is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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things teaching lessons.
When we were wandering around the Basque Country in Spain in the late 1990s, Y gave me two rings, both of which he found in an old barn he'd slept in one night (or something like that) on his way to meet me. He had one of each, and I had one of each. One was a normal silver hose clamp, the other a rusty old almost medieval-looking thing, also meant to be a hose clamp. I wore both of them for years. In fact I still wear a silver one (not the original, which broke at some point, as did Y and I) every day... and of all the jewelry I own, some of which is fairly fancy/pricey, I get by far the most compliments on the piece of hardware that can be replaced for 79 cents.
I still have the rusty old medieval hose clamp ring in my jewelry box. I do love that thing. And it had this unintended great side effect of punishing the kind of man who wants to assert himself by showing you how firm his handshake is. Now, I am pretty bummed by people who have a total noodle-soft handshake. I think you should really do some shaking when hands shake hands, you know? Give it some thought and purpose. But then there are those men (it is almost always men, right?) who want to show so ridiculously much with their handshakes that they will HURT you with their overblown fervor. It's aggression all wrapped up in civility. But it so happened that something about the design of the rusty old hose-clamp ring from a barn in Euskadi would perform a merciless pinch upon anyone who would shake my hand like that.
Best part of the long history of the punishments administered by that ring: it happened to Ethan Hawke. I met Ethan Hawke at a party one night, some friend of a friend kind of thing in Los Angeles. I like him! He is down to earth and smart and handsome and just the right amount of tall. But he started the whole thing by trying to give me one of those god-damned ubermensch handshakes. And then he winced in pain and backed right up. The visual memory of it is endlessly funny to me, even now, more than 10 years later.
He is one of many who were held to account by a modest piece of hardware discarded, reclaimed, repurposed, and well-used for years.
Man, just as I was finishing writing this that Julian Casablancas song came on that goes "i'll just nod, i've never been so good at shaking hands..." Heh!
Here's the video for the song, in case you wonder.
(I wish he was still rocking like he was with The Strokes, but I have some lingering appreciation....)
7:57 a.m. - June 29, 2010
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