Disaster Nodes and the Elusive Vacation

Vacations are overrated.  By that I mean that I haven’t had one in---well, years.  I have taken lots and lots of trips; however, most are either filled with family obligations or marred by my husband’s business commitments.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love visiting my husband’s family in the far reaches of Oregon.  They are a diverse and entertaining bunch and Oregon has much in the way of beautiful terrain and farm-fresh dining to offer.  It’s just that when it comes time to choose between setting course for a new destination and visiting family—Oregon usually wins. 

In a similar vein, I enjoy accompanying my husband on his many business trips.  In recent years, these trips have included such mainstay venues as Chicago and Tampa, as well as more exotic locales, such as Turkey and Scotland.   As much as it is exciting to venture to new worlds and explore new cultures, it is a bummer to be left alone in a foreign land while my husband disappears into his conferences, or even worse, to be stuck in a hotel room waiting for his return.

Finally, I have convinced my husband to take me on a trip of our own making.  In celebration of our 30^th anniversary, he has agreed—initially under much duress—to take me to Italy.  Italy is the one country I have been longing to visit since college, having endured a year’s worth of slides, three days per week, of paintings, frescoes, sculptures, and architectural wonders in the once-obligatory-and-now-defunct course, Fine Arts 13.  Art history is a passionate hobby of mine.  I spend a lot of time paging through art books, and researching artists and architects.  But as a musician and a performer who was trained to appreciate the creation of art “in the moment,” I derive as much joy from standing in the presence of great masterpieces as I do from discovering their beauty in books.  To put it bluntly:  Watch out, girls, that David sculpture is MINE!

As much as I look forward to the exciting trip we have planned—a few days each in Rome, Venice, and Florence—I confess that there is a great downside to this journey.  Traveling these days is a lot of work and a lot of stress.   Certainly, it is an improvement now that we can search for our own hotels and air fares without going through a third-party travel agent.  I no longer feel like I am being compelled to stay somewhere because kick-backs have been arranged, or because the agent’s knowledge is limited to certain venues.  After my exhaustive Googling and an assortment of email conversations (that, despite being carried on in English still contain the charming lilt of an Italian accent,) I feel confident that I have chosen well.  On the other hand, my micro-management of every detail demonstrates just how many things can go wrong.  Our romantic second honeymoon is really a collection of planned events connected by a series of “disaster nodes”—endless opportunities for our trip to become a FUBAR. 

Take, for instance, our airline tickets.  We purchased our tickets almost a year ago.  As part of our planning, we took pains to avoid New York’s Kennedy Airport as a connecting city.  We have made many trips to Europe that involved connections at JFK.  Almost none of them worked smoothly.  On one trip to Paris, our flight from Boston to JFK was so delayed due to air traffic that we nearly missed our connecting flight to Paris.  They offered to put us on the next flight out; however, they could not provide the business-class upgrades that we had purchased with zillions of frequent flyer miles.  On another flight back from Istanbul, our connecting plane in New York back to Boston was missing in action.  They projected a 6-7 hour delay just to get an aircraft queued up for the short 80-minute flight.  Because my husband had to work the next day, we ended up taking a 4-hour limousine ride all the way home.   We have learned not to allow connections through JFK; it is the ultimate travelling penalty box.  Yet, for some reason, the airlines always want to force us to connect there.  Even on a recent trip to San Diego, when our return flight through Minneapolis was oversold, the gate agent called our names, offering us $1200 in future vouchers if we would relinquish our seats and fly first class back through JFK.  If it had been through any other airport we would have jumped at the opportunity, but because it was JFK, we flatly refused.

Another potential disaster node is the hotel.  Hotels are the ultimate blind purchase.  You book a hotel after seeing luxurious photos and reading online reviews.  But seriously, how many of us put realistic photos online?  For this trip, I chose to take advantage of advance purchases on hotel stays.  Prepaying translated into savings of up to 20%.   Given the weak trading of the dollar against the euro, this turned out to be a pretty good deal.  In addition, there is something nice about knowing that your entire trip is paid in advance, leaving you with “only” the bills for meals and shopping upon return.   There is only one catch:  prepaid hotels are completely and irrevocably non-refundable.   This is fine, as long as everything works according to plan.

I had a lengthy email exchange with a hotel in Venice after reading a review from travelers who, despite reserving in advance, were bumped to a secondary property.  Their reservation was honored, but not in the building they were expecting.  The hotel has guaranteed me a particular suite in the main building.  It remains to be seen where they put us.

Years ago we had a sticky situation with a hotel in London.  We booked a week at a hotel that my company used frequently.  As we were traveling in June and I was very pregnant, I called ahead to ensure before booking that the rooms were air conditioned.  Of course, of course, they promised.  We arrived in London to record heat, the temperatures well over 100 degrees.   When we arrived at the hotel, they informed us that we would be placed in a “very nice room” over in the annex.  “It’s air conditioned, of course?” I inquired, somewhat rhetorically.  “Well, no,” he explained.  “Those rooms have no air conditioning.”  Conjuring the anger of a hormonally-compromised female, I recounted the conversation in which I was guaranteed an air conditioned room.   The gentleman tried to explain that it was Wimbledon week—in fact, John McEnroe and other US tennis players were staying at the hotel—and there was nothing he could do.  Enraged beyond reason, I could think of nothing more to do, so I planted myself on a seat in the lobby and refused to move until they produced the promised air conditioned room.  Eventually they did, but I have always wondered if one of the US tennis players suffered on my account. 

Even if you manage to make your connections and arrive on schedule, and if the hotel proves adequate, there are so many other unknowns that can become disaster nodes.  Like the thief that tried to lift my wallet in front of the Mona Lisa, or the taxi driver in Istanbul who managed to help himself to some of my husband’s cash, or the complete rainout during five days in Glasgow.  One year, my husband arrived in Vancouver, BC for an annual meeting only to discover that his bags did not make it.  He had to give his presentation in a hastily arranged outfit that I negotiated by phone from Boston with a local purveyor of fine menswear—including directions on how to alter the pants and jacket to his specifications without a fitting.

These days, disaster nodes go far beyond the known entities influenced by human error and acts of G-d; there is the potential for the unthinkable.  If we are lucky, we will only be inconvenienced by a long line at security, or the ransacking of our luggage in Customs.  A flight delay is fine; the hotel will not let us check in as early as we arrive anyway.   A rainstorm while touring the Coliseum is a small price to pay.   If my luggage is delayed, I won’t mind shopping for a few outfits to tide me over.  I remain determined to be content in knowing that, finally, my husband and I are taking the trip I have dreamed of taking for over three decades.  There will be no work, no meetings, no presentations, and no responsibilities—except to each other.  And as long as we are together, it will be the best trip yet.

