Your famous quotes

"The course of true love never did run smooth." and "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." and "I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal." are all fine and well respected quotes by truly great authors; Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and Jane Austen. But it is my contention that we all, in our lives, dash off a few hundred thousand remarks, and if one were to choose out the very best from so magnificent a pile, surely each of us could be memorialized as being brilliantly clever and insightful.

Here, try this: When you die (hopefully a long, long time from now), first thing you do, ask what was was the most clever and insightful thing you said in the course of your (long) life.

When you hear it, I am quite certain you will say, amazed "I said that?"

And the angel will reply "Yes indeed you did. Many of us here have made it into cross stitch samplers and needlepoint pillows."

And you will say "Really?"

And the angel will say "No. But it was a really good quote."

200 Reviews of Rome: The MACRO (Museum of Contemporary Art)

🌟🌟🌟☆☆


3 Stars



There are many ways to approach an Internet review. Generally the most appreciated is a knowledgeable, well-informed, and yet concise as possible look at the thing or place being reviewed. A personal response to the subject of the review is appreciated so long as it is tempered and composed and most of the opinion is invested into the authorial, informed, and godlike voice of the overall review.

Another approach to an Internet review is one in which the reviewer takes his or her sometimes short term and limited experience to be of profound and essential importance. Basing their review strictly and passionately upon themselves they trust the mosaic of other reviews to provide the wide ranging picture that their isolated interaction cannot.

A third approach to an Internet review is one in which the reviewer uses their review, and his or her experiences with the subject of the review, as an opportunity to express themselves and their relationship to the world, and through that wider lens give a feeling of what the subject of the review might more fully be. This can also give a reader an insight into what their own experience with the review subject could, and might, be. 

All of these approaches to an Internet review can be valid and of great value to the wider community of the Internet. Indeed, there is probably only one kind of Internet review that is utterly reprehensible, and that is one in which the author of the review never even mentions the subject of the review and instead mysteriously expounds at great length about the very nature of Internet reviews themselves.

Fortunately, as far as I understand it, this last type of reprehensible Internet review is phenomenally rare, and I know of only one that exists on the whole of the Internet.

Unfortunately you have found it.

Old man

There is an old man who comes to the library every day. He is about to die. This is not a curse. It merely seems apparent.

I don't know what he does all day, but sometime around half an hour before we close he parks in our lot, in handicapped spaces across from the front doors. He uses a multi pronged cane to move. This meager device seems wholly inadequate to his needs. A journey that might take you or I fifteen seconds takes him a full fifteen minutes. As soon as he's in the library he grabs one of our small, ill-advised book shopping carts and uses it as a walker. Once it rolled away from him and he fell on it and bled all over our floor, but then he is often bleeding a bit here or there from his paper thin and marked up skin.

He does not seem well, and this is magnified by the fact that he is in his nineties. His pants are hanging down and much of his adult diaper shows. He is quite crabby, and hard to communicate with, but I am not sure if that is native disposition or he has so little energy to work with that there's nothing left but sheer cussedness. He can't be in the library for more than a handful minutes before he has to begin the process of leaving. He can't hurry, obviously, but he also doesn't seem to want to go. He lingers for as long as possible in the front lobby entry, perusing any number of uninteresting postings we have hung there. It is invariably at least five minutes after we are closed before he finally clears the building.

Though myself and no doubt some of my colleagues look upon this man with a certain amount of alarm, and, liking to leave work in a timely manner, a certain amount of irritation as well, there is a tiny part of me that is awed by his profound, obstinate, and mysterious perseverence out on what appears to be the very borders of his life. His ferocious ability to come to my library on the brink of death is astonishing.

And there is another part of me that is honored by his tenacious desire to spend what appears to be his final, brutal, intrepid, and miserable last days, or weeks, or months of his life enjoying the curious pleasures of our library. Though his interests seem alien to what I value about my library, namely our collection and charming staff, I nevertheless raise my hat to him. "Thank you for the compliment. We are deeply honored." I say. "Now please leave. We are closed."

No hard feelings. Rest in peace.

A letter with a small amount of presumption

Dear Publisher:


It is time to publish my magnum opus, the elven volume masterpiece of American Letters: The Clerk Manifesto.

Go to it. Feel free to start on it today. I know you'll do a fine job. We'll work out the contract soon enough.





