Oink Oink

I must have finally recovered from the butter burgers and fried cheese curds, because this sounds really, really good. A reason for me to hightail it to Nashville ASAP:



Read the description at the Nashville Scene's food blog, and you'll understand. (If you don't understand, I'm afraid we can't be friends.)

The Search for the Perfect French Toast - Sylvester's

Of all the Valley's famous residents, Sylvester Graham is probably the least-remembered and the most intriguing. Most people know at least a little bit about Calvin Coolidge, Sojourner Truth, Robert Frost, and Emily Dickinson, but very few people know about old Sylvester - or, if they do, they don't know that they do. This is because the graham cracker was named after him. There is some dispute as to whether Sylvester actually invented the graham cracker or if it was simply given his name because it was originally made using the "graham flour" that he helped to popularize in the nineteenth century, but in either case his is a significant contribution to the annals of American food culture for that reason alone.

But that's not why he's intriguing. He's intriguing because he was the first American dietary guru, and because he was among the first to adopt that oh-so-American habit of equating dietary choices with moral choices (anyone who has ever heard a dessert described as "decadent" or "sinful" has Graham to thank). For Graham, good health depended on curbing appetites, whether digestive or sexual, and adhering to a strict, ascetic lifestyle. Meat, he felt, inflamed the stomach as well as the carnal passions, and thus should be avoided entirely (late in life he helped found one of the country's earliest vegetarian societies). For the same reasons condiments were to be shunned, as were tight corsets, feather beds, enriched flour (hence his development of unenriched "graham flour"), and, of course, masturbation (the ill effects of the latter could clearly be seen in outbreaks of acne among adolescents). Many of his prescriptions were, in fact, quite healthful, though often not for the reasons he thought. He promoted regular exercise, for instance, believing that it would prevent nocturnal emissions, and many a modern-day nutritionist would endorse his advocacy of a meat-free diet rich in whole grains, even if they might be a bit more lenient when it came to feather beds.

Graham emerged during a period of intense reforming zeal in American history, preaching his food gospel (he was, fittingly, a Presbyterian minister) during the 1820s and 1830s, during the so-called Second Great Awakening. Just to the west of here, in the "burned-over district" of upstate New York, Joseph Smith was founding the Latter Day Saints after being visited by the angel Moroni, who showed him golden plates detailing Christ's visits to the ancient Israelite inhabitants of the Americas. Also among Graham's neighbors were the Shakers, who first started getting the shakes around this time; the Fox sisters, whose seances became national sensations; and John Noyes, who founded the utopian commune at Oneida, NY, where residents simultaneously practiced group marriage and discouraged male ejaculation - no mean feat, that, but one of which Graham must surely have approved.

Graham's legacy, apart from the eponymous cracker, is primarily felt today in the breakfast cereal aisle of your local grocery store. James Caleb Jackson, a Graham disciple, developed the first breakfast cereal, called Granula, from his teacher's whole-grain principles. John Harvey Kellogg, brother of W. K. Kellogg (whose signature, found on millions of cereal boxes worldwide, is second only to John Hancock's as the most famous in America), was another Graham follower, and his famous sanatorium in Battle Creek, Michigan (the setting of T.C. Boyle's book The Road to Wellville and the film of the same name) updated and popularized Graham's teaching in the late 19th century. Kellogg developed his own cereal (the first of which he named Granola, after a court battle deprived him of the name Granula), and he and his brother went on to build a breakfast cereal empire that, over time, came to have only a tenuous connection to Graham's original principles.

It's fitting, therefore, that Graham's Northampton home, where he died in 1851, should now be one of the Valley's most popular brunch destinations. Until very recently the servers' t-shirts said, on the back, "Rain or Shine, There's Always a Line," and it's true, especially on weekends - if you're trying to get into Sylvester's on a sunny Sunday morning, you'd better bring a book and prepare to wait a while. In many ways, however, Graham would be thoroughly appalled by what's become of his former home. Not only does the restaurant serve bread baked with enriched flour (Graham famously clashed with Boston bakers in 1837 over his opposition to their industrially manufactured bread), it also serves coffee and tea (Graham was opposed to all stimulants), as well as meat of every kind. The place might as well be filled with masturbating teenagers in corsets.