On the other hand, if what we really want is to relax, we'd do better to plan a week off at home.

A Cold and Lonely, Lovely Work of Art

This week, the art world is abuzz about a second Mona Lisa painting.  It is a welcome respite from the tiresome political and world news.  Knowledge of this painting is not new; the art community has known about it for years, but it has been kept in hiding for half a century.  Only recently was the painting revisited, allowing Italian experts to test its authenticity with modern technology.  Among the opinions that have surfaced, many are quick to point out how exactly this second painting—called the Isleworth Mona Lisa due to the English residence of the last owner—resembles the Louvre masterpiece in structure and composition.  The two are of different scales (the Louvre masterpiece is much smaller), adding weight to the conclusion that none but the master himself could have rendered such an uncanny likeness.

One fact that works steadfastly against the authenticity of the Isleworth painting is that it is painted on canvas.  Wood was the preferred “canvas” for daVinci, and the famous Mona Lisa is indeed painted on wood.  An artist’s habits are an important piece of evidence to consider.  As my husband is fond of remarking, "Common things happen commonly.”  Artists are creatures of habit.  It is harder to explain the use of an unexpected material than it is to explain a similar looking painting.

What is known is that such a painting was commissioned by a 16^th century Italian nobleman, but was never delivered.  The painting in the Louvre—believed to be of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo—was found among daVinci’s effects upon his death.  He lived the last years of his life in France’s Loire Valley.  But the most interesting part of this story is that the iconic smiling subject in the Isleworth painting  appears to be about 10 years younger.  Experts argue, therefore, that it is “the original” version, predating “La Jaconde” of the Louvre. 

I think the experts got this completely wrong.  Sure, they may have matched paints and confirmed the dates through scientific means, but they have neglected the most obvious evidence of all:  no woman would authorize a painting that makes her appear older.  It is far more compelling to argue that the Louvre painting is the original or even a prototype and that the larger Isleworth Mona Lisa was meant to be the final deliverable.  Thus, the fact that it was found in an unfinished state makes sense. 

Not convinced?  Consider the following dialogue:

Leo:  Hey, Lisa, so check out my painting!

Lisa: Oy vey, Leo, you made me hideous.  This painting makes me look fat.  And jeez—how old I look!  I can’t possibly look like that!  There’s no way I’m letting you show that to my husband!

Leo:  But this is exactly the way I see you!

Lisa:  Seriously, you must be blind!  My skin is flawless like alabaster!  I do not have spots and hideous bags under my eyes.  Make my bosom perky!  And get rid of that dowager’s veil.  It makes me look like I’m in mourning.  And what’s with that background?  I’m not put out to pasture yet!  Paint me as I am—mistress of the palazzo!

Leo:  I guarantee, in ten years you will love the way you look in this picture!

Lisa:  If you ever want to see a dime from this commission you will do as I say!  Make it larger than life so that whatever my husband is doing he will feel my eyes watching him.  And I want you to capture me for all eternity as a twenty-something babe.   No matter what woman catches my husband’s roving eye, I want him to see me looking prettier and younger.  It will be our little joke.

Regardless of what the so-called experts conclude, I will always believe that Leonardo daVinci was heeding the wishes of a desperate woman who was fighting to retain her youth and the attentions of her husband.  What we see was the result of a conspiracy between artist and subject.  We see it in her smile, but her lips remain sealed.

It's What's For Dinner--Part Two

I had to choose a special recipe to celebrate 10,000 hits on my blog.  (Can I say that again?  I've had 10,000 hits!)  This brisket recipe is so special, only a milestone like this would get me to share it.  After all, if someone else can make my signature brisket, my kids might never come home!

Traditional recipes are composed of half ingredients, half cultural narrative.  My brisket is a two-day affair that requires great patience.  For this reason, I have spread the story of my brisket across two days.  This blog will detail the procedure for making my brisket, but please do not attempt to prepare it without reading its background story in yesterday’s blog.

Now that I have frightened you into thinking this is an elaborate and difficult undertaking, I confess it is very easy to make.  But following the protocol for cooling the meat before slicing will ensure that you have an outcome that is as appealing visually as it is gustatorily.

Low-and-Slow, Oven-Roasted Beef Brisket

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
4 large cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed
½ t kosher salt (plus more for seasoning)
4 sprigs rosemary, stems discarded, chopped

1 (approx. 4 lb.) “first cut” beef brisket (sometimes called “flat cut”), trimmed of excess fat, but leave a thin layer across the meat
4 large carrots, peeled and cut into large chunks
3 stalks celery, ends removed, cut into large chunks
4 red onions, peeled and halved
2 cups of a dry red wine
1 28 oz. can of whole San Marzano tomatoes, crushed by hand
1 large handful of flat-leaf parsley
3 bay leaves

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

In a small bowl, add 2T of extra virgin olive oil.  On a cutting board, use a knife to mash garlic cloves and ½ teaspoon kosher salt into a paste.  Add chopped rosemary and continue to work the ingredients into a paste.  Place in the bowl with the olive oil and set aside to infuse the flavors.

Place a large roasting pan (or Dutch oven large enough to hold brisket in a single layer) on the stove on high, using 2 burners.  Season both sides of the brisket with salt and pepper and brush with remaining olive oil.  Sear brisket—first on one side and then on the other—to form a crust.  Place carrots, celery and onions around the brisket in the pan.  Pour the rosemary paste over the meat and vegetables.  Add red wine, crushed tomatoes, parsley and bay leaves.  Cover tightly with heavy aluminum foil and transfer the pan to the hot oven.  Roast 3-4 hours, basting occasionally with the pan juices, until the meat is fork tender.

Remove the brisket and rest at least an hour on a cutting board.  When cooled, slice the brisket across the grain into neat slices.  Return slices to the pan, submerging them in the juices.

[At this point, you may return the meat to the roasting pan, cover, and refrigerate overnight.  The next day, about 2 hours before serving, remove the pan from the refrigerator and let sit for 30 minutes to come to room temperature.  Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and return the pan to the oven for 45 minutes.]