Wait, let me guess; you object to my cold call solicitation being presented as a fait accompli. I totally understand. A professional wants to be accorded the respect of his or her position. A professional doesn't want his or her judgment presumed upon. I know that when I am working at the front desk of my library and some patron comes up and is all like "Waive my fines!" I'm thinking "I'll be the judge of whether or not to do that."

I'm just saying I understand your feelings.

But wait, you're probably objecting to my likening your sophisticated, well-honed, New York Publishing House literary acumen of the highest order to my discernment as relates to a 40 cent overdue charge. Perhaps you find such a comparison a bit insulting.

Well now look who's full of presumption! You should be ashamed of yourself!

So now you're probably thinking "But I didn't say anything about finding the comparison between myself, a celebrated New York Publisher, and you, my newest star author, to be anything other than one of utter equality!"

I am gratified to hear it. I'm so looking forward to working with you on this publishing endeavor. I'm certain we will have a great success of it together!



Yours most cordially,



Feldenstein Calypso

Can't win for trying

While standing around in what I hoped were unobtrusive places in the stores of malls, writing essays on post it notes, various members of the public occasionally come up to me and ask "Do you work here?"

"No." I reply curtly, irritated by the very question to such a degree that I find it offensive.

After this happened a few times I reflected that the only thing that quite bugs me like this is when I am attentively sitting at the front desk of the library I work at, waiting to help someone, and a member of the public approaches me and asks "Do you work here?"

Duh! See my desk? See my computer?

It does occur to me at this late moment that these people simply cannot win.

200 Views of Rome: Gelateria dei Gracchi

🌟🌟🌟🌟☆



4 Stars




So here I am doing archeology on yet another one of these Roman Gelaterias, trying to trace back what I had and how it tasted. Reserving 5 stars for my 3 favorite gelaterias in Rome, this one, not being among that exalted trinity, only gets 4 stars. But what kind of 4 stars?

The good kind!

You can get here pretty easily from Piazza Del Popolo, and though you may have any number of reasons for passing this by I am personally incapable of imagining them. Standing at a clothes display table in a store called A'GACI, in The Mall of America, writing the draft of this review on some post it notes I had in my pocket, I so desperately wish for a nice three (or four!) flavor cup of dei Gracchi gelato that my judgment is impaired. And the idea that there are people right now, walking past Gelateria dei Gracchi without getting any gelato, is utterly bewildering.

In Rome, back when I could do so last Fall, I often got fruit flavors. At dei Gracchi I am pretty sure I got apple and fig. But then I also have this weird sense that I went to Gelateria dei Gracchi ten years ago as well and also got apple and fig. And though I know you want a clearheaded review of this gelateria, what I am trying to tell you is that there is a small possibility that I am imagining everything.

Well, everything except that they have some pretty good gelato, which I believe should be adequate for you to go on. But I'll add this: There was something slightly rough around the edges about their gelato that, while making it less perfect, also made it more distinct, and real seeming.

So I apologize for the 4 stars. I'd give it a fifth if I could have some now.

Rock is dead

It happened quick. I don't know when. But I was at the front desk of the library I work at. I helped a father. He had two kids. The cute 3-year old boy was wearing a Who t-shirt. The Who, as you know, were a great and wild band who nihilistically smashed their instruments at the end of concerts.

They make Who t-shirts for toddlers: Hope I die before I get old.

It might have been right then, at that moment. Who knows about these things.

Later though I was in a suburban mall, which is where I go these days to write blog posts so good that there are only eleven of you in the world equipped to suspect that this... is... not... normal, and in a Juniors section of a department store there was a whole broad selection of really nice rock t-shirts; Tupac, Beatles, Doors, Talking Heads, Bob Marley, The Jam, and The Grateful Dead. Wow! These were nice! Really nice.

Rock is dead.

I know what you're thinking:

Rock is always rebellion that morphs slowly into commodification. But Rock, young, wild, surprising Rock, ever emerges in new and dangerous forms.

Yeah. It used to be like that. But not anymore. Let it go. Rock is dead. It's better to burn out, than to fade away.

Love

Good morning Internet!

