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The Healing Power of Chicken

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Chicken, Rice, and Hummus at Sevan Chicken in Glendale

Martine has been feeling depressed for some time now. It has affected her eating, the way she spends her time, and the way she interacts with me. Today, there was some clearing. We usually attend the Three Stooges Festival at the Alex Theater the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Martine actually suggested we go. (Yes, there are some women who love the Stooges.) On the way, we stopped at Sevan Chicken, an Armenian rotisserie chicken restaurant at the corner of Glenoaks and Kensington in Glendale. It was always Martine’s favorite place, and chicken has always been her meat of choice. It did me good to see her tear into it.

Then we went over to the Alex Theater on Brand Avenue, purchased tickets, and waited in line to see six Stooges film—in 35mm studio prints yet—including “A Plumbing We Will Go” (1940), as shown in the photo below.

Curly Trapped in His Plumbing

After the films, it was time for … more chicken! We drove to Elena’s Greek and Armenian Restaurant on Glendale Blvd. and Acacia. I had my favorite lamb kebab, while Martine had chicken kebab. I myself am not a great aficionado of poultry, but it made me happy to see Martine come out of her blue funk for however short a time. It means that, maybe, there’s hope.

 

How to Misspend a Quasi-Holiday

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I Didn’t Exactly Go Ape

The day after Thanksgiving is a sort of quasi-holiday. To millions, it’s Black Friday—made specifically for people who love to shop at crowded malls for what they really don’t need. I didn’t want any part of that, so I went to Universal CityWalk, ostensibly to watch a movie. When I got there, I found that of all the movie options, none of them seemed particularly attractive to me. And the shopping choices were mostly for out-of-town-visitors or young people who think that Hot Topic is the place to be seen. (I wouldn’t be seen dead there!)

Fortunately, CityWalk is not a bad place for lunch, if you don’t mind chain restaurants that specialize in the inauthentic. I had a good spicy Polish dog at Pink’s, looked around a bit, and started back home.

Taking the Expo Line Downtown

Today was not a brilliant success by any measure, but it wasn’t bad. Sometimes it’s fun to watch all the tourists try to wrap their heads around Southern California. Of course, I didn’t take the Universal City Studio Tour, where they mostly congregate, but I saw a few hundred trying to get food or shopping for souvenirs. You can’t find a single book in the place, but there are T-shirts and twonky decorated socks galore.

 

Happy Turkey Day, You All!

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So, Are You Still Able to Walk?

I just got back from San Pedro, where I had a great Thanksgiving Dinner with my friends. Naturally, I had to load myself up with insulin, because you know that sugar is one of the main ingredients of the holiday. Still I had a good time and met some new people, who were very nice.

 

An Afternoon in Garmonbozia

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Laura Palmer Played by Sheryl Lee

Twice a year, Barnes & Noble has a 50% off sale on Criterion Collection DVDs and Blue-Rays. Today, I bought one of my favorite films from the 1990s, David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), a prequel based on his two-part television series, Twin Peaks for ABC. The term “garmonbozia” is a nightmarish Black Lodge term meaning pain and suffering. In the movie, the pain and suffering relates primarily to two young women who are killed, and one who is presumably scarred for life: Laura Palmer, Theresa Banks, and Ronette Pulaski.

The so-called Black Lodge is a strange room with no windows, full-length floor-to-ceiling red velvet drapes, and a zig-zag pattern in black and white on the floor. Its permanent inhabitant is Michael J. Anderson (below) as The Man from Another Place. He speaks in a strange, barely understandable dialect which was filmed speaking backwards deliberately, and then reversing the sound track. He eats garmonbozia, which looks very like creamed corn.

Michael J. Anderson as The Man from Another Place and Kyle MacLahlan as FBI Agent Dale Cooper

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me was not a popular film when released. No matter, it and the ABC TV series were at least a decade ahead of their time and are just now coming into their own. (Though, truth to tell, I loved the film when it was first released; and only now am I watching the TV series.) Both the film and the TV series are postmodern to the max and greatly influenced the development of films to follow. In an article from the June 2017 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, James Parker wrote:

Stylistically, the most immediate posthumous effect of all this might have been the gnostic, everything-signifies vibe of The X-Files, but there are glimmering splinters of Twin Peaks in Breaking Bad’s trippy desert-sizzle; in the irruptive, disabling dreamtime of Bran Stark on Game of Thrones; and in the absurdist plot spirals, the gizmos and MacGuffins, of Lost. The Sopranos paid homage with Agent Cooper–esque fugue states and shots of trees blowing in the wind, rippling in their fullness and strangeness. And how is it finally communicated to Tony Soprano, after years of repressed suspicion, that Big Pussy—one of his most trusted sidekicks—is ratting him out to the FBI? By a talking fish, in a delirium, after some bad chicken vindaloo. It doesn’t get more Twin Peaks than that.

I have only a few more episodes of Twin Peaks to watch on DVD and then … and then … I just may pay a visit to the area. I have friends and family in the area.

 

 

“An Instant of Artistic Grace”

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Van Cliburn on the Cover of Time Magazine on May 19, 1958

Some artistic careers blaze brightly like meteors before being snuffed out, leaving nothing behind but a crater. Such was the short but brilliant musical career of Van Cliburn who went to Russia at the height of the Cold War, and performed in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory during the first Tchaikovsky International Competition, which he won handily. After getting an eight-minute standing ovation, Van Cliburn reminded Russian pianist Andrei Gavrilov o “som kind of angel.” In The Ivory Trade (1990), Joseph Horowitz wrote:

His lanky six feet four inches, his blue eyes and mop of frizzy blond hair, were recognized everywhere. People hugged and kissed him on the street, calling him “Vanya” and “Vanyushka.” He was showered with flowers and personal mementos. Women wept when he played, and students shouted “First prize!” Outside the conservatory, militiamen were used to maintain order. His pandemonious victory, announced April 14, confirmed the popular verdict of days before. The Cliburn furor was of unprecedented, unrepeatable, incomprehensible proportions.

Van Cliburn in Moscow. Note the Roses Strewn Across the Stage.

And then what? Cliburn went back to Texas to live with his mother, performing occasionally—but with considerably less éclat. After the ticker-tape parade through Manhattan, and a few concerts with diminishing returns, that was just about it.

What his fans did not, could not know at that time, was that Cliburn was gay. Had that become publicly known, he would have been reviled by the same public that seemingly adored him. It is such a pity. Today, his sexual preference would be met with a shrug (though perhaps not in Russia). In 1998, he suffered the indignity of being sued by his long-time domestic partner, mortician Thomas Zaremba, for palimony. The case was thrown out of court as palimony is not recognized by the State of Texas, He died in 2013 in Texas at the age of 78, years after his last successful concert.

Stuart Isacoff, in his book When the World Stopped to Listen: Van Cliburn’s Cold War Triumph and Its Aftermath calls his Moscow concert “perhaps the best concert of his life … an instant of artistic grace.”

TEGOBA

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That’s Short for “The English Group of Buenos Aires”

Each time I have gone to Buenos Aires—that’s now three times in all—I have gone to one of the weekly meetings of TEGOBA, The English Group of Buenos Aires. At leastsince 2006, it has been meeting on Friday nights at a cafeteria in the upscale Belgrano suburb of B.A. called FAME, located on Cabildo across the street from the Congreso de Tucuman SUBTE stop.

The above picture was taken in 2006, when I was quite a few pounds heavier. (I’m the walrus at the far right.) At my left is Marta Viajera, who is the coordinator for the group. The others are a combination of Argentinian professionals and visiting Americans, Brits, and others who want to socialize in English over a nice meal.

A few days after this picture was taken, I broke my right shoulder in a blizzard that struck Tierra del Fuego. I slipped on some ice at the corner of Magallanes and Rivadavia and smashed my shoulder into a high curb. Usually, that would make someone turn sour on a place. Instead, I decided I loved Argentina and its people, and I resolved to return. And I did, twice so far. I hope I have it in me to back back at least one more time.

And, to be sure, i will join the group at Avenida Cabildo 2921 for another meeting of TEGOBA.

Two Abysses

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A Hiker Walking Along a Narrow Ridge Trail with Mount Rainier in the Background

In my dealings with Martine, I am faced with two abysses. On one hand, I wish to be compassionate with a woman I have loved for thirty years. On the other, I don’t want to destroy myself by not looking sufficiently after my own survival. It is possible to be so compassionate that I no longer have the wherewithal to support myself in my fairly abstemious life style.

Martine is clearly in need of counseling. Unfortunately, I cannot force her to see a therapist if she doesn’t want to; and she clearly doesn’t want to. She is currently planning another escape, this time to Salt Lake City, where she thinks she will get free or super cheap housing when she really doesn’t have much money to spend. I fully expect for this second escapade to fail; and I will be called by her or some social worker to send her a ticket back to Los Angeles.

Each time she returns to L.A., she will hate the city (and perhaps me, too) even more. Yet she is not healthy enough to live on the streets, especially in a city that has a real winter.

I am walking on a narrow path and have to find my way somehow.

 

Why I’m Not in Politics

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Would I Be an Enlightened Ruler? Mebbe Not

Many years ago, a very cute young woman of my acquaintance thought I would make a good president. I looked at her, laughed, and said that I would probably be seen as another Caligula or Heliogabalus. Just look at some highlights of my first hundred days:

  • The following conservative pundits would suddenly be found dead: Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, the hosts of the “Fox & Friends” television show, Steve Bannon, and Bill O’Reilly.
  • Certain functionaries of the present administration would have their tongues removed, including Kellyanne Conway, Steve Miller, all of the Trumpfs, and Betsy De Vos. In addition, the head Trumpf would be physiologically unable to use Twitter once this thumbs were removed and hammered into his ears.
  • Selected weasels in Congress would be too crippled to show up for duty, most especially Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan.
  • Anyone associated with the so-called “Alt-Right” would be considered guilty of treason and treated accordingly. Rope is cheap.

In certain conservative circles, I would be seen as the bloodiest ruler in American history. So, perhaps you all would think better of me if I were a most reasonable and non-violent member of the opposition.

Power has a way of changing people—and not always for the best.

Swag

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Costco Shoppers

I do not often go to warehouse stores: There is something about a shopping frenzy that makes people ugly. It’s all about the getting of swag, and showing others that you can afford it because the light from the gods shines directly from the heavens onto you. Me, I needed to get one or two nonstick pans because two of mine were already leaching their chemical formula into whatever food I warmed up in them. As usual, Costco did not have what I wanted. I could have purchased a whole pot and pan set for $199, but there was no selection of individual pots. Also, I looked for Schick blades. The last time I went, I was looking for Gillette Mach III blades, but they had only Schick. Today, they only had Gillette Mach III shavers and blades. I resolved not to return to Costco until after the Christmas madness.

When I got home, I ordered a nice nonstick covered pot from Amazon. Whatever their crimes, Amazon does usually sell what I want—and I can get it shipped to me free using Amazon Prime. As for the Schick blades, I won’t really need them for a while.

After my unsuccessful shopping trip, I went to the Santa Monica Public Library main branch and finished reading André Gide’s Lafcadio’s Adventures, also known as Les Caves du Vaticane. It was a kind of anticlerical romp, in which a couple of sharpers convince some wealthy old Catholics that Pope Leo XIII was being imprisoned in the caves under the Vatican by a cabal of Freemasons. They were naturally asked for funds to release the captive pontiff.

Desert Oasis

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My Brother Dan at Simone Pond in the McCallum Grove

A couple of years back, I did a posting about Thousand Palms, where I took a hike with my brother Dan and Martine. On Sunday, Dan and I hiked farther, to the McCallum Grove, where there was a beautiful pond called Simone Pond. The stunning oasis is a few miles from Palm Desert, just north of Interstate-10 off Ramon Road.

All the palms at this oasis are native California Fan Palms (Washingtonia filifera), unlike the Arabian palms which are now all over Southern California—except at Thousand Palms. The palm groves here are both beautiful and eerie. There is not only a noticeable temperature drop amid these palms, but also a stillness seems to reign. And, at Simone Pond, there is a large body of water in which the trees across the water are perfectly reflected.

I would have to say that this is my favorite place in the whole Coachella Valley. (Second place goes to the Palm Springs Air Museum) at the airport.

Reflected Palms at Simone Pond

The oasis is part of the Coachella Valley Preserve and is managed by the Center for Natural Lands Management. Currently, there are no fees to visit this desert gem. It is well taken care of, as the only trash I saw was a single empty water bottle.