a time for making the same old, endearing jokes about the same old, endearing meal, and for the older of the cousins to embarrass all the rest while holding court as Santa, was given new life in the eyes of those twin girls, and Santa Claus had to come up with a new act.

Last year, I was told, one of my older cousins put on the costume and the girls loved it, although after he left, they whispered to their mother in concerned tones, "Was that Uncle Tim?" Thankfully, childhood being such a distracting and busy time of life, they seemed to have forgotten their suspicions. They had visited Santa at a mall early in December, and very seriously given him their lists. But Uncle Tim was out of the running as Santa, and the other go-to for the part--who had killed as Santa when it was a comedic event--was their father.

The idea had already been floated that I ought to take the job. The twins hadn't seen me in two years, it was reasoned--no way they would they have time to get a good enough look at me out of costume to recognize me in it. And so, after some vacillation, I agreed.

Christmas Eve morning, my aunt brought out parts of the costume for a dress rehearsal. There was a hairpiece attached to a hat that had been used since I was a child, and a new wig and beard, thicker and whiter, that might replace it. I tried both, and the committee decided that the old was out. But the new option had rather thin coverage of the upper lip, though it was thicker in the beard and on the head. I'd like to think that, thanks to my early (and only!) years in the theater, I improvised a device to distract from this flaw and strengthen the illusion of real hair: I habitually stroked the mustache down around the sides of my mouth, as though it were a naturally grown annoyance. I also practiced loud, authoritative voices, my normal voice not fitting either department. For some reason, Santa Claus began to sound a lot like Jimmy Stewart.

I was allowed to forget about my performance for several hours. I joined the stream of family trickling into my grandfather's house. Cookies were served. Drinks were served before and after the opwatke, a wishing ritual between every individual. Dinner was set out and duly put away. But my impending stage time grew gradually larger in my mind. The father of the twins gave me a briefing on their behavior, and I repeated everything back to him. The girls had been very good; the older twin ought to share with the younger one; the younger ought to eat her vegetables. The youngest, I was told, had been terrified of the mall Santa and had refused to come near him, and I should expect the same. If she did give me a chance, I was to tell her not to hit her older sisters.

The time was nigh. I was by now nervous, repeating to myself my queues--"good, sharing, vegetables, hitting"--while my nerves gave a shock to my mind, which was quite frankly blitzed by the heavy dinner (and heavy cookie-sampling). Then my aunts led the way. The girls had been quarantined in the living room, so I was swept out to the garage. The suit lay in the boot of my grandfather's car. First the strap-on belly. Then another pillow. Then the pants, over my pants. Then black spats, over the bottoms of the pants. Then the coat, over my double-layered gut. Then a belt to secure it all. And last the hair, like a helmet, complete with chin-strap, topped with the hat. At this point, I had to trust that the rest of the costume was operating correctly. I could feel it only indirectly, and I could see only through a jolly tunnel-vision. The most I could do was stroke my mustache and guffaw. I had left behind Jimmy Stewart. Now I only had a sort of dumb, loud voice. Everything formerly familiar slipped away behind the generous white curls. "Good...vegetables...the mall...." Was my belt still on? Would they recognize my shoes? What came first?

My aunts were professional helpers. They gave me the bag of presents, preloaded, and went back into the house to warm up the crowd. I walked out of the garage to the front door, the bag in one hand, bells in the other, belly and beard leading the way--

I had become Santa Claus so quickly that I barely had time to catch up. Just five minutes before, I was a guy at a party. Just years before, I had been the kid at the party, carolling and waiting for Santa. But now here I was, ringing the doorbell, trying to ho-ho-ho loud enough for the neighborhood to hear, and shaking my sleigh bells in the cold December night.

The performance is, now, something of a blur, and I suppose it must have been so then as well, since I could see so little through my costume. But I remember that the twins were completely charmed by Santa. They wanted hugs, and then more hugs. Santa told the older that she should share, and immediately, when they received a joint gift, she told her sister, "Let's share." Santa told the younger about vegetables, and the crowd prompted Santa to say what his vegetable is: Broccoli, of course, since it looks like a Christmas tree. And he told each that their teacher, Mrs H, had given positive reports. "You know Mrs H?" they asked. "She's my closest confidant," said Santa, which gave the crowd pause, but only briefly, until someone prompted Santa to define that word for the girls. (There is, perhaps, no greater gift than a new word.)

