On Brand

I’ve been a fan of the Christos since Calvin Tompkins 2004 profile of the couple and their efforts to bring the Gates to Central Park. Actually seeing the Gates was one of those experiences where forming a new opinion was impossible. I had been looking forward to the project for a year. I loved it.

So when friends of Over the River emailed (I’m on their email list, of course I’m on their email list) to say that Christo was doing a signing two hours away, I didn’t really have a choice about going, and on Tuesday, I drove down to Cañon City, Colorado, one of the sights for Over the River. 

Minus the traffic getting out of Denver, the drive down reminded me of the Salt Lake City to Price, Utah leg of my cross-country journey. We did that stretch at night, and the road was unlit and winding. It was my turn to drive, and I was nervous the whole time. Still, even before we arrived at our motel, I knew I would make it, and I would look back on my time on US-6 as proof that I could get through things, or at least through long drives at night. 

The drive down to Cañon City wasn’t as hard as the one down to Price, perhaps because I use a car all the time now. The signing wasn’t crowded, but Christo looked halved without Jeanne-Claude by his side and was not as excited as I was for our exchange.

Afterward, we went to Di Rito’s, an Italian restaurant that will probably do quite well during Over the River. Normally, I wouldn’t eat at a restaurant whose name is so reminiscent of  a mass-produced corn chip, but eating there wasn’t entirely ironic. Having a meatball calzone in Cañon City, Colorado made sense in my life, just like visiting the Met to see the exhibit of Christo drawings had made sense in my life in 2004. 

However, when I overheard the owner describing his food as good, but not $75 a plate in New York good, I laughed, mostly because if you’re paying $75 a plate for Italian in New York, you’re getting ripped off. 

Toggle Time

I’ve been toggling between a lot of projects lately, but let’s face it: I’m mainly toggling between Facebook and Twitter. This makes me sad as I see myself as part of a media future I don’t want to live in. I haven’t even been following the links and tweets on hard news lately. I can’t pretend that Herman Cain, Rick Perry, or Michele Bachmann will be anything more than a footnote in history, so why read about their respective sexual blunders, debate snafus or religious fundamentalist ideology? 

I’m in a coffee shop right now, and I’m toggling between overhearing two conversations that are actually the same one: a woman complaining to another woman about a man in her life. Almost everyone at the coffee shop can hear these conversations, and almost everyone is on a product that Steve Jobs designed. I toggled between feelings about his death. At first I felt something, and then I remembered that this guy was a CEO who inspired me only to consume things. And yet, the computer I’m typing on right now is well designed, and I appreciate that. With him dead, my next computer won’t be as beautiful. And in this way, I can relate to the people in front of Apple stores who held up iPads with images of memorial candles, mourning that Steve Jobs won’t make them things to buy anymore.

Another thing I’m toggling between: edits on two different short stories. One thing about writing a novel: there was no toggling. But there will be more focus soon: I’m starting training for Big Sur on January 1. And once that starts, I’ll be toggling between my next run and my next milkshake.

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How About This For A Reality TV Show?

Successful, divorced Upper West Side single mothers vie to date Mark Bittman, food columnist for the New York Times. 

I’m just saying, I would watch. 

I Had A Nightmare About IQ84 Last Night and Other Romances

Being in the middle of a good novel is not unlike being in love. Since I started with IQ84, it has been my date to every occasion. It is there in the morning and it is there at night. The companionship feels so natural, like an extension of myself, that it is easy to forget how rare that feeling is. And while a good short story can fill my heart, it won’t hold my hand for a whole plane ride. At 925 pages, I feel like I could travel the world with 1Q84. I’m about halfway through, and I’ve already ordered a Chekov book that has a cameo in 1Q84 as a sort of literary rebound. To Murakami’s credit, the writing is much lighter than the book, and carting around this 4-pound tome has none of the burden a long-term relationship or War and Peace.