Place whole chunks of carrots, celery, onions and tomatoes in a serving bowl and keep warm.  Carefully transfer the sliced meat to a serving plate and keep warm.  Place the roasting pan back on the stove and heat the remaining liquids to boiling, allowing to reduce or thicken slightly.   Remove pan from the heat and, using an immersion blender, puree the pan juices into a thick gravy.  Pour some of the hot juice over the sliced brisket on the serving plate.  Serve remaining juices on the side.

Serve sliced brisket, roasted pan vegetables, and pan gravy immediately.

To store leftovers (who are we kidding?) place sliced brisket in an oven-proof container and pour over pan juices.  Add vegetables.  Cover with oven-proof lid or aluminum foil.  To reheat, place directly  into oven at 325 degrees.

It's What's For Dinner

There is nothing that says “Jewish mother” like a good brisket.  Over the years, I have experimented with different styles, flavors and cooking apparatuses.  One of my favorite versions is my friend Flo’s.  She cooks brisket in a slow cooker with a bottle of mesquite BBQ sauce, a can of cranberry sauce, and a dry package of Lipton’s Onion Soup Mix.  It is delicious and easy!!  But the version of brisket that gets my kids to cancel their plans and stay home for dinner--even causing my vegetarian daughter to risk filling her  lungs with the fragrant waft-- is my low-and-slow, oven-basted version. 

There is an important trick to making brisket.  I find that it is most successful if you do not attempt to eat it on the same day that you make it.  This takes a great deal of resolve, as we are not a people known for patience and delayed gratification.  The smells generated by the slow-cooking meat and vegetables will drive you and the other inhabitants of your house insane.  Thus, it is mandatory that you procure tonight’s dinner before you begin preparing tomorrow’s brisket. 

The reason for this routine is not simply to heighten the expectations.  A good brisket is not a feat of taste alone; one must take care to get perfect, even slices.    About 45 minutes before done time, I remove the meat from the pan and place it on a large cutting board.  There, I let it sit for AT LEAST an hour—sometimes longer—allowing the juices to redistribute back into the meat.   Only when the slab of meat has cooled considerably to the touch, looking almost shriveled and dry, is it then OK to slice.  Always slide thinly across the grain.  Remember to wait patiently until the brisket is cool, or you will end up with something resembling shredded barbeque.  It is important to monitor the brisket, both before and after slicing, as it tends to attract husbands and other wild beasts.  There is nothing worse than going to all this trouble only to have your prize brisket disappear as a midnight snack. 

My brisket gets a run for its money during the Fall-Winter holiday season.   I usually get a call from my son at college a few weeks before exams asking if we can have brisket when he gets home.  He uses the anticipation like a magic carpet to help him soar through his exams.   Every Jewish Mother has her own version of brisket.  My mother makes a darn good traditional brisket, however I prefer the layered flavor profiles I have been able to develop in my version.  And unlike my mother, who always threw potatoes into her brisket pot for something that resembles Yankee Pot Roast, I leave them out.  When I am ready to serve, I remove the large chunks of stewed vegetables (carrots, onions, tomatoes, celery) for use as a side dish (my family fights over them), then take the remaining juices and solid pieces and blend them into a pan gravy to serve with it.  What’s nice about this is that it is a completely natural thickened sauce made without added butter or starch.

About the potatoes:  I agree that every flavorful piece of meat needs that accompanying spud.  In our house, a good brisket is an occasion for potato latkes—those delicious, crispy fried pancakes of seasoned, shredded potatoes.   Latkes are a production all their own, causing the smell of hot grease to linger in the house for days.  This is why I make latkes in bulk and freeze them, placing them individually on a sheet pan in the freezer until they are frosted, then piling them into a large Ziploc freezer bag for long term storage.  Latkes retain so much oil after cooking that they reheat beautifully, providing a “just cooked” result after only a few minutes in a hot oven. 

After all this, you are probably expecting a brisket recipe.  Tune in tomorrow. . .

Nostalgia, Extra Large, With Cheese

I grew up in Miami during its most unremarkable years.  My time was not during its Golden Age, when movie stars and their entourages flocked to luxurious landmarks like the Fontainebleu or the Biltmore.  Those were the years before Hollywood hit it big and sucked the "filmerati" westward.  In those long-forgotten days, Miami was as good as luxury got for spending a hiatus between films—a haven where a start's solitute was certain to be captured by the tabloids.  Nor was I there for the Miami Renaissance of the last generation, the post-Miami Vice years when South Beach reestablished its cool, creating grand destinations such as the Delano or the Mondrian. 

My Miami—North Miami Beach, actually—was an unincorporated stretch of northern Dade County where businesses popped up as fast as the small ranch-style dwellings could multiply.  The name is a bit of a misnomer as we were situated a good mile or two from the ocean, north of North Miami.  The landscape was flat, dotted by a healthy supply of cultivated palm trees, criss-crossed by perpendicular roads, and populated by chameleons.  It was hot.  Oh, how it was hot.

As a child, a neighborhood of about 20 square blocks was my universe.  We had everything we needed:  a shopping center (the word ‘mall’ wouldn’t be introduced for decades), a supermarket or two, a couple of synagogues, the correct number of elementary schools feeding into a single junior high, and a short ride to Baker’s Haulover Beach.  We had a strange attraction for such a nondescript suburban area:  an authentic Spanish Monastery that was purchased by none other than William Randolph Hearst and reassembled in North Miami Beach in the 50s.

Ours was a simple family.  My mother was a housewife cast in the mold of a 50s icon with poofy hair and pink lipstick.  My father was a working class engineer who threw himself into his work until he rose through the ranks of sales and management.  We did not live lavishly but we had plenty—good cars, a pool in the back yard, a boat for fishing and waterskiing, and most important to me, piano lessons.

My parents went out frequently, leaving us kids home with the latest pick from an assortment of babysitters.  Mom and Dad loved the theater and fine dining; and boy, could they dance.  As kids, we never accompanied them “out to dinner” unless it was to Burger King or Coney Island--someplace with no table service.  The only opportunity to "go out fancy" was the occasional Bar Mitzvah or wedding, or that rare occasions where a large extended family dinner was staged at a family-style restaurant.  That's when going out for spaghetti or Chinese food took on celebratory significance.

Pizza, however, held a special place in my family’s culinary taxonomy.  My father was late to discover pizza, having been told by his mother that he hated cheese.  When he realized how much he loved pizza, he spent the rest of his life trying to compensate for his pizza-free childhood.  To say he was a pizza aficionado would be an understatement.  He was the undisputed supreme arbiter on what constituted good, better, and best among pizzas across the globe.  

