New Post on A Child Grows: Consider the Pickle

"Let us take a moment to consider the pickle. In order to fully understand and perceive its wonder, I think we should first consider, if only for a sentence or two, its two most popular forms: the cucumber pickle and sauerkraut. The most common adjective for the cucumber would probably be “boring”—the cabbage, “stinky.” But add some salt, water, a few spices if you feel like it, some vinegar if you’re canning them, and wait—both the hardest and most important part of pickling—and eventually you have nature’s most delectable act of controlled rot."

Read the rest here!

The Tweetable Nietzsche

I've been reading a lot of Nietzsche lately for a piece I'm writing, and was thinking out loud on Facebook the other day that I could post a different quote every day for the rest of the year. It turns out someone is already on it on Twitter, of course.

New Post on A Child Grows: Nasturtiums!

"This year we’re planting tomatoes, small melons, peppers, and plenty of flowers. But the favorite thing we plant is also the easiest. Even better, it does double duty—it’s both a flower and a food. I’m talking about the beloved nasturtium. Not only are the flowers multicolored and plentiful, they taste like a kind of like a lightly peppered cauliflower and can be plucked right from the vine. They make stunning additions to a summer salad, or as a garnish to grilled burgers, or grilled anything really. And if you let them go to seed, fear not—you can eat the seeds too!"

Rest the rest here!

New Post on A Child Grows: Fiddleheads!

"Though technically spring arrived almost three weeks ago, it finally feels like it—right in time for Passover, Easter, and all the good food that entails (gefilte fish and matzoh for Passover, Peeps and Cadbury’s eggs for Easter). But of all the good foods that have come to represent spring for me, nothing trumps the fiddlehead. Much like asparagus, fiddleheads are the early shoots of a much larger plant, in their case the ostrich fern. Their name derives from the tightly curled embryonic fronds that form each of them, making each little plant resemble the head of a fiddle."

Read the rest here!

Blog tag!

It seems a game of Blog Tag is afoot, and I have been pulled in. As anyone who knows me knows, I'm always up for a game of tag. My friend, the egregiously talented story writer Mary Stein, has let me know the rules of the game: get tagged, answer four questions, tag another writer. And so it goes, into perpetuity.

The questions are custom-built for the writer's ego, so I'm happy to answer them:

1. What are you working on now?
   You mean besides this blog post? I'm actually working on two major projects, each of which approaches book-length writing from opposite ends. The one that's taking up the most of my time right now is gathering up my essays, published and unpublished, from the last four years, and making a thematically and (somewhat) narrativally cohesive manuscript out of them. The other is envisioning a book-length manuscript from proposal and seed-essay. Neither of these projects is coming to me particularly quickly or easily, as most of my writing has been at the essay level until recently, but they been terribly enriching to me, both as a writer and as a person. Oh, and a third project: my List and the Story stuff, which I go back to when I need a break from intensive product-based writing to think about my life and work more holistically at the macro level. I feel like I'm learning more about myself every day.
2. How does your work differ from others in the genre?
   I guess I should first define my genre. The word "essay" means so many different things in our current culture, both popular and academic; I feel like I spend whole semesters, for example, deprogramming college freshmen from standardized test-based five-paragraph essay writing. I think of "essay" more as a verb: an attempt (from the French essai) to make sense of something - an event, a person, oneself, the world - through writing about it. Peter Elbow elucidated this process pretty well in his seminal Writing Without Teachers: "Writing is a way to end up thinking something you couldn't have started out thinking. Writing is, in fact, a transaction with words whereby you free yourself from what you presently think, feel, and perceive." In this sense, every essay is different from any other essay - every writing process is different, even if some of them reach similar conclusions.
3. Why do you write what you do?
   Because I have to. I know, copout. Hopefully my other answers are better.
4. What is your writing process?
   I find myself tweaking and refining my approach to my work continually. I try to keep a fairly running journal, though many times that entails simply writing down a thought, impression, or series of words when it comes to me, on one of my notepads or (more and more often) on my phone. Every now and then, perhaps every couple of months on average, I take those entries and try to integrate them into what has become a fairly sprawling matrix: I have five folders on my laptop, in ascending order, which give me a (perhaps false) sense of order and progression:
   1. In Development - This is where I put things I've written down that seem important, but I haven't figured exactly why. It's where I start when envisioning what I want to write. Many times, when I'm perhaps stuck on a piece I'm writing, I'll go back and peruse this folder; many times, I'll find a variation on a thought I was looking for here. As you might guess, this folder is pretty full.
   2. Drafting - This is where I keep track of a piece I'm currently writing a first draft of. I try not to keep more than one or two pieces in this folder; if I find myself blocked on a piece and I can't get myself past it by looking back at stuff in the previous folder, I'll send the piece back there, and pick it up later.
   3. Editing - This usually has five or more pieces in it - essays for which I have a beginning, middle, end, etc, but which are not ready to submit. I try to give myself some time between drafting and editing a piece, so many times I'll move a piece to this folder when I'd finished drafting, work on something else, and pick up that piece next month or later.
   4. In Submission - This is where I keep pieces that are, in my opinion at least, ready for publication. I keep notes here on where each piece is currently being considered, the number of rejections, and possible venues.
   5. Published - My favorite folder! This is where I keep pdf's and relevant information of pieces that are in print somewhere.