Still, it's a pretty good brunch spot, although one sometimes gets the feeling that they're coasting on their reputation. The food is good, but it's not outstanding, and the menu is seldom innovative like it is at, say, the Green Bean or the Lone Wolf. They do, however, offer a range of french toasts - in addition to the usual choice of white or wheat, there is also banana bread, cinnamon raisin, and apple. On a recent visit, in the spirit of Sylvester Graham, I opted for the most whole-grain french toast I could find - the kind made with Oatmeal Sunflower Seed Bread. My expectations were high, given the popularity of the restaurant and the karmic appropriateness of eating this specific variety of french toast in Graham's own house, but I'm afraid it wasn't the transcendent experience I was expecting. Mind you, it was perfectly serviceable french toast - nicely crisp on the outside, a little cinnamony, the scattered sunflower seeds enlivening the task of masticating - but it was eggy and mushy inside, and it lacked powdered sugar. It certainly didn't inflame my passions - which, I suppose, would have suited the original Sylvester just fine.

Operation Mop-Up

The countdown has begun. In exactly two weeks I'll be hitting the road with all my stuff in a big truck (a truck so big, in fact, that it may not fit through the narrow passage into my driveway, which would make loading it more than a little difficult), bidding a fond TTFN to the Valley, and directing my gaze with hawk-like intensity toward the future - a future of fightin', cheatin', and drinkin', if the old country songs are anything to go by (and they are). This means that there's lots to do in the next couple of weeks. I'm not talking about boring stuff like packing, closing my bank account, contacting the electric company (hey you guys!!), submitting a change of address form to the post office, or any of that. These things will more or less take care of themselves. No, I'm talking about running through the list of things I still need to see and do before leaving the Valley - a project I'm calling Operation Mop-Up.

What, you're wondering, could I possibly be talking about? Well let me give you a for instance, as some of my less grammatically astute high school teachers would say.

I happen to live within a very short distance of the Yankee Candle Company. No, not one of those tiny, intensely pungent shopping mall stores - this is the factory, where they actually churn out all those multicolored wax cylinders that get shoved, each holiday season, into the gift bags of great-aunts everywhere. The factory, unfortunately, is not open to the public - which is probably a good thing, considering the severe olfactory (no pun intended) assault any visitors to the place would undergo - but the factory store absolutely is open to the public. Nay, more: it sprawls at the side of Route 5 and screams at the public to come inside. And so the other day, after months of procrastination, come inside I did.




Having been trained by the YCC's mall stores to expect a ruthless nasal pummeling as soon as I stepped across the threshold of this self-proclaimed Scenter of the Universe, I was pleasantly surprised to find the place smelling only slightly of chemical foodstuffs and summer breezes. Instead, I found a vast compound full of toys, home accents, cheap New England souvenirs, a fudge shop, a bakery, a medieval castle, and, of course, an extensive Christmas village, complete with model trains, spinning trees, and fake snow falling from the ceiling every four minutes. This last was quite a hit amongst the schoolbusload of teenage girls who had arrived before me. There was also a make-your-own-candle station that included a display on the science of scent-mixing as well as a person-sized candle named King Candle, though which king it was named for is a mystery to me.





There were also, of course, lots and lots of candles spread throughout the place, but the ambient odors were diluted in the vast space of the building. I was, therefore, obliged to pop the lids off of more than a few and give them a good sniff. And as I made my way through candles with names like Egg Nog, Frosted Pumpkin, Vanilla Lime, Juicy Peach, and Candied Apple, I became profoundly, uncomfortably hungry. Just as I was about to take a bite out of Almond Cookie, I snapped out of it and beat a hasty retreat for the door, vowing never to return (on an empty stomach, at least).

Another item I've managed to cross off the Operation Mop-Up list is a visit to UMass Stonehenge. What's UMass Stonehenge? Well, from the road it looks like a diminutive neolithic site that somehow survived the construction of the adjacent UMass football stadium. It's always intrigued me - ever since Spinal Tap, miniature Stonehenges have been cool - so I stopped by the other day while out riding my bike. It was a bit disappointing. Turns out UMass Stonehenge is actually a "sunwheel" used by the Astronomy Department to teach about sun and moon cycles. It's the site of solstice gatherings, when the sun aligns with several of the larger rocks, and it's also used for moon tracking. So, in short, it's about science. Bah. I took a photo, but I wasn't happy about it.



Also crossed off the list: a climb up Mt. Sugarloaf, about which I'll say nothing except that I think maybe I saw John Hodgman up on the summit. And I took a witty photograph up there (not of John Hodgman).



So stay tuned for more highlights from Operation Mop-Up and, of course, for the last two french toast posts. Just two more toasts to go! Whee!

Some Superlatives from a Visit to the Upper Midwest

I've just returned from a 10-day ramble through Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois, during which I was accompanied, at various times, by my brother, his girlfriend, my girlfriend, and several bouts of indigestion. I've broken the elements of the trip down into several helpful categories in order to convey the experience to you.

Largest Ball of Twine Seen:


Francis A. Johnson's famous twine ball in Darwin, MN. At one time the largest twine ball in the world, Johnson's ball, constructed between 1950 and 1979, has since been surpassed by several others, but it remains the largest twine ball ever rolled by one man. It is also, as yet, the only twine ball about which Weird Al Yankovic has written a song.



Largest Orange Moose Seen:


The gigantic fiberglass moose in Black River Falls, WI. I have no idea why this was here.

Largest Spoon Seen:


"Spoonbridge and Cherry," a sculpture in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden created by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen.

Largest Cherry Seen:
See above.

Largest American Gothic Homage Seen:


J. Seward Johnson's "God Bless America" statue on Michigan Avenue in Chicago.

Largest Frozen Custard Serving Consumed:


A single scoop of regular old vanilla custard at Kopp's, in Milwaukee.

Largest Carousel in the World:


The carousel at the House on the Rock in Milwaukee.

Minimum Number of Outlandishly Large Objects Seen:
Eight.

Happiest Barn in which Apple-Pie-Baked-In-a-Paper-Sack Was Purchased:


The Elegant Farmer, outside Milwaukee.

Stinkiest Sausage Bought and Consumed:
Landjaeger from the Elegant Farmer.

Maximum Number of Enclosed Spaces Rendered Almost Completely Unusable by the Landjaeger:
Three.

Drunkest Tour Guide:
The guy giving the Lakefront Brewery tour in Milwaukee.

Tour Guide Most Clearly Infatuated by a Deceased Brewery Proprietor:
The lady who showed us around the Pabst Mansion in Milwaukee.

Most Dangerous Chandelier Seen:


Captain Pabst's antler chandelier in Milwaukee.

Deadliest Hamburger Consumed:


The butter burger at Solly's in Milwaukee.

Most Dangerous Burger Consumed:


The Jucy Lucy at Matt's Bar in Minneapolis. This burger consists of two patties of meat surrounding molten cheese - servers warn customers to wait a few minutes for the cheese to cool before biting into it. This makes the Jucy Lucy more dangerous than Solly's butter burger, but it remains considerably less deadly.

Deadliest Item(s) Consumed:


Fried cheese curds at the Old Fashioned in Madison. (This was a closely contested category, but the inclusion of a side of garlic mayonnaise for dipping put the cheese curds over the top).

Most Rapidly Devoured Pie:


The caramel-apple pie at Solly's.