One of our family’s favorite pizza escapes was a festive North Miami dive called Myers Pizza Parlor.  My earliest memory of pizza comes from Myers, a place my father discovered and worshipped for years.  He befriended the owners—who I think were named Joel and Harvey—so that when we arrived we received special treatment.  Joel would come out of the kitchen to sit at our table and share a beer with my Dad.  I felt like pizza royalty.

But while the pizza was the main attraction at Myers, I was dazzled by what went on at the other end of the restaurant, far away from the kitchen and the blazing pizza ovens.  In the corner, elevated slightly on a small platform, was an upright, honkey-tonk piano.  This out-of-tune junker was played, all night long, by a down-on-his-luck, aging soul named Milton.  Milton dressed in a festive red-and-white striped shirt and a straw boater, giving him the appearance of a disenfranchised member of a Barbershop Quartet.  He worked keyboard side out, his back to the audience, with a microphone stand between his legs.

I would not realize until much later in life what Milton’s true economic circumstances were.  To me, all that registered was that this man was playing a piano—in public.  It was incredible to me that one could have a job like this, and that people came over to fill his sad jar with their quarters and dimes.   It had been only a short time ago that I had started piano lessons.  I felt this bonded us—Milton and me—in that we shared this skill that was obviously lacking among everyone else at the venue.  When he took his breaks, Milton allowed me to play his piano.  He would announce my name into his microphone and people clapped, showing appreciation for insipid pieces just mastered from my John Thompson piano method books.  It was my fifteen minutes of fame, cut short by the man’s limping form emerging from the Men’s Room.  When he returned, he said his classic, “That was just lovely, dear heart.”  Milton called everybody “dear heart.”  He would then take over, returning to his harmonically-abused renditions of Golden-Oldies:  I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles, By the Light of the Silvery Moon, Swanee River, and Dixie.  (For the latter, he would ask everyone to please stand and face Ojus.)

Through the years of my adulthood, I would seek out pizza establishments in the cities where I lived, trying to find exceptional examples that my father might like during his occasional visits.   It was a personal challenge to uncover pizza greatness, if only to see whether it could rank among my father’s all-time favorites.   On a few occasions, I was able to make my father ooh and ahh—though he was easy when it came to pizza, his favorite of all foods.   But one mention of Myers Pizza Parlor and my father’s eyes would turn misty, the creases that came with age softening just a bit.  I suspect that my father remembered Myers the way one remembers a first love.  Although I have no lingering recollection of how the pizza tasted, I still feel the same way about Myers.  It was as memories should be—filled with friends and family, loud music, good food, and a little bit of magic.

When BFF Had Meaning

I am definitely in a nostalgic mood after visiting two great high school friends in San Diego.

I think of my dear friend Philip as a gem among my friends.  During those high school years—the ones that seem so awkward in retrospect they make you cringe—he was the kind of true friend upon which a girl could always depend.  We both studied French, which made us members of a very small club.  In South Florida, where everything was bilingual as a matter of law, you were considered foolish or misguided if you studied anything other than Spanish.  My father’s cousin, Pearl, was the French teacher at our high school.  In order to study French, I was sworn to protect this information from becoming public because there was no option but to have her as my teacher.  I had become smitten with French as a young girl because of a children's record that Pearl produced.   I had always planned to study French in high school; it was an odd and unforeseen coincidence that Pearl ended up moving to Miami just to teach in our new school.

Although Philip and I were in lots of classes together, we became buddies in Pearl's French class.   We discovered kindred spirits who love language, literature, art, music, and fine French dining.  When Philip spent his summers in New York, we wrote letters back and forth until he returned for the beginning of the school year.   It seemed that we were never at a loss for things to jabber on about.  We stayed in touch through college, always making a point of getting together during vacations to seek out a local creperie or an authentic French restaurant. 

After college, Philip headed off to Denver for graduate school, settling into an impressive high-powered business career.  When I moved to San Francisco, I would occasionally visit Denver on business—affording us the opportunity to keep in touch.  Right on cue, our conversations invariably turned to food.  We both evolved into “foodies” with a meticulous cooking esthetic, so it was no surprise to me that Philip ended up following his heart and enrolling in culinary school.  Today he is one of the most sought after restaurant managers in the country.  The busy Oceanaire Seafood Room in San Diego is lucky to have him as their GM.

I met Philip at his restaurant during the Saturday afternoon dinner prep.  There is no lunch service, so we sat at an elegantly appointed table and shared a bottle of San Pellegrino.  I could sense the electricity in the kitchen beyond the swinging doors.  After twenty years, catching up with him was like sipping a warm bowl of chicken soup. 

I define a great friendship as this:  no matter how long it has been since you have last seen each other, you just pick up where you left off.  Certainly we had a lot of catching up to do, but it was the easy, relaxed conversation of close friends.  We laughed off our respective signs of old age (the years look better on him).  His kitchen staff took turns approaching the table to confirm the legends of his erstwhile hair.  And we asked enough questions to ascertain for ourselves that the other is happy in this current stage of life. 

There is one “Philip moment” that I will cherish always.  When I got married, thirty years ago, Philip sent me a gorgeous piece of art glass made by renowned artists in Colorado.   The gift arrived just days before the wedding, and deep inside the thousands of Styrofoam peanuts was an even greater gift--a letter that I have kept all these years.  It makes me laugh to this day as it did when I first read it.  I am sure he wouldn't mind if I share it:

“Dearest Ellen & betrothed Tom—

Ellen, Ellen, Ellen, Ellen. . .you’re such a little kidder!  The cute invitations, the calligraphy; it’s all to wonderfully aesthetic to be, shall we say, la verité?

But, can it be??!  Is our “petite Ellen” tying the proverbial marriage knot??  In what mischievous direction has Cupid shot his love-tainted arrow?!

This man, Thomas, (presumably in the prime of his youth) has absconded with our little treasure, the Chopin, if you will, of the Blintz and Gucci circuit!!  Well, if it feels right—don’t think twice!!  So let the heavens rejoice, the nymphs dance, Falstaff drink, Pan play his merry fife, and me faint, for the bells are ringing and the stars are shining for Ellen!!                                                                                           
Much love—P”
 

The Boy in the Band

Thanks to Facebook, I am now in touch with many folks from my hometown that I last saw when we were just kids.  I left North Miami Beach for college and quickly became a New Englander, returning only rarely in the intervening years.  Although my high school class has formal reunions every five years and informal ones periodically, living this far away means that I rarely connect with old friends.  Even rarer is the opportunity to see people who were school friends but happened to be from other graduating classes; they attend different reunions, if at all.