Yet I forgot to say half of what I was supposed to say. My aunt called out the names on the gifts as she emptied the bag. Another aunt directed traffic. And whoever had filled the bag threw me curveballs. The mother of the twins had a turn on the knee, and I have no recollection of what I said to her. Even Mrs Claus had a turn, and she assures me it went well. I stumbled partly from nerves, and partly from overheating. I had been dressed in the cold garage, but after ten minutes in the house, under all those layers of belly and hair and suit, I was working up quite a sweat. And even though I wish I were the kind of actor who could pull off a good Jimmy Stewart impression, it's probably best that Santa had a dumb, loud, midwestern voice. When the twins see Vertigo when they're older, they won't think of their magical childhood Christmases.

For what stole the show was the look on each little twin's face--the same look, one of total awe--when they looked at Santa. I don't know if I'm on the roster for next year, but it is a new kind of feeling to know what role I played in the lives of my young cousins.

An Epicurean Argument

Boy, do I love going out to eat. "An expensive habit," people always tell me. Sure. But art appreciation is usually expensive in any form. There are festivals of food, museums of a sort, where streets are lined with cabinets offering a peek at their curios for a pittance, but such is not the ideal environment for taking in true culinary works of art.

The gastronomic art may differ from its brethren on this count, but then again it may not. Its works are literally to be taken in, and therefore cannot be had by many all at once as a fine statue might. But perhaps the spice added by the private possession of the work, which is eventually an ingredient in any gastro-creation, could enhance even a piece of visual art, if one had the chance to examine the piece at leisure, in private, from many angles and distances. Prying eyes, not to mention guard-rails and the ominous, omnipotent presence of security in a museum, create a sort of distance from anything placed in their midst, a political element that gathers around it like a mist. Is it really real, what I am seeing? I see all the others seeing it, but no doubt they too are wondering, and we can't all come up and touch it, setting our noses up close to the brush strokes, or caressing the contours of the marble. The greatest pieces of visual art themselves are layered thick with Importance, which even without all that other fluff would remain a formidable barrier.

Some foods are wrapped in their share of reputation--certainly wine has succumbed to this new bottling process--but taste is such a powerful and personal sense that it eventually cuts through this layer and finds the meat of the matter. Even in a restaurant where every customer is given the same dish at the same time, each tongue is in private session. This is not absent at an outdoor food festival, but leisure is often lacking there--too many other sensual experiences butt in on the lingual, from jostling to the odors of the street, cans filled with flies and paper plates left to fester in the sun.

The ideal forum for food appreciation is the room closest to the food's own kitchen. So certainly, someone might object, no restaurant is needed at all--the best food is enjoyed alone in one's kitchen, without nosy waiters or busy bills. Indeed, if I had been Michelangelo, perhaps I wouldn't have let David out of my sitting room. But not only was I not--I suppose that all artists enjoy much more the act of production than the product, and intend (or relinquish) the product for the eyes of those who did not create it. Likewise, the receiver of art is in a special position. It is I, the non-artist, who am allowed the unique experience of the thing itself, a mysterious whole to be grasped in wonder. I know nothing of the stone from which the man was drawn, and even less about the man who drew him forth. I know only the miracle, not the work, of art. A fickle artist is pestered by the thought, "More salt!" He is still creating, he is recreating. But a good restaurant does not even put salt on the table. There is no chisel left next to David.

Perhaps my metaphor is getting out of hand. (Less salt!) Surely any restaurant that I can afford is no house of Michelangelo. And surely many aren't worth their salt. But New Orleans is a food town. The number of restaurants worth the price on the bill is cumulatively more than I could afford in a year, given other costs of living. And I am not an artist of taste--I cannot come close even to middling chefs. A finely prepared cut of meat, or delicately balanced spices, academic to journeymen, is a treat for me. There is also the thrill of the gamble--a menu promising an unusual combination of personal favorites piques the interest, and could turn out to be wildly successful, or fall flat, but I hedge by picking something somewhat familiar, and hope for the big score, the meal that knocks me off my chair. And that kind of exhilaration is heightened by its transience. The most remarkable difference between the gastronomic and the other arts is temporal. A dish is made for now, right now, and as I experience it, the artwork disappears into me, and the moment into my memory.

Get it while it's hot.