So there. And Kristopher Jansma, you're it!

Got rats in the subway? Solution: No more trash cans, bub.

I saw this poster today at my stop on the F train. This has to be the strangest reasoning I've ever seen on an MTA notice, which is actually saying a lot. I love the varied scribbled comments, which actually make more sense than the sign itself.

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New post on A Child Grows: On the First Blooming Crocus

"With all due respect to the daffodils and tulips, they are not the first bloom of spring. It’s not even close, actually. Despite the preponderance of cut daffodils at the bodega, the ones in my neighborhood are still hesitantly poking out their shoots, with no flowers in sight. This week, though, any glance in the dirt around most trees on the sidewalk or at the park will reveal clumps of grass-like blades with purple flowers that look so delicate they might be made of tissue paper. The crocuses have bloomed."

Read the rest here!

New Resident Dad Post: Just Food Conference 2014!

"I have been following Just Food for some time now. Since 1995, their role has been to empower and support community groups in their efforts to increase access to local, sustainable food. I’ve been putting their values into practice. I have a batch of sauerkraut fermenting on my counter that I canned with Jeffrey Yoskowitz of the Gefilteria at his pickling workshop at Congregation Beth Elohim this past Thursday. And of course, our tomato seedlings sit in the window soaking up some rays of what has seemed like an endless winter that is finally breaking. This will in fact be my first year attending the Just Food Conference, but I have a feeling it might usurp the rose blossoms at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and NYC Punk Rock and Underground Record Fair as the first sign that spring has sprung."

New Resident Dad Post: Van Brunt Still House

"I admit to having an unhealthy fixation with Red Hook. It has everything this urban idealist needs to believe that Brooklyn will find a new model for Twenty-First Century urbanity. Decaying signs of its roots as an industrial port mingle seamlessly with its more recent revitalization, making it an ideal laboratory for a sustainable future. Old factory buildings house art studios and business startups of every stripe, and many of their roofs are topped with gardens. When I get a sinking feeling about my choice to live and raise a family in the largest city in North America after, say, listening to too much WYNC or reading The Power Broker, I go walking in Red Hook. One discovery I’ve recently made is the Van Brunt Still House, one of a growing number of 'artisanal distilleries' in a collective of small-batch alcohol providers commonly referred to as the Brooklyn Spirits Trail."

CAPS LOCK RANT - Against the Winter Olympics

THIS WOULD BE THE EASIEST RANT IN THE WORLD TO SIMPLY SAY THAT YOU ARE BORING, AND IT WOULD BE INDISPUTABLY TRUE. BESIDES PERHAPS HOCKEY (WHICH ITSELF IS ONLY ENTERTAINING FOR THE BREAKS IN THE "ACTION") THERE IS NOT ONE COMPETITION YOU PROVIDE THAT ANYONE BUT THE ATHLETES AND THEIR FAMILIES WOULD SIT THROUGH MORE THAN ONCE EVERY FOUR YEARS.