One of these is my friend, Seth, with whom I have been reunited, corresponding now and again through the magic of Facebook.  Thank goodness we found each other, because he and I have so much in common.  By that, I mean I am incredibly jealous of him for having, in my opinion, the best job in America.  He is CFO of the San Diego Symphony—need I say more?  On our recent trip to San Diego, my husband and I were fortunate to be able to join him and his lovely wife for an al fresco dinner in Little Italy.  It was wonderful to discuss the good old days, recollect a legendary trip with the marching band, and to compare notes on our collection of grown children.  The longer we reminisced over spicy pasta dishes, the more ancient neurons sparked, bringing forward in our brains long-lost memories of youthful escapades.

Seth was a year older than me, but we became acquainted in our early teens through a common interest:  my beautiful friend, Cindy.  One night, Cindy was sleeping over my house while we were babysitting my much younger brother.  Cindy saw this as an opportunity to stage a rendezvous with that rascal, Seth.  She let it be known to him that my parents would be out, informing me that he would be heading over.  This left me with a dilemma.  How could we get a precocious youngster to bed at 9pm when it was only 6 and the sun was still shining? 

I knew that my baby brother could never be allowed to lay eyes on Seth, as he would certainly betray our mischief to the parents.  We came up with one of the worst ideas, the kind of thing that seems brilliant in youth but utterly ridiculous in adult hindsight.  In our family’s kitchen was a large wall clock hung high above the window near the ceiling.  Climbing up on the kitchen counter, I turned the clock forward to 9pm and then tried to convince the rambunctious kid that it was his bedtime.  He was not easily convinced, jumping in and out of bed every 5 minutes.  It was hard to be tough on him for his behavior given that we were the ones misbehaving.  Seth arrived, sneaking into my backyard to be admitted through the back sliding doors.  I ended up running interference between two hectic vignettes at different ends of the house:  the wide awake kid who needed special handling, and the two horny teenagers who, of course, kept two feet on the floor and their hands in their pockets.

I had not thought of that evening in forty years.  That’s the fun of reconnecting with friends from your childhood.  Youthful indiscretions are ties that bind.  Conjuring these stories is like taking a trip in a time machine.  I was instantly transported back to the days of my teenage angst, when I was  trapped between what I wanted to do and the fear of getting caught doing it.

How nice that this story has a happy ending.  Seth found his soul mate in Karen; their chemistry is palpable even after decades of marriage.   But there is more.  Because we took the time to renew our friendship we have brought it from our past into our present, enlarging it to encompass our spouses, and endowing it with the promise of days to come. 

Countdown

There have been a lot of milestones since embarking on this blog-a-day project.  When I completed my first month of blogs, I remember how proud I was to see the Blogger template close out the month of January and begin posting blogs for February.  There was a rush of exhilaration when my hit counter reached the first 1000.  After 122 consecutive blogs, I was thrilled to realize that I was 1/3 of the way toward my goal. 

Six months into this enterprise, my beleaguered spirit was lifted by passing the halfway point.  I was even more invigorated at the unexpected support and encouragement of my friends.  The number of you who read consistently humbles me.  I am buoyed by your sweet comments—some public, some private.  It is interesting to see which stories push various buttons across my diverse array of friends.  It has become a game of sorts to predict who will react to the story of the day.  The breadth of your collective interests helps me to expand the realm of my thinking, searching for yet another inspiration to make it through yet another day.

So here we are on September 23^rd.  This blog marks the beginning of the 100 day countdown.  After today, the quest is reduced to double-digits.  It may seem like the home stretch, yet all I can think of is one endless night as a young girl.  Packed on a sweltering school bus with a bunch of Girl Scouts, I was introduced to the classic, “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall.”  Exhausted and quite a bit punchy on the long bus ride home from camp, the group of us endeavored to count all the way down.  One by one, the scouts abandoned the song, causing the last songbird to leave off somewhere in the thirties.   Since then, I have been involved in dozens of attempts to make it through the full ninety-nine bottles.  To this day, I have yet to discover how this song is supposed to end.  Perhaps only the “counting sheep” know the answer.  As for me, I hope that as we ring in the next New Year, I will at least know how this challenge ends.

In the meantime, I am not only searching high and low for daily blog topics, I am also making a list of the many things I will undertake once this commitment draws to a close.  Several writing projects have now presented themselves, and I am eager to take off on a new creative path.   If I consider the hours I have been able to devote to personal writing this year, I now realize that there is always time to do something that you really want to do.  I have also learned, much to my chagrin, how much I depend upon the rigor of deadlines and the specter of public humiliation to keep me disciplined.

Those of you who have tagged along on this journey, I hope you will continue to stick with me through this final countdown. 

Beyond Your Wildest Dreams

I awoke spontaneously to find the sun shining through a narrow opening in the blackout curtains.  My husband was asleep beside me, so deep in slumber from the time change and the luxurious feel of hotel linens.  I tried once, twice, to nudge him from his deep sleep but he was completely non-responsive.  Good, I thought.  He needs the sleep.

I rolled out of bed and was instantly dressed.  I sensed that I had completed my ablutions but had no memory of having done so.  I took a few steps and realized I was no longer in my hotel room.  I was cruising the shops in a busy mall.  The people moved past me at such speeds that they were all a blur.  Only the area immediately in front of me was in focus. 

The location was not obvious.  It was not Burlington or Natick—the places I frequent near home.  Nor was it The Water Tower in Chicago or The Mall of America outside Minneapolis.  There was no Nordstrom or Bloomingdales or Macy’s anchoring the major entrances.  But there was a seemingly endless wall of interesting shops.  Instead of Forever 21, or Gap for Kids, or PacSun—stores that held no interest for me at this stage of my life—there were stores that featured handmade crafts, gallery-worthy objets d’art, home accessories, and beautiful art jewelry confections spun from colorful jewels and threads of silver and gold. 

However I got there, I did so without bringing my purse.  Placing my hands on my hips, I discovered my American Express Platinum Card deep in the pocket of my jeans.  I wondered if my husband would ever find me in this place.  Was it attached to the hotel?  Was I still in the same city as he?  I looked at my hand and there was my iphone.  Without stopping, I texted him that I couldn’t sleep and went shopping.  For some reason, that message seemed a sufficient explanation.

The first shop that caught my eye had a collection of architectural elements and old grillwork reminiscent of things I picked through at the Clignancourt flea markets in Paris.  Old wood pieces betrayed remnants of old paint, the hints of color clinging on as a reminder that these were once shiny and new.   The crusty, rusty metal pieces—a fleur de lys here, an old letter there—showed a period elegance that survived despite the weathering of the surface.   How much more I preferred the character forged of age and experience to the newer reproductions.   I thought of my own children who, in adulthood, are so interesting now that the wrinkles and folds of their personalities have settled into their permanent forms.

With a turn I was in another store that featured hand crafts—baskets, small sculptures, functional items.   I picked up a small basket and examined its imperfect shape.  I ran my fingertip along the woven stitches, instantly visualizing each one as the manual labor of a faceless woman in a far off land.  The patterns of alternating colors revealed by the weave made me wonder what she was trying to express.  Was this symbolic of her culture, or of her struggle for life?   Did it reflect a competitiveness to create an object that would attract enough attention to be bought and sold?  Or was it simply the embodiment of the work itself, the pattern conveying the rhythm of the maker's skillful hand?

Before I could reflect, I was blinded by color from every direction.  There was a shiny object in my hand.  I squinted until glasses were in place on my face, bringing the small beads and intricate silverwork of a fragile necklace into focus before me.  It was then I realized that my cell phone was missing from my hands.  Looking up, I saw the strange man retreating into the crowd, my iphone’s distinctive aqua case clearly visible in his hand.  I cried out for him to stop, shouting that he had my phone.  Instantly, the crowds parted, revealing an open aisle between me and this man.  The crowd pushed him back into the store, where he surrendered a phone in the same greenish case.  But when I looked at this object it lacked my phone's normal integrity.  The shiny, rigid face was in place, but it squished from side to side in the hard-backed case when the buttons were depressed.  Peeling the face forward, I found the phone to be missing its guts, filled instead with some substance midway between Jell-o and clay. 

It was then I became aware of the need to contact my husband, whose location—and mine, for that matter—were a mystery to me.  I started to run from store to store, but then wondered about the strange man who had taken my phone.  I looked back at the jewelry store only to see him perched on a stool leaning over the display cabinet, chuckling at me through the glass storefront. 

Coffee shops!  That’s where I would find my husband, I reasoned.  Turning up my senses, I fought to find the smell of roasting beans, or fresh brewed espresso.  The first shop I passed was empty, except for the creepy phone-snatching man, again poised on a stool—this time sipping a coffee leisurely.  He looked up at me and raised his cup, as if in a toast.  I turned and ran again, this time finding an establishment with a long line stretching out into the mall.  People definitely vote with their feet.  At the end of the line was my husband, standing and reading the newspaper as he waited patiently.  I showed him the remnants of my phone.  Without verbal communication, he took off running with me, suddenly abreast of the entire saga and sharing my indignation at the assault of my iphone.

We passed a store that sold beautiful leather shoes and handbags.  I stopped to point out a purse with the longer straps that I prefer, its beauty and utility somehow eclipsing the urgency of the pursuit.  I looked up and saw our man-target through the window, standing at the cash register inside.  He put his hand to his ear, his finger and thumb extended in pantomime, his message clearing mocking, “Call me!”  My husband dove at the shop door and found it locked.  We pulled and pounded, but the customers and salespeople did not react, apparently blind to our demonstration  of urgency and deaf to the racket we were making.

Discouraged, we headed back to the original jewelry shop for no particular reason.  There we began telling anyone who would listen about the strange man and the purloined iphone.  Did he still have my phone intact, or did he remove some essential elements of the phone and return the unnecessary remains to me?  It never occurred to us to consider why he was still hanging around or why he was fixated on me.  Then the store manager came up and admonished us for harassing the man who took the phone.  I did not understand.  Couldn’t he see that I was the victim here?  He pulled my husband aside to talk “man-to-man” beyond the range of “the little woman.”  My outrage made me heady; the bright jewels in the shop added an otherworldly quality as the room spun in circles.

Suddenly everything came to a stop:  the moving shop, the noise, the customers who crowded and clamored.  My husband approached me in a scene oddly reminiscent of Rosemary’s Baby.  “We are going to leave him alone,” my husband said, as if there was nothing more to say.  I looked up at him, not speaking but clearly communicating with my facial expression, “But why?”

At that moment, the store manager lifted his hand.  All of the people mulling around the shop became flattened and were now just scenery painted on a wall.  With one movement, the manager pushed the wall and a rectangular space opened to nowhere, rotating around like a secret compartment.  We were looking at a flat-screen monitor.  An unknown camera in an unknown place was following the creepy villain as he ran through the depths of some very dark place.  He began to limp.  His clothes, which had once been crisp and fashionable, were now filthy and tattered.  He looked over his shoulder suspiciously, as if aware that he was being watched.  His ramp descended until soon there was water splashing up in his path.  Then there was some metal-worked architecture flanking the downward sloping ramp.  Were they lockers?  Gates?  Railings?  Was there something splashing beyond?  Beneath?  It was too dark and too distant to see clearly.

Suddenly, the man stopped, glancing once again in the direction of the camera, and by extension, at us.  He dug through his pockets until he found what he was looking for.  As a beam of light reflected upon it, we could see clearly my iphone, pristine in its aqua hard case.  He leaned over and held out the iphone, extending his arm through the metalwork and toward the splashing.  In an instant, there was an ungodly crash and a scream.  Then the strange man began running as fast as he could, yelling all the way, “I’m free.  I’m free.”  In the remaining light, we could just see that his arm had been severed above the wrist—the same arm with which he had offered out the iphone.  Despite what must have been unbearable pain, the sound in his voice was one of jubilation.  He ran away, but his scream got louder and louder and louder.

It was the alarm clock, waking me for the day.

(Note to self:  do not get on the phone with Verizon Wireless before bed and especially not the night before the release of a new iphone.)

Birth, Mirth, Girth, Worth

What do Bill Murray, Larry Hagman and Stephen King have in common?  They are all celebrating their birthdays today.  In all likelihood, Bill Murray will spend his on a golf course.  Larry Hagman will enjoy some sort of vegan smoothie.  And Stephen King will remain low-key and reclusive in his Maine home.