I saw a book this morning called "Glowkids". It appeared to be sort of about young people today and their obsession with screen devices. And I thought of a cartoon I could make that I won't draw for you but will instead describe:

A late middle aged woman is sitting in low light looking into a computer desktop screen. She comments to her husband "It says here that young people today are chronically obsessed with their screens and can spend most of their days staring into them."

Her husband, without taking his eyes off the television replies bitterly "Tragic. I saw that story as well. What's the world coming to?"


The early dream of the Internet was that it was ungated and open to everyone to make and create and enjoy as they wished. The ghost of that dream still whispers alluringly through today's Internet. And we believe it like we believe in the American Dream, ignoring the mounting evidence against in favor of the freakish, but loud and luminous, exceptions. You can be the greatest basketball player in the world. For proof I offer Lebron James.

Humans like gates even more than they like what's behind the gates.

Fucking humans.

You cannot win. The cards are stacked against you. The Internet does not belong to you. It is in a million ways fixed. Your dreams are impossible. The powerful have all sold their souls. Money is a lie. God is dead or an asshole. And hope is a marketing tool.

There is only one small chance, one way out. It belongs to no one, no church, no billionaire, it has no singer and no song. It cannot be touched or sold. It is not free but it cannot be bought. It cannot be claimed or lied to. It will not support your argument. It has no winners or losers but is full of victory. It is difficult and easy, sweet and bitter, made of water and stars and nothing. It is a miracle every time.

Cast your lot with it. We are all losers. Only here can anything happen, where all of us losers are turned into a constellation of rainbows.

Look at me.

200 Views of Rome: Cinzia Vestiti Usati, Used Clothes

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟


5 Stars




The problem here is making sure I got the store right. Close to each other in this area, just west of Piazza Navona, are two narrow, close packed used clothing stores. I liked one, this one, better. How could I not? This is where I found a purple satin lined, pinstripe, velvet jacket of dazzling resplendency. If you go to this chill, crowded, funky, smelly, fascinating used clothing store with excellent music playing, will you find something as amazing as my purple satin lined, velvet pinstriped jacket?

I'm not sure it's technically possible, but it's worth a shot.

Mall of America redux

You may have noticed that several days ago I wrote a really good blog post about the Mall of America. And when I say "really good" I'm being falsely modest because I'm classy like that. So since that Mall of America blog post was really good (still keeping it classy, but as a point of reference "visionary" or "incendiary" would be more accurate) I thought I'd come to The Mall of America and see if the lightning would like to strike again. Sometimes lightning does indeed strike twice, especially if one keeps their pen raised high.

So I am leaning against a large white column in H&M (Floor one, West, across from the "House of Samsonite"), and it occurs to me: How would I have any idea if lightning struck? There are absolutely zero windows to the outdoors in this whole gigantic mall!

So maybe I'll go see if I can find a cheap shirt I might like.

Rex Stout and me in the clouds

Astonished as I am that I am not regularly quoted in the press and in everyday erudite conversation ("When you fire into a crowd you will kill someone you would not dream of hurting"), I am even more surprised that Rex Stout isn't ("We are all vainer of our luck than our merits"). While it is impossible for me to read through a play by Shakespeare without coming across some wildly famous saying that makes me cry out "Ha! This is where it's from!", it is equally impossible for me to read a Nero Wolfe novel without being compelled occasionally to stop everything and jot down some tossed off piece of genius from our narrator, Archie Griffin. Why the one is so famous that I know it, and the other so excellent that I am amazed I don't, seems purely a matter of chance, since as far as I can tell it has nothing to do with merit, both of them being roughly equal on that score.

In the last Nero Wolfe book I read there was this quote that I have been carrying around for awhile:

"No man should tell a lie unless he is shrewd enough to recognize the time for renouncing it, if and when it comes, and know how to renounce it gracefully."

Perhaps I find that so compelling because we as a people may have come to the ragged end of renouncing lies. And no quote is quite so compelling as one that seems to upbraid others.

I checked out a three story collection by Mr. Stout today.  I saw a bit of the introduction in which there was much talk of what a terrific admirer Rex Stout was of Jane Austen. I can be happy enough with that. There is the lineage; from Jane Austen, to Rex Stout, to me. Whether that power waxes or wanes is for you alone to decide. No, that's a lie. I renounce it. It's downhill all the way. But I'm not put out. Even successively lower than the two, I can still see everything from up here.

200 Views of Rome: Grano Frutta e Farina

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟


5 Stars




"Hey." You cry out in wonder. "Why is the cruelest, most acid-tongued reviewer on the Internet giving this unassuming little Spanish Steps area bistro a full five stars?"

And I would answer if I weren't so insulted at your characterization of me as "the cruelest, most acid-tongued reviewer on the Internet".

Have you so quickly forgotten my five star review of The Cafe in Palazzo Barberini, which is merely a vending machine? I gave five stars to a vending machine! Well, an espresso making vending machine, and one of a magnetic complexity and glory, but nevertheless...

But we're not talking about the Palazzo Barberini espresso vending machine. We're talking about Grano Frutta e Farina, and about why I gave it five stars, and why you think I'm acid-tongued when I'm really not, and why I'm so defensive about it all.

I AM NOT DEFENSIVE!

Well maybe a little. Because having given my extraordinary, and rare, and sought after five star seal of approval to the sweet garden patio themed cafe/restaurant, with some pleasant light food and drinks, that I don't that clearly remember, I am not sure what I could say about Grano Frutta e Farina that would support my elaborate rating. So, um...

It was nice.

Five stars.

I was not paid for this review.

200 Views of Rome: Zuccari Palace

🌟🌟🌟🌟☆


4 Stars




That 4th star might be sheer sentimentality, or the lack of a fifth sour grapes.

I'd heard of this more or less Mannerist monster house decades ago. The door is a giant face, and the windows are too. They are all big Mannerist monstrous faces! Keen to see it some 13 or so years ago we popped over- it's in the area around the top of the Spanish Steps- and found it was all wrapped up for repairs. Foiled!

So a couple years later we went to Rome again, and we headed to Zuccari Palace all a twitter with trepidation. ARRRRRGGHHH! They were still working on it. That's a lot of work.

So we waited a decade, just to make sure. Well, there were other reasons, but the important point is this is exactly how it worked out. Once we were there we walked on over, and...

Boy, I bet you are on the edge of your seat!

Even I, knowing how it all turns out, am trembling in anticipation.

And...

It was okay! We could see it!

It was, you know, nice.

I mean, it was complicated. Like if, ignorant, we accidentally came upon it it would have been marvelously delightful. Informed and making three attempts in 13 years it was slightly... less... so.

But, since reading this, you would be in the same boat in terms of preparedness, I must say that mainly the doorway is neat, with its gaping mouth housing a wooden door, and there's something charming how they were messing about with this sort of whimsy four or so hundred years ago. But alas, the building itself, though nice, isn't terribly interesting (just the outside. I'm not sure what it would take to get inside), and really it's one of those things where they needed to go all out with their concept for it to be really special. As it is it's just a few fun features on the side of an old building.

But I will finally add this: After all those years of repair it is indeed a building in fabulous condition!

Mall of America 25 years

We have spent the entire day, a Saturday, shopping at the Mall of America, which this year turned 25 years old. At one of the 312 stores we went into, possibly Eddie Bauer, which used to be in a very different, larger space, the young, unperceptive salesperson asked my wife and I if this was our first time visiting the Mall.

Laughing lightly at the outlandish errancy of this question we said "No", finding the question vaguely insulting in the bargain.

After all, could he have possibly been more wrong? Do we look like look like weekend tourists from (shudder) Chicago?

We practiced for The Mall of America before that salesperson or the Mall of America were even born, way back in the notable early seventies malls of major metropolitan suburbs. A quarter century ago, already seasoned, and with eyes wide open, we went to the very opening of Mall of America like it was our birthright. We have eaten at mall restaurants that are now long forgotten, visited more stores that no longer exist than an average mall can even count, and can chart a vast array of our life changes through various shopping trips to this mall. We defended The Mall of America before a panoply of confused friends and acquaintances who found our affection mysterious and strange and still wince in baffled horror at a simple statement like "We spent Saturday at The Mall of America." We endured the quarter century agony of the mall's continuing inability to have one decent coffee shop. And we still burn with the bitterness of the tragic, yes tragic, conversion of the central mall amusement park from the glorious, and appropriately local, Camp Snoopy theme, to the entirely bland and scattered "Nickelodeon" theme. We understand that however much any of us in the Twin Cities might like Claes Oldenburg's Spoon and Cherry sculpture, or Mary Tyler Moore, or one of our crappy sports teams, to be the symbol of this city, it is all futile. Across the world we are the home of The Mall of America, symbol of both us, as a Metropolitan area, and also of all retail sales everywhere, and thus, of America itself. It is the shining, outlandish, tawdry fantasy beacon of Capitalism.

Yes, Capitalism itself is a fantasy that will consume us all. It is an ever devouring shark (which, coincidentally, we have in the Mall of America Aquarium, where one can walk through a tunnel of sharks!). This capitalist dream will disfigure and destroy everything we love and admire and hope for in the world. It is shorn of a heart. It is broken, mad, and unappeasable. Because of the runaway train, or, er, runaway shark, of capitalism Donald Trump was President, seas rise, and slaves toil. The rich get richer and there is no future for your children. You were mad to have them anyway. Everything will be eaten by Capitalism as it knows not the cessation of hunger, and one day, horrifyingly not long from now, one person alone will own everything there is to own in the whole world, but it will all be nothing other than poisoned water and ashes. That is the inevitable endgame of Capitalism.

But in the meantime, believe you me, The Mall of America can be a lot of fun.

On determining

A man calls me at the library. It takes him awhile to form a sentence. "Can you renew my books?" He asks. "That I have out?" He adds. "Over the phone?" He adds again. "From the library?" He slowly concludes.

A long transaction for some relatively simple issues follows. And the whole time we are on the phone I am wondering if I should put his card on our "Persons with disabilities" status, or if he's just really stoned.

And that's the thing in working with the great and diverse public I encounter daily; I frequently find myself trying to fuss out dichotomies, trying to come to grips with the status of the person before me. Are they newly arrived from Somalia, or do they have a speech impediment? Are they living out of their car, or did they spend the morning hobby gardening in front of their swanky house? Are they sociopathic liars, or victims of a splash of freakish bad luck?

Sometimes it matters whether I know, sometimes it's idle curiosity. Are they hard of hearing, or just distracted? Did they lose a bet, or do they really believe what their T-shirt says? Are they dangerously angry, or do they just have a cantankerous personality? Have they never been to a library, or are they merely in need of constant reassurance? Do they know me from somewhere, or are they just wildly committed to being friendly? Are they a well-adjusted precocious child, or is something really wrong here? Is this for scholastic purposes, or are they slowly losing their mind?

I'd like to know. I could use the guidance. I make my best guess. And I only know one thing for sure. They're not, none of them, normal.

That is the one guiding thing I have learned working with the public; No one is.

Dear Publisher: The choice

Dear Publisher:


There comes a time in the life of every publisher and every publishing house when they must decide who they are. They will have to face up to whether their ultimate goal is the betterment of readers, literature, and the arts, and the enlightenment of humankind, or whether their ultimate goal is having a pleasant time of it, receiving a lot of hollow praise, and living in a overlarge and lovely house.

Here is the scenario:

One day two manuscripts will arrive in your office.

One will be pristine and beautiful, exactly as a submission should be. It will be humble, properly addressed, and to the point. The proposal for publication will be professional in every way, from the very bond of the paper to its reasonable expectations. The writing sample will be a clear demonstration of a skill that is adequate to a successful life in letters. And holding this stress free submission in your hands you will know that this offer will provide timely, sellable work that the author will remain a tireless and reasonable advocate for in public, and thus an effective salesperson. You and this author will have a mutually beneficial alliance together that makes you both money, though you more of it, if you can help it. And their long string of quite successful books will be generally forgotten before you even manage to retire.

The other submission will be written, metaphorically at least, in crayon, by an unbalanced, possible genius. It will be hard to tell if this person really is a genius because they will seem so confident of it that it will rattle your own judgment, which is not easily rattled. Their demands on you will be high. Their compliance low. They may make you some money, but not for awhile, and when they do finally start doing so they will mysteriously disappear for six or seven years. At the end of that time you may find them sleeping in your basement. Their work will be acclaimed at certain points, making you glow with pride, and yet at other points small mobs may take to the streets to burn their books after an imprudent comment or two of theirs. They will treat you badly and consider you a dear friend. You may die younger because of them, or have no real retirement, but their work will somehow carry on, and thus so will yours, probably.

And so you hold my submission for publication in your hands. "Which of these two fundamental choices is he?" You wonder.

Oh no. I am neither of these. I am practice.

I hope you choose well.



With the kindest regards,



F. Calypso

America as it may be

The library and America as we dream it is:

I pull into the library parking lot to start my work day. In the back of the lot is a large mobile home, and I think "How nice, they're visiting our library to stock up on materials for their big trip!"


The library and America as it is:

I leave work for the day and see the mobile home is still in the exact same place in the back of our parking lot. And I think "We are their big trip."

Hawks in gutter

Biking through my neighborhood something heavy lifts from out of a gutter where water has gathered and not drained off. Two hawks heavily beat their wings to rise up wet into the trees.

"Did I just see that?" I wonder.

Today, five days later I am biking on the same street, same place, same gutter, and something sloshes in the water. A hawk. I stop my bike. The hawk stops bathing and regards me. I move a bit closer. Never having been so close to a hawk like this I am eager to see all I can, but I don't want to be impolite. The hawk doesn't seem to care. It is happy in the gutter. It dances a little. I stare.

"How strange." This hawk must think. "Why does this man visit me every time I have my bath?"

200 Views of Rome: Pastificio

🌟🌟☆☆☆



2 Stars



Pastificio is a little takeout pasta place in the Spanish Steps area. I just went and looked at Internet pictures to make sure I had the right place. There are a lot of pictures of crowds of people lined up outside. I didn't have that experience and was the lone customer, with my wife, when we arrived. But it was the right place. I went there once and got two kinds of pasta that I remember distinctly as "flavor one" and "flavor two". In looking at the pictures I saw so many exterior shots of Pastificio I started to think "People must like the idea of the place more than any food." Maybe I'm right, maybe not. I did get to the food pictures finally, and that was just as I remembered. Not bad pastas coated in largely featureless sauces of no great flavor or integrity. Go there and you have a few choices of varieties of pasta from behind their glass. Don't worry too much what flavor you pick as they are all pasta flavor. It's cheap, maybe five or six euros a serving, which seems amazing until you realize this just seems to preclude them putting anything good on the pasta. Perhaps it would have been improved by a liberal grating of excellent Parmigiano Reggiano, but I'm pretty sure a boot would be greatly improved with a liberal grating of excellent Parmigiano Reggiano.

I took my two flavors home with me. It probably made them worse so I've tempered my rating. I did taste it at the takeout though and can't say it had come far down from that. The pasta had grown more soupy mostly. There was never much flavor to lose. I wanted to like it. I threw most of it out. 

And so, two stars for the stars in our eyes when we're in lovely Rome, that can cloud our judgement when we review cheap pasta takeouts. 

Pot refers to Kettle

In defense of sunshine and happiness and kittens everywhere I would like to bring to your attention a deficit in the English language. It has to do with the phrase "That's the pot calling the kettle black." There is nothing per se wrong with this pejorative burn. It can be a useful rejoinder to one who criticizes another over something that they themselves are guilty of. In my life there's a lot of pot calling the kettle black at my library job over other people not working, which is why I like to stick to complaining about people not working effectively, and strive to defend, even sometimes against my inclinations, my co-workers' chatting, Internet surfing, reading, and standing around complaining.

But that's all negative in the end. What about the sunshine and kittens version of pot calling kettle black? What does one call it when someone arrayed in a dazzling collection of antique Lalique jewelry admires your ring? What could I say if I did something amusing and Steve Martin happened to be standing nearby and said "Good one."? What if Jane Austen wrote a comment on my blog that said "That was a lovely turn of phrase." I mean, besides thanking her for coming back from the grave to tell me and everything.

Yesterday a man at the library with the most massive hair I have ever seen, piled in wild curls extending more than a foot from his head, had some business to transact with me at the front desk of the library. At the end, in parting, he said "I like your hair."

"That's the pot calling the kettle black" as a response seems not quite right, harsh and hostile for no reason. "That's the frog calling the leaf green" just seems odd, imitative, and confusing. I suppose I could have gone with "That's like John Coltrane calling me cool." But I didn't think of it at the time. So in the end I simply went with "I'm sorry. I don't accept personal comments about my appearance at the desk."