BUT YOU ARE MORE THAN BORING. YOU ARE A SHAM. YOUR GOVERNING BODY, THE INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE, IMPLICITLY COMPLIES WITH ANTI-GAY HARASSMENT BY ENFORCING YOUR HOST COUNTRY'S BAN ON OPENLY HOMOSEXUAL "PROPAGANDA." YOUR HOST COUNTRY'S OLIGARCH OPENLY FLAUNTS HIS HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS, ARRESTING AND DETAINING DISSIDENTS FOR NO OTHER REASON THAN EATING IN PUBLIC WHILE GLADHANDING IN FRONT OF EVERY POSSIBLE CAMERA, AND YOUR ATHLETES REWARD HIM BY FAWNING OVER HIM IN PERHAPS THE MOST EGREGIOUSLY STUPID TWITTER HASHTAG EVER.

FINALLY, YOU ARE BAD FOR THE WORLD. WE WILL SPEND ANOTHER WEEK OR SO BASKING IN THE GLOW OF THE SMALL ACHIEVEMENTS OF INDIVIDUALS WHILE IGNORING THE FOMENTING SOCIAL UNREST OF A COUNTRY WHOSE LEADER IS NOT ONLY ATTACKING HIS OWN CITIZENS BUT GIVING FIREARMS TO BOTH UKRAINE AND SYRIA FOR THE SPECIFIC PURPOSE OF KILLING THEIR OWN CITIZENS. A RECENT PHOTO SPREAD REMINDED ME OF ANOTHER FORMERLY SOCIALIST COUNTRY THAT HOSTED YOU JUST 30 YEARS AGO. THAT COUNTRY WAS ALSO ATTEMPTING A CONVERSION TO A MARKET ECONOMY WHILE SHOWING AN INCREASING APTITUDE FOR KILLING ITS OWN PEOPLE.WE ALL KNOW HOW THAT WENT.

Song of the Week: The Most Romantic Song in the World

I notice all week on Soundcheck, presumably to celebrate the death of our beloved martyr of lost causes, John Schaefer as been asking guests what their vote for the Most Romantic Song in the World is. Being as I wasn't on Soundcheck this (or any other) week, I thought I'd cast my vote.

First, let me say that I am the romantic of my marriage. My wife understands that any night she is gone I'm going to be watching Steel Magnolias, Midnight in Paris, or whatever romantic comedy I can find on Netflix that I haven't watched before. That said, I am not a sentimentalist. I think every ounce of passion and every happy ending must be won through suffering, misunderstanding, and/or loss. I also tend to romanticize carnivals, ugliness, ignobility, and people who work at jobs they hate. What was it they call Leonard Cohen? A "dark romantic." I think I might be one of those.

I think that's why I love Bruce. The first time I heard of him, besides the interminable "Born in the USA," was in sophomore-year Humanities class, when my teacher played "Born to Run" for the class, then mercilessly made fun of a certain line...

I wanna die with you Wendy on the streets tonight in an everlasting kiss

...And I remember thinking, "I want that too." I imagined that humanities teacher, a morbidly obese man who breathed heavily as he labored through his class lessons and smelled of sweat and bologna, listening to that song over and over again at home every night, wanting that too.

So yeah, "Born to Run" is not exactly a risky choice for Most Romantic Song in the world. In fact, it might be the safest. After all, it covers virtually every major aspect of American romantic fantasy: rebellion, escape through automobility, the fleeting nature of youth, compromised values, and of course the honking saxophone solo.

In the interest of not being too obvious (and slightly reducing the risk of being cited for copyright infringement) I thought I would include here not the studio version but my favorite live one, from the famed Hammersmith Odeon concert in 1975, right after the album was released.

So, to all the Wendy's of the world, may you to celebrate the death of our martyred saint on the streets tonight in an everlasting kiss. Or maybe tomorrow.

New Resident Dad Post: Songs of the Snow

"It’s easy, in this mid-winter lull, to forget that there might be things to love hidden in the sludgy city snowscape. Also, because of the inordinate amount of time we by necessity spend indoors, we can always use some unstructured indoor play. Dancing is, in my humble opinion, the best unstructured indoor play, and what better way to sail our ships into the frozen horizon than to the beat of some winter-themed jams?"

Read more here!

