The Plot Sickens

My friend Jill used to say that; I always liked it better than “thickens.”

More than a week ago I received from Netflix a DVD of Family Plot, Alfred Hitchcock’s final film. It was broken from one side to the center hole.

The replacement arrived in worse shape; it was broken into two discreet pieces. You can see a picture of it here.

Copy three arrived -- yes, broken!

Last night copy four was delivered. Finally, one arrived in good shape -- you think? Hell no, it was broken all the way through as well. I used my phone to video the moment; it’s pretty lousy artistically, but you can still share in the excitement. (Note: the god whose name is taken in vain is Apollo, not the one who dies on Friday).

WTF is going on?

When you let Netflix know online that a disc has arrived broken or otherwise unplayable, they send out a replacement disc immediately if that’s your wish. If you call them they inevitably blame the postal service. They will be glad to tell you about the two-step process that every disc goes through upon its return to one of their facilities. Obviously the problem occurred AFTER the disc left their warehouse.

Obviously.

Or not.

I am perfectly willing to believe that sloppy handling by the USPS causes broken discs. But FOUR in a row? Hmmm, seems unlikely. And four of the same disc?

Here’s the kicker: if you call Netflix about a problem disc they will send you a replacement AND very likely send you the next disc in your queue, as a courtesy. They did that twice for me in the last few days. In both cases the other disc arrived safe and sound in the very same delivery as another broken copy of Family Plot.

So I ask again: what the fuck is going on? I honestly don’t know, but at the risk of sounding paranoid, I think it’s sabotage. Somebody is destroying discs of Family Plot that are sent to me. Why? I have no idea. Don suggested maybe I had pissed off someone locally – maybe he was doing it once the discs arrived in my mailbox. But how would he -- she? -- know which ones were Family Plot? Maybe it’s a disgruntled Netflix employee, but the same question applies; why not other discs, why just the Hitchcock?

It is a mystery worthy of the master whose final movie I'm trying to watch. I can’t wait to see what arrives in tomorrow’s mail.

Southern Comfort

Although I spent years in Virginia, I am not a Southerner. My politics and my sensibilities are those of a New Yorker; I could never again live in the South. I love my blue state and will likely never leave it. On the day when gay marriage is being discussed in the Supreme Court, I am proud the state of Connecticut legally recognizes my marital status.

I do though love Southern cooking. Carolina pulled pork barbecue was one of my early favorites. Smithfield ham is a treasure I haven’t enjoyed for years. Greens cooked to death with ham hocks or salt pork takes me back to hot, humid days on the Mall in Washington, DC, during the Poor People’s Campaign of 1968. And fried chicken just ain’t fried chicken unless its SOUTHERN fried chicken. (We’ll leave chicken-fried steak out of it for now).

Then there’s Brunswick Stew, fried okra, cornbread, red-eye gravy, pecan and lemon chess pies.

And biscuits.

To me, nothing says Dixie like biscuits. Thanks to a Southern chain, Popeye’s (Louisiana Kitchen), even Northerners get to sample this delicious Southern staple. I make damn good biscuits from scratch, but they’ve never been a match for Popeye’s.

Until today. Today I tried a new recipe that Ransom sent me and I made the best biscuits ever. The recipe claims to be Popeye’s own; whether it is or not, it makes fantastic biscuits. The secret? 7-Up!

Don’t be so surprised. Lots of Southern recipes use Coca-Cola, (Coca-Cola Chicken, Coca-Cola Cake) -- so 7-Up is hardly a stretch.

Here’s the recipe; I recommend it highly.

2 cups Bisquick

1/2 cup sour cream

1/2 cup 7-up

1/4 cup melted butter

Cut sour cream into biscuit mix, add 7-Up. Makes a very soft dough. Sprinkle additional biscuit mix on board or table and pat dough out. Melt 1/4 cup butter in a 9 inch square pan. Place cut biscuits in pan and bake at 450 degrees until golden brown.

We’re from the government and we’re here to help you

It’s an old line that always gets a laugh. I live with a local version. Every now and then Yale University sends out an email with the encouraging news that there’s a new process being implemented that will make life easier.

I react to Yale the same way most folks react to the government.

A few months ago we got an email that began “In an effort to streamline the check approval process . . .” Here we go, I thought. The message went on to state that I would now be required to file an I9 form for any new vendor to whom I wanted to send payment. (The I9 is the federal government’s form that proves someone is legally allowed to work in the U.S.). Along with that, I would be required to complete the Vendor Set-Up form, if this person or business was not already in the Yale system. Finally, I was to complete the actual Check Request to order payment.

That’s three forms. For one check.

It used to be that one form was enough. But now, thanks to Yale’s "streamlining", I need three. Yeah, that sounds like progress.

Here’s another example of how helpful Yale can be. The first image is a screen shot of a page I encounter whenever I file an expense report. You can see that there are two places on this page where I can click a “Contact Us” link if I need help. As you would expect, clicking that link opens a new email message wherein I can ask my question. Thank you, Yale.

Oops, one problem, as the second image makes clear: the email isn’t addressed to anyone!

It reminds me of a conversation Don and I had recently, in which we talked about the therapeutic value of writing a letter to someone with whom I am having difficulty. It’s not so important that I mail the letter; just writing it is a therapeutic tool.

I guess Yale feels the same way. Ask all the questions you want; just keep them to yourself.

My week in pictures

There’s no great issue churning up my brain cells this afternoon, so here instead are some images from the week gone by.

On Sunday I saw the Paul Taylor Dance Company at Lincoln Center. This shot was taken ten minutes before the scheduled 3pm curtain. What’s wrong with this picture? Well, the fact that almost no one is on the plaza, that’s what. The police had sealed off all of Lincoln Center, due to a bomb scare. Interestingly, the patrons already inside the Koch Theatre were allowed to remain. In fact, they knew nothing about the cause of the delay. When I was finally let in at 3:30 or so they were stunned to hear of the bomb scare. They were more stunned to contemplate their apparent worth, as no one asked them to remove themselves to safety.

File this one under Dressing for the Theatre; title it “Who says no one dresses for Broadway shows anymore?” These two ladies of a certain age sat two rows ahead of me at the Wednesday matinee of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It opened later that night to a pretty lousy review in the Times. Unfortunately, I concur. (I do though like the juxtaposition of the hats and the cellphone).

I’ve been working my way through the entire Alfred Hitchcock oeuvre, or at least as much as Netflix can provide. I’m up to the very last one, Family Plot, but Apollo, god of the arts, must not want me to see it. The first copy Netflix sent me was broken from one edge to the center. Here’s a photo of its replacement!

Most of the snow has melted around here, though every time the brown earth appears Zeus sends at least a few inches to cover it up again. The fallen trees, courtesy of Aeolus, god of the winds, still remain everywhere you look in the woods, five months after they fell:

And finally, this arrived at the mailbox this week. How quaint. A phone book. I’m trying to remember the last time I used one of these. I’m guessing maybe ten years. I am actually surprised that they still exist. I would never seek out a book unless both my iPhone and my Mac were dead. This goes from the bag it was in straight to the recycle bin.

So yeah, it's been a slow news day here in New England.

Telling Stories

Regular readers know that I listen to This American Life faithfully. Episode 226, Reruns, featured a short piece about Radio Lab’s host, Robert Krulwich, and his wife Tamar Lewin. Like many married couples, they are in the habit of telling the same stories. In one, Tamar is alone on Madison Avenue when she notices a familiar figure across the street; the woman seems to be waving at her. Amazingly, it’s Jackie Onassis! Lewin waves back, tentatively, at which point Jackie O waves even more vigorously. Just as Lewin is planning her next move, a taxi drives up and Mrs. Onassis gets in. Turns out she was waving down a cab, not a complete stranger.

When Robert Krulwich tells the story he is with his wife as it develops; they’re walking down Fifth Avenue, not Madison, with Central Park on their right. The rest of the story unfolds the same.

I was reminded of my New York run-in with a celebrity. I was a waiter at Steak and Brew, the one at 51st and Broadway. It was a place filled with tourists; we served forgettable steaks, an unlimited salad bar, and all the beer, or birch beer, you chose to drink. Just around the corner was the Mark Hellinger Theatre, where Coco was playing. It was a musical telling of Coco Chanel’s life and was written by Alan Jay Lerner. (Coincidentally, Lerner wrote another show that played at the Mark Hellinger, this one in the fifties: My Fair Lady).

One day I was rushing to work, not paying attention, when I ran into – literally, ran into – the star of Coco, Katherine Hepburn, who was hurrying to a matinee performance.

At first I grumbled, irritated by this clumsy woman who wasn’t looking where she was going. She, much more graciously, was concerned about me and asked if I was all right. Only then did I see who it was. OMG! Kate! Hepburn!

I assured her I was fine, and tried to assist her, though I was too flummoxed to make any sense. She waved me off, assuring me all was okay, and with a wave of her hand, was gone. I went into work, too stunned to talk at first, but then chattered excitedly to my friends about who I had just bumped into.

It was a glorious New York moment, and made for a story I told for years.

Like Robert Krulwich’s story though, it was not true. Just as he was never in his story, Katherine Hepburn was never in mine. The whole thing never happened.

I have no idea how the story began. It could have happened; I was working at Steak and Brew and Hepburn was in Coco, just around the corner, but, alas, I never saw her, neither on the street nor on the stage. After telling the story for years, and always getting a lot of laughs and oh-my-gods, I finally fessed up. I continued telling the story, but added a coda, admitting it was all fantasy.

People were bummed; they told me they’d rather go on believing the story. Hepburn was such an icon, and so beloved; the idea that someone they knew had actually spoken to her was too good to not believe.

So I dropped the coda, and told the tale as I "remembered" it.

Just as Robert Krulwich does. He admits he wasn’t there, but the story is so vivid in his mind that it’s worth retelling.

Sometimes we like our truths to be burnished a bit.

Selfish Shoppers Suck

I am so gotdam sick of selfish people! The picture is of the Costco parking space I was headed for yesterday -- unavailable because some selfish asshole left his shopping cart sitting right in the middle of it! And you wouldn’t have to walk far to find the cart corral he could have used. Just too far for this jerk.

As is so often the case, Europe is way ahead of us on this issue. There you deposit a Euro to use a shopping cart; when you’re done, you return the cart and get a Euro back. Most everyone returns his cart. A Euro matters.

Here we might have to make it a twenty-dollar bill. Anything less and your typical fat, lazy American might not walk the extra fifty feet to return a cart.

Or maybe not. The folks at the supermarket chain Aldi -- admittedly, a European concern -- have made it work for only a quarter. Here's what they have to say; pay them a visit if there's one in your area:

"Part of the ALDI experience is enjoying all of the money-saving rituals that come with smarter shopping. ALDI regulars have come to find our easy-to-use shopping cart deposit system downright endearing, figuring that paying too much is a much greater inconvenience. With this system, we don’t have to assign an employee to round up carts in the parking lot, we don’t lose expensive carts, and you don’t have to worry about dings in your car doors from runaway carts.

You'll find ALDI shopping carts hooked together right outside the door. As you approach the store, just insert a quarter to release a cart. When you’re finished shopping, reconnect the chain and get your quarter back. This expense-saving tradition (no rolling carts to chase and no damaged cars!) has become a legendary part of the ALDI culture."

Probably far too sensible to catch on with most American chains.

I know how you feel

This American Life is, IMHO, the best thing on the radio. It’s broadcast weekly on public radio stations, though I listen to it via podcast, either on my computer or my phone. Some episodes are better than others, but every episode is an hour well spent. Check it out here.

Before yesterday’s episode the last two weeks were devoted to Harper High School, episodes 487 and 488. The TAL website posts this description:

We spent five months at Harper High School in Chicago, where last year alone 29 current and recent students were shot. 29. We went to get a sense of what it means to live in the midst of all this gun violence, how teens and adults navigate a world of funerals and Homecoming dances. We found so many incredible and surprising stories, this show is a two-parter; Part One airs this week, Part Two is next week.

That a radio show would send three reporters to a high school for five months to create one story is astounding. The two hours were, of course, intense; the story is sad, compelling, heartbreaking, uplifting – all the things one would expect given the facts. I was transfixed.

I was also reminded of how very different my high school experience was in Richmond, Virginia, in 1965 and 1966. I’m sure there were kids who smoked marijuana, but I didn’t know of any, and I’m only sure NOW; back then I would have been stunned by the idea. There might have been gangs represented at our school, but I don’t think so. Of course there were fights now and then, but they were quickly-ended fist fights; neither guns or knives were involved.

Our big concerns in high school were “will we win the game Friday night,” and “will I score with my date Saturday night?” (And, for the record, “score” had a pretty tame meaning in my life back then).

It was still a Norman-Rockwell-Leave-It-To-Beaver world I lived in.

A couple years later I was in VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) in Aurora, IL, a small town 40-some miles west of Chicago. (Well, it was a small town THEN; now it’s second only to Chicago in terms of Illinois cities). One day two black women stopped by to visit someone they knew on our staff; they were from Holly Springs, Mississippi, and were just passing through. Several of us were talking over coffee and getting along well; the women were energetic, funny and clearly street-savvy.

I was thoroughly enjoying the conversation until I opened my large white mouth and stuck my squeaky-clean foot into it. In response to something hateful one of them had just described I stupidly said, “I know how you feel.”

The animated back-and-forth stopped on a dime and both women tore me a new one. “You do NOT know how I feel; you CANNOT know how I feel. You are a white boy, you have never experienced for a second what I experience every day of my life; don’t tell me you know how I feel, you clueless honky.”

They were right, of course. I learned an important lesson that day and have never forgotten it. After the explosion they actually tried to apologize and soothe my feelings, but I told them I deserved it and, in fact, I thanked them. I WAS a clueless honky back then and I appreciated the life lesson.

I don’t remember the names of those two brave and direct women, but I was thinking of them as I listened to Harper High School on This American Life. That was NOT my experience, and I do NOT know how those kids feel.

But I can guess at their pain and lament the society that forces them to go though it.