Most Calories Consumed at One Sitting:


Hopple Popple at Benji's Deli in Milwaukee.

Most Ridiculous Item Consumed:


Pie Shakes at Betty's Pies in Minneapolis.

Prettiest Sunset:


Over the lake at the Union Terrace at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Biggest Surprise:


Minneapolis. Turns out it's gorgeous! And exciting! There are lakes and parkways everywhere, wonderful restaurants, lots of bookshops, friendly people... and it has easy access to the Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota! I wonder if it's sunny and warm like that all year long.

Gayest Thai Food Consumed:
Dinner at Pingpong in Boystown, Chicago.

Gayest Everything Else:
Everything in Boystown, Chicago.

Creepiest House in America:


The House on the Rock in Spring Green, WI. I don't even know how to describe this place. You'll just have to look at the photos.

Most Active Photographer:
Me. Here.

The Search for the Perfect French Toast - Look Restaurant

I know, I know. You thought I'd forgotten about this little quest, right? Indeed, you were probably hoping I'd forgotten about it, huh? (I'm looking at you, Dr C.) Well I hate to ruin your morning, but it's just not my way to leave a task undone. Especially when that task involves bread and syrup and eggs and sometimes powdered sugar and cinnamon.

Am I getting tired of french toast? You bet your life I am. But am I going to let that deter me from fighting this fight through to the final round? No, I am not.

The good news for all of you haters out there is that we are, indeed, quickly reaching said final round. According to my calculations, there are only three establishments within the vague geographic range that I've set for myself that I've yet to talk about - one of which I'll dispose of presently, and quite succinctly at that. The other two are Valley institutions that I've been needing to talk about anyway, and then we'll be done. And, as God is my witness, I'll never have to eat french toast again.

The Look Restaurant is itself something of a Valley institution. It's located just north of the entrance to Look Park, named after Frank Newhall Look, whose wife, Fannie, donated the land to the city of Northampton in his honor. Frank was the chief executive of the Prophylactic Brush Company from 1877 to 1911, and, before you all start tittering, you should know that the Prophylactic Brush Company was one of the first (if not the first) mass producers of plastic toothbrushes in the nation. They also made hair brushes and other brushy things. The company was bought by the Lambert Company in 1930, the same year Fannie donated the land for the park to honor her husband, and subsequently became a division of Standard Oil, as most things did at that time. The park itself is one of the loveliest around - there are walking and biking paths, a serene pond surrounded by groves of tall evergreens, a miniature train, and even a small zoo, though if you go there expecting giraffes and elephants you're going to be sorely disappointed (as I was). Similarly, if you go to Look Park without first obtaining a permit for your picnic, you're likely to be chucked into the pond. Ah well - we live in a society, after all, and societies have their rules. More pleasantly, the park also has an amphitheater and a summer concert series, whose performers this year have included Gordon Lightfoot, Joan Baez, and Tom Jones. It's not unusual, if you'll pardon my saying so, to wish you'd actually made it to see Tom Jones.

This is what the Look Park looks (excuse the pun) like:



The best thing about the Look Restaurant, which you spot as you drive along Route 9 past the park, is that, as you pass it, you can say, "Look! Restaurant!" In fact, you can say this every time you pass it, in the same exact way, to the same exact person, and it will always be funny. Trust me.



The least good thing about the Look Restaurant is that the interior looks like a hospital commissary. The pastel colors and fluorescent lights give the place a sickly, washed-out look, and this effect is only slightly overcome by the several pleasant pieces of art that hang on the walls, including one large, framed photograph of a serving of french toast.

"Aha!" I thought, as I spied this piece of vernacular art. "Any place that has a large, framed photograph of french toast hanging on its walls must have good french toast!"

On examining the photograph further, I noted that the toast in the picture appeared to be coated in lacquer. It was probably supposed to be butter, but this toast was far to glistening to be covered in actual butter, which, as we all know, seeps into french toast fairly quickly and doesn't exactly shimmer in the light of a flashbulb. Or maybe it was laminated. Whatever it was, it was very shiny, and I began to have my doubts.