Yet another legal clusterfuck brought about by "Red-State Governance"

My Facebook feed is abuzz with talk amongst my friends and family back home in Kansas about HB 2453, a bill approved yesterday by the Kansas House of Representatives that encourages discrimination based on sexual orientation for ostensibly religious reasons. I'll try to refrain from giving my opinion here, though anyone who knows me probably has an idea what it is.

I'd rather focus for a moment on my hometown of Lawrence, Kansas, which I typically describe to people here in Brooklyn as an outpost for creative, progressive thought in the largely desolate wasteland that is the rest of Kansas. Predictably, most of my friends and family are none too happy with this bill. My sixteen-year-old sister gave a fair distillation:

So embarrassed to live in Kansas, right now. Ideally, I'd like to live somewhere where everyone is treated equally. Right now, that's only in my dreams.

My cousin Andrea, though, pointed out that Lawrence actually has a municipal ordinance in place to prevent this type of discrimination (boldface is in the document itself):

The practice or policy of discrimination against persons by reason of race sex, religion, color, national origin, age, ancestry, familial status, sexual orientation, or disability is a matter of concern to the City of Lawrence,since such discrimination not only threatens the rights and privileges of the inhabitants of the city, but also menaces the institutions and foundations of a free democratic state. It is hereby declared to be the policy of the City of Lawrence, in exercise of its police power for the protection of the public safety, public health and general welfare, for the maintenance of business and good government, and for the promotion of the City's trade and commerce, to eliminate and prevent discrimination, segregation, or separation  because of race, sex, religion, color, national origin, age, ancestry, familial status, sexual orientation, or disability.

While discussing with my cousin Skyler on Andrea's thread, I realized this new state law, its fundamental stupidity aside, could result in a legal "triple jeopardy" (for lack of a better description) scenario. In essence we have a local ordinance that contradicts state law, and that same state law contradicts more than 50 years of federal court precedent based on the Anti-Discrimination Act of 1975 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. So, say a merchant in Lawrence decides to refuse service to a customer, or a government employer decides to fire an employee, based on sexual orientation. That person or organization, subject to a municipal ordinance that would clearly find that person in violation, could appeal to the State of Kansas, which now has a law that clearly states the person or organization is within their rights and could invalidate the violation. Of course, the violated party could then kick it up to federal law, which clearly supports the original local ordinance. I know, that's a long process to come back to where we started. All because the state of Kansas wants to be, as Governor Sam Brownback says, a model for "red-state governance."

Best Rejection Ever.

No writer is a fan of rejection, though (or because) it accounts for roughly 95% of our submissions. That said, I received my most gratifying rejection yet this weekend, and can't help sharing (I cut out any names, even though I would like to thank them):

Thank you for entering “The Coldest Night of the Year” in the 2014 [________] awards. While it was not selected by our staff as a finalist, I wanted to let you know that it was “this close.” We very much enjoyed your writing and found much to admire in this story.

The plot was fresh, your writing is fluid and well-paced, the dialogue was spot-on, all of which made for a difficult decision. That said, the reading panel’s concerns focused on the frequent shifts in perspective, confusion about whose sections were whose, uncertainty about the age of the son, and whether the second-person narration was necessary or beneficial to the story.

We hope you’ll read these comments in the spirit of constructive criticism and that you’ll send us more of your work. And if you choose to undertake a revision of this story at some point, we would be happy to consider it in a future submission period.

Verlyn Klinkenborg, on this cold weather

It's all a paradox, a cold that feels absolutely rigid but which nonetheless seeps through ill-fitting windows, between clapboards, and along uninsulated, pipe chases. People listen superstitiously to the sounds in their heating ducts, to the banging of their radiators, afraid of silence. They turn the keys in their cars with trepidation. It's an old world this cold week.

Verlyn Klinkenborg, The Rural Life

Sadly, Klinkenborg's "The Rural Life" column for the New York Times came to an end on Christmas of last year after a 17-year run. I always enjoy going back to those columns and the two books drawn from them, especially in January and February when reading takes up an inordinate amount of my time.

Song of the Week: Is My Morning Jacket a Jam Band?