Today is also Tom’s birthday.  It will be a work day like every other.  Approaching full-fledged workaholic status, my husband scheduled himself into a corner.  He planned a 3-day CE course for oral surgeons from around the world that runs all weekend.  The fact that the course would consume his birthday escaped his notice entirely.  When it was finally called to his attention, he simply shrugged good-naturedly and moved on.

It is fun to surprise such a gentle and unassuming man.  He expects nothing and is never disappointed if that is what he receives.  The first of his birthdays that we celebrated together was his 25^th.  As it happened, his birthday fell on the inaugural day of my graduate program.  Fortunately, the Public Health School, where I was a student, sat next door to the Dental School, where he was a student.  At that point in his program things were very intense, combining back-to-back lectures with long hours in the lab.  Thanks to some help from his classmates, we were able to convince one of the professors to end class early, making a pretense of directing the class down to the basement lab.  In the meantime, I had ordered a large German Chocolate Cake from the tragically-defunct Baby Watson Bakery.  Getting to the bakery well in advance of their normal business hours, I picked up the cake and then transported it on my lap on the bumpy Medical Area Shuttle Bus.  Surreptitiously, I slipped down back stairs at the Dental School so Tom could not see me from his lecture hall, storing the cake in the nasty basement refrigerator. I reached my opening day classes in the nick of time, running back to be at the Dental School by the stroke of twelve for the big surprise.  It was adorable to watch his obliviousness dissolve into as he slowly realized that the impromptu gathering was for him.

Tom’s thirtieth birthday occurred while he was a junior resident.  It came and went uneventfully under the stress of harsh working conditions.  In those days, no one imagined that residents would someday be allowed to work a mere 80-hour work week.  It was easy to forget birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine’s Day, even lunch.  For his thirty-fifth, I was pulled out of town for a client presentation, leaving him to play Mr. Mom with our young son.  Such was our routine.  We bought a house within striking distance of Emory hospital in Atlanta so that Tom could assume the bulk of the child-taxi duties.  I was busy accumulating Frequent Flyer Miles like they were going out of style.

In spite of the mayhem that characterized our lifestyle, we were happy and productive.  Each birthday was a joyous occasion, reflecting our contentment in life and marking the passage of another year.  In the blink of an eye, however, Tom was forty.  What used to be a festive or mildly-uneventful day took on a weird note.  Tom came out of the operating room to find that his staff had filled his office with black balloons and depressing sayings.  He had never taken the time to notice that he had been climbing a hill; suddenly he was over it.

Only at fifty did Tom finally take the time to pause and reflect.  It was a particularly bittersweet day—a milestone that his own father never reached, having been taken away in his mid-forties.  I asked if he would allow me to make him a party, to which he quietly acquiesced.   What he did not anticipate was the extent to which friends and family would pitch in to make this a special day for him.    As if he were George Bailey himself, people came out of the woodwork to toast Tom.  We had college roommates, wedding attendants, classmates, colleagues, former residents, old friends, new friends, --even family members who travelled the 3000 mile distance from Oregon.  Those who could not attend sent letters and well-wishes.  Tom’s brother and sister-in-law, who make their living drawing for Marvel Comics, created a superhero in the image of Tom that we dubbed “Half-Century Man.”  It was a rare opportunity for a man who has done so much for so many—albeit quietly and under the radar—to be the center of attention.  As in all things, he wore it graciously.
 

Tonight, Tom will be exhausted after a long day of teaching a technical topic to a non-English-speaking audience.  He will want to spend time in the evening polishing up his presentations for the next day.  Whether or not he stops to consider the passing of his 56^th birthday, no one will know.   If you ask him, he would probably say, “It’s the next birthday that’s the important one.”

Happy Birthday, my love.  I hope we can spend many, many more next birthdays together.

The TV Week of Yore

As a child, the Fall season brought an electricity of anticipation.  I was too young to be keenly aware of specific dates and events, so I could not tell you whether my excitement peaked during the week of Labor Day, or the week before, or the week after.  I just remember that as the long hot days of Miami summer drew to a close we became very busy completing our back-to-school shopping, discussing new teachers and classrooms, and perching in the “Florida room” after dinner for brand new television shows.  For weeks, we endured network teasers of fresh shows featuring unfamiliar faces and exciting new entertainment vehicles.  Then, all at once, there would be a brand new broadcast schedule—one show after another of never before seen scripts.  It was an embarrassment of riches.   There were new episodes of all my returning favorites interspersed with completely new instant classics.  Together, these shows promised weeks and weeks of sensory delights for good girls who finished their homework and piano practicing.

So predictable and complete was this annual phenomenon that I could watch my favorite "Plan A" shows religiously from fall through the winter school break and then switch to  the less compelling "Plan B" shows (those that ran against my favorites on other networks) during the first post-holiday re-run season.  Having ignored the Plan B shows through the fall, they were entirely new to me.

We had only one family television for the house.  For years it was an old black and white encased in a maple cabinet with four mid-century legs and a pair of “Martian antennae” on top.  My father would not spend hard-earned funds to replace a working appliance, so we endured the black and white technology years after colored TVs were in vogue.  Eventually, my mother saved hundreds of books of S&H Green Stamps—given with each purchase at the local market—and traded them for a colored television.  She always had a work-around when my father dug in his heels.  As long as she abided by the letter of the law, she was free to take liberties with the spirit.  It was a funny ‘Rob-and-Laura’ game they played.

With only one television, it was mandatory that we reached agreement with the viewing schedule.  As the youngest in the household through most of my childhood I had little clout when it came to picking shows.  My brother and my uncle favored shows like Outer Limits and Night Gallery, which gave me nightmares, or Dragnet and Adam 12, which scared me with guns.  I tolerated Star Trek because there was a woman on the bridge, and because—let’s face it—Mr. Spock rocks.   I preferred the shows with girlie girls and kids like me, such as That Girl and The Brady Bunch.  One of my all-time favorites was Get Smart—the farcical cold-war comedy from Mel Brooks and Buck Henry.  I loved to parrot the predictable cartoon-like dialogue (“Sorry about that, Chief!”) and emulate the James Bond-like gadgetry (“Pardon me while I get my shoe phone”), but at my age I completely missed the larger joke of the opposing powers, Kaos vs. Kontrol.  When the one-way chemistry between Agents 86 and 99 finally turned to love, I became obsessed with this show.  Although the romantic story line was a typical jumping-of-the-shark, it made the whole pretense of the show relatable to the little girl that I was.  I waited with butterflies in my stomach to see if the inevitable kiss at the end of one season would spark a lasting romance in the next. 

(Obscure TV trivia:  There was only one episode that revealed a name for Agent 99.  In that episode, she was dating a man named Victor who turned out to be a Kaos spy.  He called her by the name Susan Hilton.  But at the end of the episode, she whispers to Max that it is not her real name.)

There were other shows that were so good I never minded watching them in reruns.  In fact, the opportunity to see them again and again (usually at least three times in a year before the fall returned) was rewarding.  Some of the more controversial shoes—like All in the Family—were so surprising in the moment that you had to see them multiple times to appreciate the journey on which the writers had taken you.  The moment when Sammy Davis, Jr. kissed Archie Bunker, for example, is a classic moment that paid off only because of the years spent exploring the depths of Archie’s unflinching bigotry.  And the tender moments—Gloria’s miscarriage and Edith’s breast cancer scare—were made all the more poignant because we were rarely treated to a glimpse of Archie’s heart.

These days, the jostling of television shows across hundreds of networks has destroyed the tradition that was Fall Premier Week.  There is no longer a new show season.  The original big-3 networks make a feeble attempt to unveil new shows around Labor Day, or after the Emmy Award broadcasts, but it just does not raise goosebumps like it used to.  We have drama series that start in the spring, run for a few weeks, and then disappear until summer when we are treated to a few more episodes.  We have other networks that run just 8 or 10 shows during the summer.   Even football no longer waits for Fall to make an appearance.  And to make matters worse, in an election year like this one, we have events like conventions and debates that so disrupt the flow of episodes that some networks wait to roll out the heavy hitters until after the inauguration.

My economics professor explained that television broadcasting was an example of an industry that would run more efficiently by monopoly.  Rather than networks competing head-to-head with like programming, thus splitting the target markets, a smarter approach is to plan a range of different programs in the same time slot, allowing the schedule to fulfill 100 percent of the market’s tastes.  In the seeming randomness of today’s network/cable scheme, we are approaching this now.  Rather than throwing all the new sitcoms and high budget dramas at us at once, they are revealed one by one.  Whereas we once had a limited new show season and a lot of fanfare to call us to attention, we now have to study the offerings constantly to find our favorite shows.  And because of the market optimization efforts (Dexter in the fall, True Blood in the summer) there is no planned down time for viewers.

At least we have DVR.

Colbert Rapport

I have become a latter day fan of Stephen Colbert’s The Colbert  Report.  I first caught this show by accident while channel surfing, not knowing what to make of it.  Initially, I was unaware that the ‘actor’ Stephen Colbert is playing a ‘character,’ also called Stephen Colbert—a spin off, apparently, of a character he assumed on The Daily Show.  I now understand the hysterical rantings of this would-be conservative idiot pundit who makes everything worse for his cause merely by trying to make it right.

Watching the back-to-back conventions through Colbert’s lens made the frustration of today’s political landscape nearly tolerable—even entertaining.  He got Jon Huntsman to tell tales on his own party after he declined to attend the Republican National Convention.  Huntsman not only had his hat in the ring for a short time during the primaries, but he is actually a cousin, of sorts, to Mitt Romney.  (He descends, he explained, from one of Romney’s grandfather’s other wives.)   He complained that the powers-that-be asked him to be in New Orleans during the Tampa-based convention.  “When they decide,” he said, “to be a little more inclusive and broaden the footprint...” Colbert interrupted, “Why aren’t they including white guys like you?”  When a serious Colbert suggests that Huntsman sounds like he is running for president, the former candidate insists, “my presence on your show would suggest otherwise!”

Colbert also brought in Stanford Professor Jennifer Burns, an expert on Ayn Rand, to explain the rational self-interest of objectivism—the ideology that, by Paul Ryan’s own account, inspired him to go into politics.  The VP nominee bragged on the campaign trail that Atlas Shrugged remains required reading for all interns in his office.  Colbert steps in, “If I may summarize [Rand’s philosophy]. . . ‘I got mine, Jack.’”  Burns concurred, explaining that contrary to Rand’s being “the gateway drug to life on the right,” Rand’s definition of morality is the opposite of altruism and Christian values.  Amused, Colbert responds, “That’s good.  I get so little back when I give a bum a quarter!”  Ayn Rand remains a mainstay of the conservative right, Burns explained, because of her support for unregulated laissez-faire capitalism.  Nonetheless, in reality, Rand was sharply against combining religion and politics and was avidly pro-choice.  Colbert feigns confusion, insisting that “the Republican Party is the party of G-d—we know it is!”  Burns continues that Rand would look down on people who use government favors to advance their careers.  “So, politicians?” Colbert asks with feigned innocence. 

The fun of the Colbert show is in watching the host as he tries to throw off serious guests who have serious positions.  It is not scripted.  He coaches them before the show to stay true to who they are no matter what his idiotic alter ego says or does.  The dynamics depend upon this formula.  Everyone is fair game—although his choice of targets and conservatively poised babbling betrays his more liberal leanings.  In the end, his shenanigans are perfectly calculated to reveal hidden truths, even as he insists otherwise.

This is what made last night’s show so remarkable.  The guest was none other than Harvard’s president, Drew Gilpin Faust.  It seemed so incongruous that I pressed the INFO button on my remote control to confirm what I thought I heard.  It was true.  Colbert looked into the camera, making a display of crossing his fingers on both hands, saying, “I hope she’s bringing me a thick envelope!”

Faust was, in fact, promoting her latest book, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the Civil War.  Colbert used the opportunity to bring up one of the latest gaffes by Rick Santorum, asking Faust if she is one of “those smart people” who will never be attracted to the GOP.  He tried in several different ways to get her to acknowledge his comments about “dumb people,” but Faust would not dignify the label, claiming “it’s never dumb to get an education.”  Undone by her poise and intense eye contact (she never looked away—not once) Colbert had no choice but to talk about her book, even trying to rope Faust into admitting that the Civil War was “a downer.”  She averted the slang, but went on to explain that the 750,000 deaths to Americans back then would equate to 7.5 million today.  A downer, indeed!

Colbert’s comedic quickness and wit is truly genius, but last night he was bested by a higher intellect.  And no one was more surprised than he, being forced to allow his guest to deliver her message and fulfill her agenda.  He was visibly dazzled by this remarkable woman to the point of being tongue-tied.  It was a rare moment of television to behold, as sublime laid waste to the ridiculous.