I will have the penne alla arrabiata

confession. i love eddie izzard. in a borderline freakish way. i think he's one of the funniest people ever to walk the planet. seriously. maybe because there's just a little bit of the dork in him--he tells jokes about henry viii and the great escape and star trek and how grandmas defy the angel of death.

eric and i saw him not long ago play a smallish venue in new york city where he told the longest-ever joke about a giraffe i'd ever heard. and i swear i almost peed my pants. long story short, the giraffes hid from tigers by pretending to be the eiffel tower. weird? sure. hi-larious? most definitely. incidentally, my mother would be horribly embarrassed if she saw i just used the phrase "peed my pants." but, getting past that, if you haven't heard of him and are willing to try him just because i tell you to...groovy.  start with dress to kill. i SWEAR it's worth it. 

so...my gift to you today is this...eddie izzard's vision of the "death star canteen" (yes. that death star.) as reenacted by lego characters.


thank you, internets.

The Big (Not So) Easy

So, I know that I promised to (as much as possible) blog while I was in New Orleans, but it's not easy when you're working 15 hour days and, by the end of them have lost all ability to articulate. 

I've been in New Orleans several times since Katrina...and spent much of that time in communities hardest hit by the hurricane.  What surprises me every time I'm there is that, no matter how much time has gone by since that fateful day in August 2005, little has changed since the floodwaters subsided.  

Driving through the Lower 9th Ward, the site of the first levy break and possibly the most famous scenes from the aftermath of Katrina, one thing hits you.  There are no houses. Foundations? Sure.  But no houses.  Just stone steps that lead to nowhere.  There are signs here and there, promoting the organizations helping to rebuild--the Menonites, Catholic missions, Habitat for Humanity and, perhaps the most famous organization--the Make it Right Foundation or, as it's most often referenced in NOLA, "Brad Pitt's Project." Make it Right is rebuilding in the Lower 9th with eco-friendly housing, offering the families hardest hit a chance to start over.  Any way you look at it, having Brad Pitt around is a good thing for that area that we all heard so much about in August of 2005 and then forgot. 

But then there are the places where the celebrities aren't.  Places like the 7th Ward, which has the highest crime rate in the city and one of the highest crime rates in the country.  I spent two days in the 7th this week, talking to kids and adults who live and work in the neighborhood.  I heard stories of young fathers being murdered outside of schools, of uncles and cousins being shot in drive-by shootings, of robbery and mugging and hopelessness.  One person's upbeat statement shocked me to my core: "Rapes are up, but murders are down!" 

Kids in the 7th Ward walk to school past houses that have stood empty since the hurricane, houses that still bear the spray-painted markings of the National Guard teams that searched the neighborhood in weeks after the hurricane.  And, while there is a huge truancy problem in the city, the kids who do show up to school do so for one of two reasons.  Either they have family that is deeply committed to education, or they go to school to escape to a place where they feel safe. Teachers in New Orleans are parents, friends, and counselors as much as they are educators.

Driving through New Orleans, it's hard to believe you're in the United States.  I live in New York City--where there are high rates of urban poverty and, certainly, a fair amount of inequality.  But here is a city where the poverty is so pervasive, the inequality so extreme, that you can't even imagine where you would begin to fix it.  There are thousands who still live in condemned housing--much filled with black mold and infested with rats, hundreds who live in tent cities under highway overpasses, and who knows how many who are off the grid--completely forgotten. 

For all the emotion that you feel when you spend time in New Orleans, which often translates into a deep feeling of ineffectiveness, it's an incredible city...filled with hope and resilience and strength of which I am in complete awe.  I count myself lucky that I get to spend time there--meeting the people who live there and talking to them about their experiences, their hopes, their plans.  It reminds me of the impressive power of the human spirit, and puts the little things that get under my skin into stark perspective.  

Here's to NOLA...someday soon, les bon temps will roullez again.  

on the road again...

i've been traveling a lot for work in the past few weeks...mainly day trips to Philadelphia and DC and Poughkeepsie. But tomorrow morning, at 5am (eep!) I have to leave my warm bed and go to the airport to fly to New Orleans. Below, a glimpse at my suitcase, neatly packed in preparation for 4 days in the Big Easy.

1.  Rumors, the second of The Luxe books from the unparalleled Anna Godbersen.  She sent it to me as a special treat, and I've been DYING to start it.  FINALLY, a plane ride that will allow it to be so! 

2. Max Perkins: Editor of Genius by A. Scott Berg.  Perkins was Fitzgerald and Hemingway's editor...I read this when I went through my F. Scott phase in college...but never dreamed then that I'd have my own editor of genius. 

3. The Possibilities of Sainthood by Donna Freitas. A YA novel about a teenager desperate for her first kiss and hopeful of being named the first living saint.  Written by a woman who grew up in Rhode Island, the daughter of a crazy Italian family.  How could I NOT read it??  

4. Moisturizer, toothpaste, allergy pills, eye drops, deodorant and makeup.  Snazzy bag from the MOMA store which was a gift at an office Christmas party.

5. The Mac.  Don't leave home without it.

6. The corner of one of the three skirts i packed.  It's 88 degrees and humid in New Orleans.  Pants are just not an option. 

7. Green mesh eco-bag.  Because you never know when you might need to shop and save the environment at the same time. 

Ok...off to bed now...will try to blog from N'awlins...

a poet worth the words...

Thinking hard about you
I got on the bus
and paid
30 cents car fare
and asked the driver for two transfers
before discovering
that
I was alone.

Four years ago, for my birthday, a dear friend gave me a copy of Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America, The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, and In Watermelon Sugar and changed my life.

I'd never heard of Brautigan--a wild-haired, quixotic counterculture beat poet and writer who, despite being remarkably prolific, cloistered himself salinger-style and refused to give interviews or deliver lectures during the eight years when he produced the bulk of his poetry.

The act of dying
is like hitch-hiking
into a strange town
late at night
where it is cold
and raining,
and you are alone
again.

In the months since I became aware of him, I have passed Brautigan's work to friends, family, and strangers--wishing every time that I could be as succinctly elegant and as simply eloquent as this man who took his own life so tragically early, the victim of personal demons and critical obscurity. If only there had been poetry like this in my high school English class--I would have found myself appreciating the art form so much more.

Does anything represent the twin despair and hope of unrequited love more than Brautigan's, Please?

Do you think of me
as often
as I think
of you?

Since discovering Brautigan, I have discovered so many cool things about him...like this: in 1968, he published a collection of poems called Please Plant This Book: eight seed packets, each containing seeds, with poems printed on the sides. What I wouldn't give to see an original edition of the collection--alas, I have a feeling I'll just have to console myself with http://www.pleaseplantthisbook.com/, a flash version of the original--typos and all (seeds not included).

Anyone with a favorite poet certainly has a favorite poem...and I would be remiss in leaving you without transcribing mine...the one I have turned to countless times...the one that remains doggeared in that life-changing gift:

Karma Repair Kit, Items 1-4

1. Get enough food to eat,
and eat it.
2. Find a place to sleep where it is quiet,
and sleep there.
3. Reduce intellectual and emotional noise until you
arrive at the silence of yourself,
and listen to it.
4.

word.

Other musings you might enjoy: 

A Genius Speaks of Love

Ani Difranco is My Muse

On Austenesque Sentences

a genius speaks of love

I've learned something that many women these days never learn: Prince Charming really is a toad. And the Beautiful Princess has halitosis. The bottom line is that (a) people are never perfect, but love can be, (b) that is the one and only way that the mediocre and the vile can be transformed, and (c) doing that makes it that. Loving makes love. Loving makes itself. We waste time looking for the perfect lover instead of creating the perfect love. Wouldn't that be the way to make love stay?

Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won't adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question. The words "make" and "stay" become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free.

(sigh)

Tom Robbins...timelessly eccentric. Worth a try.

Read Still Life With Woodpecker...if not for a treatise on the true meaning of love...for a heroine with an unhealthy crush on Ralph Nader. When you're done...try Skinny Legs and All...if not for a smarter look at the Arab/Israeli conflict than any middle eastern scholar can give you...then because it opens on "newlyweds driving cross-country in a large roast turkey."

I promise...you may be perplexed...but you won't be disappointed.

a beautiful day for a spin cycle

living in new york has its ups and downs.

on the plus side, delis that are open at 3am for that post-midnight snack you simply CANNOT live without, every kind of ethnic food imaginable, and ATMs wherever you need them.  

on the down side, it's pretty much unheard of for people who live in 3rd floor walkups in Brooklyn (like yours truly) to have laundry in their building.  this means that instead of being able to do laundry at your convenience (read: in your jammies, while reading a book), once a week or, if you're like us, once every few weeks, you have to haul a shopping cart threatening to buckle under the weight of your dirty clothes a block and a half to the laundromat.  so. not. fun. 

especially on a gorgeous spring day when you want to put on your cutest tank top and take the dog to the park.

but the new york city laundromat is an urban institution--ultimately, it's the greatest representation of the democracy of city life.  There, the urban hipsters' ironic t-shirts meld with dog toys that desperately need a clean, that sweater I need to wear to work on Tuesday, newborns' onesies, and the granny panties of the lady who has lived on the block since her own infancy.  

For several hours on any given weekend, we separate our lights and darks together. We move our wets to the dryers in a synchronized dance.  We stand in solidarity against the dryer that has been marked Out of Order since we moved to the neighborhood.  We make room for each other on the folding tables in a silent understanding that, while none of us really wants to be there, for a few moments, we are comrades in arms.  

Some people dream of their futures and of wonderful, extravagant things--fancy cars, big houses, sailboats, country club memberships, box seats at Shea Stadium.  My dreams are much more pedestrian.  Some day, I hope to have a washing machine--and, wait for it, a dryer--to call my very own.  

But I confess, there will be moments when I miss the poetry of the laundromat.  

puppetry...on a day for quiet contemplation

it's been a while, i know.
here's a little something for your patience.
xo, sarah