My wife and I have a recurring argument about whether My Morning Jacket is a jam band. The eternal argument, at its core, comes down to this: Neither of us are into jam bands. I love MMJ. She, er, does not.

"We're not sure how to address this question."

The bottom line is this: Yes, they are fond of the extended jam - often profusely, and many times in the studio as well as live. This, to me at least, is when they are their, well, not best. And roughly half of any given album tends to plod along at tempos ranging from slow-burning to gooey. And yes, go to their live shows and you can probably be ready for some serious noodling. (No, not this noodling.) But know this: a MMJ live show is positively transcendent, and in that context every single jam is worth it.

But, again in my own opinion, they are at their best, at least on record, when they work against their own jammy tendencies and force themselves to work within actual song structures. And at their best, they are one of the greatest bands in the world. This is sometimes as simple as adding a little melody, sometimes simply picking up the pace, sometimes taking us into dark places.

"Mahgeetah," my favorite MMJ song, actually supports both sides of our argument. Great melody, driving rhythm with some satisfying changeups, and some fret-burning guitar work that rides the line between stunning and self-indulgent perfectly, though it's actually a much better song if you cut it off with exactly one minute to go, when Jim James' Flying V straight into jamland.

Of course, live the outro makes perfect sense, especially stretched out with some Angus Young-worthy guitar burning. This is from the Okonokos live recording, with a slice of vintage weird MMJ humor thrown in at the end:

New Resident Dad Post: Mermaid's Garden

"A year ago this month, I began working with Mark Usewicz and Bianca Piccillo, the couple who run Mermaid’s Garden, one of the first of a growing number of CSF’s (community-supported fisheries) in Brooklyn. Begun in the summer of 2012 and modeled on CSA’s (community-supported agriculture), which have now established themselves as a viable urban market model for local, small-scale farmers, Mermaid’s Garden runs seven weekly pickups in Brooklyn, where its 365 members pick up a “share” of a different fish (or shellfish substitution) harvested by the many North-Atlantic small-boat fisherman who have relationships with Mark and Bianca."

Read more here!

Song of the Week: Nanci Griffith's "Spin on a Red Brick Floor"

I believe Nanci Griffith has, along with Joan Baez and Emmylou Harris and many other female singers with crystalline voices, had her sweet side overly praised at the expense of her social awareness and sense of humor. Baez, perhaps the most purely gifted singer of the Sixties folk movement, is typically relegated to the status of Dylan's girlfriend in Dont Look Back; to this I always respond with the story of someone telling her and Dylan, at some hotel in the Catskills I believe, that they made a great couple, to which she replied, "A couple of what?" And whenever I hear Emmylou I think of my friend Melissa, a mild-mannered native Kentuckian from Oldham County who is now a museum curator here in NYC, whose rebel yell I only hear when she lets loose when karaokeing an Emmylou tune.

But this week's song isn't by Baez or Emmylou, it's by the grand dame of sharp-toothed charm, Nanci Griffith. I fell in love with her voice while working at Adventure Bookstore over Christmas breaks in Lawrence, when they always had Flyer playing. I saw her play at Liberty Hall one summer in the mid-Nineties with my friend Jon Laura, blushing when she let loose with a profanity-laced tirade against the venue or the hotel she'd stay or something else I can't remember. Jon Laura, who had come there with me only reluctantly, talked about that show for the rest of the summer.

Anyway, this is my favorite of many of my favorites of hers, "Spin on a Red Brick Floor."

Keep an ear out for one of my all-time favorite lines, "New York City kinda brings out the stupids in me," and for a visual check out another live version, with Mark O'connor on fiddle and Lyle Lovett singing harmony:

RIP Pete Seeger: 1919-2014

In case you haven't heard, Pete Seeger died this morning, in the dark night of the soul around 3am. I can't say I was surprised to see the news all over my Facebook wall (he was 94 after all) but I am grieving. It goes against my every authorial instinct to say this, but...We lost a piece of America today, a living embodiment of some of the best things about our past century: the civil rights movement, some of the earliest days of recorded folk music, the environmental movement, nonviolent resistance (he was one of many on McCarthy's blacklist). I think, because of this, it's easy to think of him more as an ideal than as a man. Even if you're one of the many people who had the fortune of meeting him.

In my own Pete Seeger Story, Pete was actually more of a role player. Over Thanksgiving of 2001, I had my first out-of-town visitor after September 11, my friend Sara. I'd spent much of the previous couple of months robotically going to my market research job on 25th Street, looking south out the big 12th-floor picture window at the big empty space where I'd watched both towers fall with my co-workers, and having two or three panic attacks a day. Downtown had been partially reopened for the holidays, and my cousin Walt invited me and Sara to join the walking tour he was giving with Shorewalkers, a nonprofit group that holds various walks (they call them "saunters") around the city. This was, if I'm remembering correctly, their first walk through the downtown ruins around Ground Zero. I was just as interested in seeing Walt himself, for only the second time since he'd led his entire floor down and out of the tower where he worked, escaping with them just minutes before their tower collapsed.

When we arrived Walt said, "Looks like Pete came out." I shuffled through my mind, trying to think of what Petes he knew. Then a man who looked maybe seventy years old walked up, looking snug and spry in his outdoor gear.  "Good day for a walk, Walt," he said. Walt introduced us to him. "It's very nice to meet you," he said, then began walking briskly ahead of us.

That was all the conversation we had, because he spent the rest of the walk well ahead of the rest of the group. Sara, Walt, and I walked along the downtown riverfront in silence, past buildings with all their windows blown out, hundreds of Missing Person photos with phone numbers to call if they were found, and military ships in the harbor surrounding it all. All the time, in the distance in front of us was the vague silhouette of old Pete Seeger, ingesting it all in solitude, undoubtedly integrating it into his own mythology that had already been shaped by some of the grandest transformations in our young nation's history. I think we all felt a little safer, more secure in our future, with that figure in front of us.

Reading Arlo Guthrie's tribute to Pete on his Facebook page this morning, I think about  seeing Arlo at Castle Clinton in 2009 with my wife and daughter when my daughter was only a couple months old, and about Arlo's dad, and the way all of them - Pete, Woody, Arlo - have shaped my own personal mythology. And I know Arlo said it best at the end of that Facebook post:

"Well, of course he passed away!" I'm telling everyone this morning. "But that doesn't mean he's gone."

CAPS LOCK RANT - Against Saved by the Bell

TODAY I SAW THAT A CERTAIN HIPSTER BAR IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD IS HAVING A PROMOTION INVOLVING SCREENINGS OF SAVED BY THE BELL. THIS IS WRONG. HIPSTERISM HAS REACHED AN ENTIRELY NEW REALM OF POST-IRONY WHEN IT DECIDED TO INCORPORATE THIS BLIGHTED POCKMARK ON THE NINETIES INTO ITS REALM OF SARCASTOSTALGIA. I PERSONALLY LOVE THE NINETIES - IT'S PROBABLY MY SECOND (MAYBE THIRD) FAVORITE DECADE - BUT THIS SHOW IS NOT REPRESENTATIVE OF ANYTHING GOOD ABOUT THE NINETIES. IN FACT, LIKE FULL HOUSE, FAMILY MATTERS, EVEN FRESH PRINCE OF BEL AIR, IT'S REPRESENTATIVE OF THE DYING CORPORATE EIGHTIES OF BAD SITCOMS WE ALL HAD TO PRETEND TO LAUGH AT THAT THE ADVENT OF THE INTERNET AS MAINSTREAM MEDIA AND THE RISE OF INDEPENDENT CINEMA/MUSIC/PUBLISHING SUPPOSEDLY FREED US FROM. SO IT'S ESPECIALLY IRONIC THAT HIPSTER IRONY HAS LED YOUNG PEOPLE WHO DESPERATELY WANT TO SEEM NEW AND DIFFERENT BACK TO THE WORST OF MAINSTREAM CORPORATE MEDIA PROGRAMMING. BAD SWEATERS AND FEATHERED HAIR, EVEN WORN IRONICALLY, ARE STILL BAD SWEATERS AND FEATHERED HAIR. IF YOU'RE NOT IN JUNIOR HIGH (AND LET'S NOT KID OURSELVES, BAYSIDE IS A JUNIOR HIGH MASQUERADING AS A HIGH SCHOOL), YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE.