The Folly of Man - - And Woman

I've been carrying around Elmer Gantry on my iPod for some time.  It is so difficult to decide what to read next.  This was a hum-dinger, you betcha.  As I mentioned before, Sinclair Lewis is a great writer. I guess I'm not alone in thinking that.  And here we have the most self-delusional man in the history of literature. Maybe not, but he is certainly in the top ten. Elmer can't quite reconcile his desire to get into every woman's pants, to foist his belief in whatever he is believing at the moment on others, and to acquire as much power and money as possible. This is another of those books that must be listened to for complete enjoyment. The reader does various voices really well. What he does best is to tell about what predicament Gantry has gotten himself into now and then convey Elmer's unperplexed response to stepping out of the fire.  

Elmer and his wife go to Europe at one point and this section was almost as much fun as Twain's Innocents Abroad. Oh, we are/were such ugly Americans. Please say "were." I know that none of my friends would be so oblivious to the sorry image they are showing to foreigners (if they behave like Elmer Gantry.) But then, there is Sarah Palin. (Sorry, I just can't get that woman out of my mind; especially since she made such a fool of herself on the tape about how the media gave Obama the election.) Lewis thought very little of organized religion and, probably, small town America as well. In fact, he is said to have dedicated this book to H.L. Mencken.  H.L. was a champion athiest. That's why he found the Scope's Monkey Trial such fertile ground for scorn.

I've decided to take 3 weeks off to drive to California to visit friends and get my car registered. Peggy's Folly. But I almost cried at the Virginia DMV when they told me I had to get a Virginia driver's license to register my car here. What?!! When you've been a Californian for 61 years, that is just too big a hurdle to get over. It's so much better to drive for 5 days to get the car registered in it's rightful home. Right? If you disagree, you don't need to tell me. My brother already has. The lemonade in all this is that I will get to visit with my friends on the correct coast. That is very powerful lemonade.    

Cool and Not So Cool

One of the coolest gifts given at Christmas in Kansas was this laptop cooler.  I didn't get or give this gift, but I did get to try it out.  It connects to a USB port on your laptop and the fans blow cooling air into the laptop.  My laptop gets so hot that I've been afraid it will burn out.  What I did while I had this on my lap was order one for my own use.  I love it.  One day I had it upside down and it blew cool air over my lap.  That was strange, but I might try it when the weather is hotter.  

I read a really cool book, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. He also wrote Blink and The Tipping Point. I listened The Tipping Point. Gladwell has a clear and straight-forward way of writing. Real devotees of the topics would probably call it simplistic, but I liked it. Business books are part of my reading list because I want to know a little about a lot of things. This isn't really a business book.  It shows through statistics the things that make some people more successful than other people.  A lot of it involves being born at the right time and working really hard.  At least the last part is under your control.

Eric and I listened to The Gate House on our drive to and from Atlantic City.  This may be the first time anyone was ever a little sad for not hitting rush hour traffic when coming home.  Not that the book was that good, but you do want to know how things end.  It was a very long book for very little reason. Both Eric and I have read other books by Nelson DeMille.  In fact, Eric remembers reading the prequel to this book.  It's about a lawyer who gets caught up with a Mafia Don, his wife becomes the Don's lover and then kills him.  This book takes place ten years later.  The lawyer is sarcastic and can't say anything without that sarcasm.  It was fun for a little while, but the book takes about 21 hours to listen to all of it.  Little stuff happens every now and then, so you don't really want to skip the middle 7 hours.  Actually, that might not have been a bad idea.  I had to finish it and give Eric a synopsis of the end.  Even in the shorter version, it wasn't very interesting.

Atlantic City

Eric and I decided to explore some of the East Coast.  My choice of exciting places to visit was Atlantic City in the winter.  AND I decided not to stay in one of the gorgeous casinos on the Boardwalk.  Doesn't it make more sense to stay at the Day's Inn in the middle of a deserted portion of the area?  We were just inches from the Boardwalk, over 2000 of them.  A lot of the shops and restaurants were closed.  It was very cold out so we didn't go over the Boardwalk to the beach.  But, we had a good time.     

We met a push cart "driver" who pushed us all over the Boardwalk. He was from Haiti and the rest is what he told us.  Not that it wasn't absolutely true, but you never know with sales people.  He was a teacher and politically active when in Haiti.  Because of the last part, he had to leave.  He is in the U.S. legally, has a wife and very bright child in Haiti who he would love to be able to bring here.  Now the part I believe implicitly is that he hasn't had many push jobs lately since it is so damn cold and there is not much happening at the moment. Eric said I gave him way too much money, but we weren't spending it on anything else anyway.

I did gamble a little.  Very little because Eric does not like to gamble at all.  I won $5.00 and Eric said that he is responsible for me winning.  If he had not intervened, I would have stayed much longer and lost my meager winnings.  But now I know what Atlantic City looks like and I don't have to come back when it is mega-crowded and hot.  That's a good thing. 

Edward Sawtelle has been reviewed in the Los Angeles Times.  I love this review.  It is right on target AND the writer liked the book, as I did.

Happy New Year*

We had a great New Year's Eve.  Eric, Cindy and I had dinner in Georgetown and then went to the Kennedy Center to see the gentleman above, Slide Hampton, and his jazz band.  None of us had ever sat through a jazz performance before.  This was trumpets, trombones and saxaphones accompanied by a piano, a guitar and drums.  They were great.  I enjoyed it, even though my mental singer couldn't pick out a melody anywhere.  The band was accompanied by a quartet at times. Fortunately it was just "at times."  I do not like that type of singing.  It reminded me of, well, I won't say what because I'm sure to insult someone else's taste in music.  

*I just read a review of the concert.  The reviewer seemed to like New York Voices more than Cindy and I did.  First, see that picture of them above?  The two women did not look like that.  They looked like they had just rolled out of bed into ill-fitting dresses.  The cute one on the left had a huge bushy natural that she liked to whip around a lot.  She also reminded me not to wear low-backed dresses where your fat hangs over the top of the dress back.  And heaven only knows what the lady on the right was wearing.  I won't get started on her uncombed hair.  And that blended "bop-bred" harmonizing singing reminded me of too many old groups from the 50's that Mom and Dad used to watch on TV.  Yuck.  The reviewer also talked about an a capella version of I'll Be Seeing You.  Isn't a capella all alone?  What was the smaltzy piano doing?  That was the most belabored version of a sweet, simple, sad song that I have ever heard.  So.  I guess you could just say I didn't like them. But I loved the Dizzy Gillespie All Star Big Band.  

Before the music, we had dinner at Hook in Georgetown.  As the name would imply, this was all seafood.  Look at some of the starters.  They are served in flights - one raw fish prepared three ways.  It was sushi at its best.  They don't have what I ate on this internet menu.  It was tuna.  In fact, I had two kinds of tuna for dinner.  The main course was yellowfin tuna with white beans and baby bok choy.  That was seared on four sides - otherwise raw.  Heaven.  It was so much fun to be there with Eric and Cindy.  They like to try new things.  In fact, we decided to try a new restaurant every month.  I usually cook a very healthy meal to keep us fit.  That makes this especially fun.

Crudo

King Salmon smoked black olives, dill crème fraîche, shiitake mushrooms

Oysters champagne gelèe, bloody mary, dirty martini

House Cured Sardines parmigiano reggiano, capers, Smoked Salmon fennel, Boquerones sauce rouge

Mahi Mahi pickled squash, juniper cilantro oil, crispy fingerling potato

Suzuki curry salt, crispy shallots, pickled fennel

Kona Kampachi watercress, pickled red onion, chervil & lime