I was also surprised to find that the Look Restaurant, despite its name, is, in fact, a diner. There's a long counter with stools, behind which the cooks do their thing amidst their cooking equipment, and there were some benches along the walls. The customers were of the sort typically found in the area's diners - elderly folks, families, casually dressed businessmen, the sorts of people Tracy Kidder, in Home Town, describes as natives, and whom I've been less charitably referring to as townies. Indeed, the Look Restaurant plays a considerable role in Kidder's book as the favorite dining establishment of Tommy, the cop who's the principal subject of the book.

That's how I know the Look Restaurant is a Valley institution.

In any case, the folks at the Look were certainly friendly. I had a brief conversation with an older gentleman sitting beside me about the economy (he wasn't optimistic), flipped through the morning's Daily Hampshire Gazette, which someone had kindly left on the counter for me, and noted that most of the folks in there clearly came by quite a bit - they knew the servers, and they knew one another. Indeed, so locals-down-at-the-diner was the place that I wouldn't have been surprised to see a presidential candidate, with entourage, sweep into the place and start shaking hands and taking pictures. If we had been in New Hampshire, I'm pretty sure that would have happened.




As for the french toast, it was not bad. It certainly could have been a lot worse - at least it wasn't coated in poisonous chemicals, like the one on the wall. They offered a choice of white, wheat, cinnamon raisin, or banana bread, as well as real maple syrup for an extra $1.50. I went with the wheat, with the real maple syrup. The slices were nice and thick, cooked just right with a thin, crisp crust on both sides, and the syrup gave it plenty of sweetness to make up for the absence of powdered sugar. In all, it was probably the best diner french toast I've had in the area.

Which isn't saying much, but it is saying something.

Look! French toast!

Love and Popsicles

Apartment hunting is a lot like online dating. You start with essentially two lists: necessary attributes and ideal attributes. On the first list you put things you can't live without - two bedrooms and a dishwasher, say, or a college degree and blond hair. On the second list you put things that will help you decide among those that pass your initial screening process - does it get plenty of light? is it close to a park? will my friends like it? does it laugh at my jokes? As you sift through the choices online, you flag the ones that look interesting and send a brief email expressing interest and asking to arrange a meeting. Maybe you include a little about yourself in the email, a little joke maybe, to make yourself stand out from the crowd, or maybe you make do with a simple, flirtatious wink.

Then you wait, impatiently, for a response. You check your email obsessively to see who's gotten back to you - some of the ones that sound promising never respond at all, while some of the less promising ones reply immediately and want to make an appointment for this afternoon. You diligently mark down all the appointments in your calendar, being sure to note a few pieces of relevant information about each. And then you're off, scrambling all over the city from appointment to appointment, introducing yourself, trying to sound charming and desirable, asking all the right questions. You tell the same stories over and over, crack the same jokes. Before long, all the people and places you will start to blur together, and if you don't start taking notes soon you'll get them mixed up later - was this the one with the weird crack in the bathroom? was this the one with the brother in Minneapolis?

If you're the type who makes quick judgments, if you're comfortable going with your gut, then you'll quickly decide to commit to just one apartment/person as soon as it feels right, maybe even before you've visited all the ones on your list. Sometimes this will lead to great happiness, but often your enthusiasm will fade quite quickly, as soon as it becomes clear that the drawbacks - the things you hadn't considered or had willfully overlooked in the first rush of excitement - are, in fact, quite severe. Sure, it's really cute, but it's also really, really noisy. Yeah, the view is astounding, but it's a bit cramped in here, and what's with all the mirrors? But by then you're committed, and you can't wriggle out of your predicament without a lot of pain and heartache on both sides, and possibly a lawsuit.

It's far better, to my mind, to take your time with these things, to make as many appointments as possible with as wide a variety of places/people as you can find. Get an idea of what's out there by going after something that's obviously out of your league. Dip into the bottom of the barrel and see if you come up with a gem. Don't stick too closely to your lists of necessary and ideal attributes - you might be surprised at what you're willing to do without (a dishwasher, a nodding acquaintance with the nonfiction works of David Foster Wallace) when all the other stars align just perfectly.

The problem with this second approach, of course, is that it's not entirely in your hands. In both apartment hunting and dating, you have not only to worry about whether the object of your desire will desire you in return - maybe your credit's not good enough, maybe you're not tall enough, maybe you have a history of breaking windows and shoving beer bottles into walls - but you also have a very ill-defined set of time constraints to deal with. Some of the people you meet are looking to have their needs filled immediately, some are, like you, meeting a number of different people and then making their own decisions about whom to offer themselves to among the pool of applicants/suitors, some are looking to move much quicker than you are (often because they know they can't compete with the others on the market), and some are possessed of a serene confidence that if you don't want them, someone else will. This dance can be a tricky, even maddening one, especially if you're someone who likes to take your time and explore all your options before making a commitment - by the time you convince yourself that this one is the one, someone else might have snatched it up. It pays to be deliberate, but try not to be too deliberative.

Last week Kate and I went to Nashville to undertake the apartment-hunting equivalent of speed dating. We had roughly 40 hours in town and 10 appointments, all of which were made by me in the days immediately preceding our trip. We ended up seeing 14 different apartments, almost all of which would have been suitable, but only one of which was perfect. One was in a high-rise condo building with a breathtaking view all the way to Arkansas and a swimming pool on the roof, but the apartment was much too small. One was incredibly, stupidly cheap - virtually free, really - but it was pretty shabby and in a boring area. Several were perfectly fine - good area, plenty of room, all the necessary amenities - but we just weren't feeling a spark. And then, on our last appointment, with a guy who'd already shown us three other properties he owned and had decided to show us one last one that he was currently renovated, we fell in love.

The apartment was completely gutted - no floor, no kitchen, no bathroom - but we knew it'd be perfect. We just knew. It was in an old house, a tri-plex, in the 12 South neighborhood of Nashville, within walking distance of the corridor of stores and bars and coffee shops that line 12th Avenue and not far from the buzzing student areas near Vanderbilt and Belmont, across the street from a beautiful park (beyond which is a community garden), and mere steps away from a gourmet popsicle stand. That's what I said: a gourmet popsicle stand. Which we subsequently visited - I tried the blueberry chocolate chip and Kate had the cucumber chile - and declared to be just as amazing as we expected it to be, and maybe a little bit more. The house itself met all of our essential criteria. The rent is good, pets are allowed, there's plenty of parking, plenty of light, plenty of space, a basement for storage, and all the rest of it. There's also a fireplace, high ceilings, funky angles, and a great, weird front door. (I wish we'd taken pictures, but we didn't.)

So we signed a lease, we paid a deposit, and we have been assured that the renovations will be done by the first of August, or at least a few days into August. I'm optimistic that everything will be as promised, but I still feel a slight twinge of apprehension, given the current state of the place. We are, after all, putting a great deal of trust in someone we've only just met to fulfill the promises he's made to us, and we've already got a lot invested - both monetarily and emotionally - in a successful outcome.

Which also makes this a lot like dating, but with significantly higher stakes. I'm thinking, of course, of all the popsicles in my future if this thing goes all the way.

Cape Crusaders

Hello. Last week I went to Cape Cod with Kate and her parents, and the following things happened.

1) John Waters, director of Hairspray and Cecil B. DeMented and Pink Flamingos and many other strange movies that I haven't actually ever seen, bicycled past me in a navy blue suit and sneakers. This was in Provincetown, at the very tip of the Cape, which is famous for its artists and writers and large gay population (the three groups being by no means mutually exclusive). There was a film festival going on, and this is probably why John Waters was riding his bike through town. At least I assume it was his bike.

2) If it was his bike, he may well have purchased it from an old friend of mine who runs a few bike shops on the Cape and whom we visited one afternoon in the rain. This is Peter, whom some of you remember from our grad school days. He left the program about six years ago, and, judging from the current economic climate, this was a very wise move indeed. He now owns three bike shops, a house, a wife, and a baby named Jebediah. He was happy and warm and he gave us t-shirts. I love Peter.

3) If John Waters were to ride his bike (or someone else's bike) south out of Provincetown to North Truro, he would pass - or, if he's smart, stop by - the Susan Baker Memorial Museum. Susan Baker is an old friend of Kate's parents, and she lives in her memorial museum with her husband, Keith, and a one-eyed basset hound who sometimes wets the floors. She makes papier mache sculptures of dogs and ticks and other animals, chapbooks and book-books about dogs and ticks and childbirth and things, and paintings of European cities and Cape Cod and other places. They're really quite remarkable, the paintings, and you can see what appear to be watercolor interpretations of them here. I should also point out that Susan and Keith's son, Ellery, is currently biking with a friend from Vladivostok, Russia, to Porto, Portugal - a distance of about 10,000 miles (I'd like to see John Waters do that!). They've become quite the media sensation in Russia and are hoping to meet Vladimir Putin. You can follow their adventures here. I forgot to ask Peter if he's the one who sold them their bikes, but I think he probably is.



4) Have you ever been to a tea dance? Well I have. A tea dance, according to the bouncer standing outside the club advertising the tea dance, is a take-off on the British high tea, but instead of finger food they have, um, something else. He offered us a free peek inside - this was mid-afternoon, and the club was thumping out some glittery techno tunes into the placid P'town air - and we took him up on his offer. It was a bit disappointing, actually: no tea, no dancing, just a few clusters of people standing around on the deck overlooking the harbor. But it was a pleasant enough deck, and I'll happily go to another tea dance there if I'm ever invited.

5) There were custard rolls and sweet-potato pastries and Portuguese sweet breads and maybe one or two servings of french toast. Oh, and cinnamon rolls - one buttermilk, one regular.

6) There were also gallery openings (Kate's parents, having lived in P'town back in the 1970s, are friends with many of the artists in the area - including one woman who once shared gallery space with Norman Mailer's fourth wife!) and lovely meals and picnics on the beach and a B&B proprietor who was very, very proud of his extensive VHS (VHS!) video collection and was thrilled to have a librarian (that'd be Kate) to whom he could explain his cataloguing procedure, which relied heavily on multicolored circular stickers. Said proprietor also had a marked fondness for Abraham Lincoln, elephants, and things with ruffles.

7) Photographs were taken.

Update to previous post: Republican flies and vanishing bears

OH MY GOD. One of my flies has escaped and tried to eat President Obama! I'm so sorry, Mr. President. I should never have gone back into that utility room. I should just have left my bike and my laundry and my trash where it was. Please don't order unmanned drone strikes on my little home, President Obama. I traveled all the way to Philadelphia to vote for you! I went all the way to London for your inauguration! I'm even a vice president in your vice president's fan club! Oh god! How did this happen?

But it's not entirely my fault, see, there's this elderly couple that comes by and bickers in my basement every now and then...

---

Also, another development since last I posted: one of the bears I photographed over in Easthampton the other day has been kidnapped!

The chrome bear in front of the Eastworks building named (I'm not making this up) "Bearly There" was stolen overnight on Saturday following the unveiling of several dozen public-art bears for Easthampton's "Bearfest 2009."



If anyone has seen this bear, perhaps sticking her little chrome paw into a pot of honey or lying in wait to snatch somebody's pickinic basket, please contact the Eastampton police immediately. The alternative is simply too unbearable to contemplate. (get it?)

Here's the full story: