is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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Unsad Food. Also: Collaboration?
Unsad Food! Also: Collaboration?
I love a coincidence that ends in chocolate. I wrote an entry about sad food in my myspace blog the other day, and at the end I mentioned how I really remember how Richard used to cook me dinner all the time back when we shared a house. He tried to joke back in the comment section that he did not remember that. But I reminded him. And then he reminded me that I was right that I used to wash the dishes... except for the cutlery. That IS right. I hate washing silverware. Man, what a drag! Anything else, no problem. I will wash the shit out of all the dishes. But this is what being alone means: you must wash the cutlery yourself. It sucks, because I use a lot of cutlery due to some of my cleanliness habits. Like this morning for breakfast I made scrambled eggs, pear-walnut quick bread and ruby red grapefruit, and I had to have a separate fork for the eggs and the quick bread, and a spoon and knife for the grapefruit, not to mention the many implements it took to make all that stuff. Just remember: you do not use the same knife for spreading mustard and cutting a sandwich in half. Nor even do you use the same knife for mustard and mayo, if you are so disgusting as to use mayonnaise. (Did I mention I also have issues with condiments?) Why? Because you're crazy, that's why.
Anyway, a colleague of mine here at quaker-college had recently flown to Calgary, where Richard is an Austriamericanadian not to mention philosopher, for a job interview, so they met, since Richard was one of the people interviewing him. And they had a drink. And Richard sent a gift for me back with this colleague of mine, but so far I had not managed to see this colleague, because he has a new baby and thus is very busy and often tired.
Then, yesterday, right as I was emailing Richard all the reasons why I had not yet received the gift, there was a knock on my door, and my nieghbor (also a friend of this colleague of mine) was standing there holding the gift: a box of truffles and a huge bar of bittersweet baking chocolate from Bernard Callebaut in Calgary. Now, my neighbor is also Canadian, and her husband is from Calgary, so she was fully aware, let's say more aware than I at the time, of the goodness she was handing over to me. Mais Yum! Speaking of putting a festival of flavor in your mouth. I have a box of 24 hand-rolled truffles (these are the best kind, with the organic roundish shape and no hard covering). I immediately ate four: i had la canadienne (maple syrup, white chocolate ganache, coated in dark chocolate), espresso truffle, celeste (dark chocolate all the way), and butter truffle (hazelnut paste and milk chocolate buttercream). Man, these are some dangerously good chocolates. I made sure that I did not eat any more than four yesterday, because I am currently valuing the way in which my small clothes are fitting me well. But today is another day altogether! The count starts from zero and I am at the starting line. I advise you not to get in front of me.
In other news, an update: I know I mentioned a number of times that I was working on an essay on the John Vanderslice album called Pixel Revolt. One of the many things I really like about the album is its semi-hidden theme: it is about how it is the relationships we have with other people that make all the sad, terrifying, difficult stuff we have to live through livable, but that it is those relationships that are also the content of most of that sad, terrifying, difficult stuff. So that's what it's about, but in a really subtle way. You have to look for it. In fact you have to commit to the album before it will put out for you. And I admire that, too.
So I was writing this essay, and undergoing the form of self-loathing that I often undergo when I write about music, because writing about music often seems like a betrayal of sorts. And then it occurred to me. A piece of writing that does justice to Pixel Revolt can't be the product of an individual writer laboring away in the solitude of her admittedly large apartment! It must be a collaboration!
Under the spell of this idea, I wrote to John Vanderslice a letter asking him whether he would risk collaborating on a project that I couldn't promise would go anywhere. And etc. There was some explaining and some persuasion and some assuring that I am not a creep or a freak, and some urls to things I've done as evidence, etc. Anyway, after sending it, like an hour later, I laughed to myself and thought, I will never hear back from him, or I will get a polite no. What else could be the outcome of such folly?
But then, four hours after that, he wrote back and said yes! So now it's underway. I can't yet say what will come of it. That is the risk of collaboration. And that is what Pixel Revolt is about, in many many ways. So at least I will have succeeded in doing it justice, even if the justice remains invisible.
However, it's possible something good will be produced. Time will tell.
2:09 p.m. - January 29, 2006
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