Carnival For Couples

Now that the moderation of Lent is in full swing here in Christendom, we may reflect on those soggy days between Twelfth Night and Ash Wednesday during which, to say goodbye to (figurative) meat, good Christians gorged on (figurative) meat. They call it Carnival, and in a few Southern cities the oldest and richest families indulge their fellow citizens with public revelry in honor of the season. Their intention is to increase happiness, inducing a kind of pan-eudaimonium, but in practice, the second prefix is elided, and the result is just pandemonium, albeit controlled.

As in other less-than lawful contexts (the wild west, prison, inner-city streets), the easiest way to survive and enjoy oneself is to join a gang. You're bound to knock into other people in the close quarters along any parade route, in the shuffle for throws and a view, and it is best for everyone if that isn't your first introduction. If it must be, it helps to have numbers behind you.

Also, it is safer to drink more in greater numbers, and a strong argument could be made that intoxication is a necessary condition for enjoying a Carnival parade.

It should be clear that it is not ideal to go to a parade on a date, or with your partner only, because the result will be that you get bumped into, spilled on, and kept away from the parade route, with no recourse to either friends or liquor.

The ideal way to spend Carnival with your partner is with a bottle of champagne and your own house. That is, I assume, why parades are also televised. The ideal way to spend Carnival at all is by feasting on literal meat, king cakes, and other feast-worthy morsels, and not to go to parades. But be aware of the interference to your route to the grocery offered by parades, and plan ahead.

Buying Flowers

It's a man's job to buy flowers on Valentine's Day. But we do not go to work grudgingly.

I had to hustle after two and some hours of Kant today, to do my duty. I had planned a nice meal, and of course, flowers. And lest you misinterpret this: Buying flowers at the last minute is not the sign of forgetfulness, but a desire for freshness. Who wants flowers that have been all day in the library's cold carrel, or hidden in a closet, or--worst yet--bought at convenience and delivered likewise? No, fresh flowers should be a struggle and a victory, brought home in lieu of a fresh carcass.

I went to Whole Foods because it is closest, and I was on a bike, and still needed to prepare and serve the nice meal, and with Kant eating away the day, hours were precious. In my basket I secured the food (the carcass! lamb), and then made a beeline for the flowers. Others were already in line with bouquets. I joined another man in the perusal of the left-overs. Pick't-over they were, at six-thirty on Valentine's night, as I should have expected. (The price of freshness!)

When I read the other man's face, I understood something new about people. He and I were, in a sense, competing, but flowers are not like other prey, where the best is easily spotted. In his eyes I could see his love, and with it his desire to pick flowers she would like. For some women that means the biggest and brightest, and their men have less work according with their desires than affording their desires, but other women have style--and buying anything for them needs a sharper eye. This man and I were both taking in all the flowers, weighing and measuring, noting color and form. If it had happened that we both picked one flower, maybe it would have come to blows, but short of that, I could feel mutual support. It is not in one man's interest to foul up another's relationship, ceteris paribus.

All that aside, I don't know much about flowers. Neither did my aisle ally. I would venture to guess that our relationships are not so different in duration. But I chose first, whatever that might mean. Another man, ahead of me in line for the florist, asked if he could also buy a vase--maybe he hasn't been in her house ever, or for very long--he certainly doesn't live with her. I think he was looking for a material exchange. In my other compatriot I could sense love, a desire to please, a fear of failure, a sharp awareness of his floral ignorance. The other guy asked the florist if those flowers "would go" with that vase. Totally different question, unless he was buying for the florist.

Maybe I'm making it all up. Buying flowers is expected, it's almost dull--like a cake comes with a birthday, flowers come with Valentine's--but I posit, it is not dull. A dress might not fit, food is for both of us, but flowers are just for her, from him. A chance to match styles is not to be taken lightly.

Of course, I could share the secret of how to get two hunks of lamb, stawberries, three Kant books, and a double-bouquet of flowers home, two miles, on a bike, with no damage, but come on. I'm not gonna make it easier for anyone. Get to work.

The Telltale Start

So long as one lives to tell the tale, the tale is worth the damage.

That's what I discovered upon my first foray into the blogosphere, and it wasn't even so adventurous the first time. But now that I have a partner-in-crime, and a new home like a fat fried pie awaiting the tooth, it feels like it's time to take on the 'sphere again and start blogging like a blumberjack.

Mellie is my new fiancee, and Fat City is our new home. And they have single-serving fried pies here.

Our life here is equal parts homemaking and adventuring, all underwritten by risk-taking. And so long as we shall live, we'll tell the tale.