Sunday, May 1, 2011
Edgar, Freddie and Me
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Still A Thing of Beauty
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Killer Hot Fudge Sauce
I dream about food constantly.
At least two nights a month I dream about an incredibly messy, incredibly amazing chili cheeseburger that I ate ten years ago at the All Star Cafe in Pittsboro, North Carolina. They served it Carolina style, which means it was topped with cole slaw. And it came with a basket of fresh, hot onion rings -- the better to mop up all of the chili, melted cheese and cole slaw that spilled out. I also dream a lot about the mouth-watering pancetta and caramelized onion pizza that they make at a place on East 20th Street called Pizza Fresca. Diana and I like to go there.
Mostly I dream about chocolate. And not just while I'm asleep. Chocolate occupies my mind day and night. It's my greatest passion in life. I'm really not a complicated person at all. If my mind isn't occupied with figuring out how to murder someone, then the chances are very good that I'm thinking about chocolate. If I'm sitting in the dentist's chair I'm wondering why it is they have mint-flavored toothpaste but not chocolate. Or dental floss. Wouldn't you floss more often if they made chocolate floss? I would. If I'm sipping my late morning herbal tea I'm thinking how much better it would taste with one of Maida Heatter's chocolate peanut cookies, and how I ought to bake a batch.
But nothing occupies my thoughts quite like my yearning for the hot fudge sauce that I give to friends and loved ones every year for Christmas. Diana and I have jarred up two batches so far this season and are about to make a third today. It is absolutely killer. The best. Once you've tasted it you'll never go back. It's great on ice cream, of course. And we find it to be the height of sin on Diana's warm, fresh-baked bread. In the spirit of the season I've decided to share the recipe, which comes from the March 1997 issue of Saveur magazine. The late, great journalist R.W. Apple uncovered it in Belfast, Northern Ireland, at a restaurant called Rostoff. He thought it was the best he'd ever tasted and I don't disagree. It's not that hard to make. All you need is a stainless steel double boiler and a bit of patience. Chocolate does NOT like to be rushed.
Here's what you'll need:
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
7 tablespoons sweet butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup hot water
1 teaspoon vanilla
pinch of kosher salt
Break up the chocolate into pieces. Melt the chocolate and all of the other ingredients (except for the vanilla and salt) together in the top of your double boiler over water that's at a LOW simmer. Like I said, don't rush this. Chocolate will seize up if it gets too hot. It'll take a few minutes for everything to melt. Use a wooden spoon to stir it together. When it becomes nice and smooth keep stirring it with your wooden spoon for an additional five minutes. Remove it from the heat and stir in the vanilla and the pinch of salt. Then pig out.
It'll keep for a couple of weeks in a jar in the refrigerator, not that it'll ever last that long. You can re-heat it in a microwave or by placing the jar in a saucepan of simmering water.
Enjoy. And, hey, happy holidays.
At least two nights a month I dream about an incredibly messy, incredibly amazing chili cheeseburger that I ate ten years ago at the All Star Cafe in Pittsboro, North Carolina. They served it Carolina style, which means it was topped with cole slaw. And it came with a basket of fresh, hot onion rings -- the better to mop up all of the chili, melted cheese and cole slaw that spilled out. I also dream a lot about the mouth-watering pancetta and caramelized onion pizza that they make at a place on East 20th Street called Pizza Fresca. Diana and I like to go there.
Mostly I dream about chocolate. And not just while I'm asleep. Chocolate occupies my mind day and night. It's my greatest passion in life. I'm really not a complicated person at all. If my mind isn't occupied with figuring out how to murder someone, then the chances are very good that I'm thinking about chocolate. If I'm sitting in the dentist's chair I'm wondering why it is they have mint-flavored toothpaste but not chocolate. Or dental floss. Wouldn't you floss more often if they made chocolate floss? I would. If I'm sipping my late morning herbal tea I'm thinking how much better it would taste with one of Maida Heatter's chocolate peanut cookies, and how I ought to bake a batch.
But nothing occupies my thoughts quite like my yearning for the hot fudge sauce that I give to friends and loved ones every year for Christmas. Diana and I have jarred up two batches so far this season and are about to make a third today. It is absolutely killer. The best. Once you've tasted it you'll never go back. It's great on ice cream, of course. And we find it to be the height of sin on Diana's warm, fresh-baked bread. In the spirit of the season I've decided to share the recipe, which comes from the March 1997 issue of Saveur magazine. The late, great journalist R.W. Apple uncovered it in Belfast, Northern Ireland, at a restaurant called Rostoff. He thought it was the best he'd ever tasted and I don't disagree. It's not that hard to make. All you need is a stainless steel double boiler and a bit of patience. Chocolate does NOT like to be rushed.
Here's what you'll need:
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
7 tablespoons sweet butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup hot water
1 teaspoon vanilla
pinch of kosher salt
Break up the chocolate into pieces. Melt the chocolate and all of the other ingredients (except for the vanilla and salt) together in the top of your double boiler over water that's at a LOW simmer. Like I said, don't rush this. Chocolate will seize up if it gets too hot. It'll take a few minutes for everything to melt. Use a wooden spoon to stir it together. When it becomes nice and smooth keep stirring it with your wooden spoon for an additional five minutes. Remove it from the heat and stir in the vanilla and the pinch of salt. Then pig out.
It'll keep for a couple of weeks in a jar in the refrigerator, not that it'll ever last that long. You can re-heat it in a microwave or by placing the jar in a saucepan of simmering water.
Enjoy. And, hey, happy holidays.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Who I'm Listening To
My bud Rick Koster of the New London Day stopped by the other day to chat with me about "The Shimmering Blond Sister." After we got done with our weighty talk about the role of crime fiction in modern American society Rick, who has spent a healthy portion of his life playing in rock and roll bands, put aside his notepad, sat back on the sofa and asked me the same question he always asks when we get together:
"Who are you listening to these days?"
And so I told him. I'm listening to Sam and Dave. And Otis Redding. There's just something about the energy of the Stax sounds that gets me going no matter how shitty a day I'm having. I'm listening to "The Road to Escondido," an Eric Clapton-J.J. Cale collaboration from a couple of years ago that I keep coming back to again and again. I'm listening to, well, I'm listening to pretty much the same gnarly old white guys whom I've always listened to: Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Tom Petty. Also a lot of my same dead guitar heroes like Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Duane Allman and Jeff Healey. In fact, I find I'm listening to the same bands I used to listen to in high school and college. The Grateful Dead. The Rolling Stones. The Beatles. Traffic. Cream. To my ears, most of their music sounds so fresh and alive that it could have been recorded last week.
Rick nodded sagely and said, "So you don't listen to anybody new?"
Not so, dude, I said defensively. I like a lot of new people. I like Green Day and The Dave Matthews Band. I love Eddie Vedder. I was just about to say I love U2, too, when Rick broke into hysterical laughter. We both did. Because, of course, those are contemporary performers but they're not new. Not even close. They've been around for, what, 20 years?
Which got me to thinking long and hard about my taste in rock and roll. Up until a few years ago I used to feel I had to keep up with everything new that was coming out. If a college freshman was listening to it then I wanted to be there. Hell, I even tried listening to rap music, which I finally realized I just plain didn't like. I was terribly bothered by this realization. Positive that it meant I'd become paleo, uncool, old. I was ashamed to admit that I still enjoyed listening to music that had been recorded more than 40 years ago.
You want to know something? That''s not where I am anymore. I've moved on. I've decided that from now on I'm going to put rock and roll in the same cultural category as movies and jazz. I happily enjoy watching old Cary Grant screwball comedies and Robert Mitchum noir thrillers. I can never get enough of Bogart. I can watch a Preston Sturges farce any time, day or night. Does it bother me that a lot of my favorite movies are 60, 70, even 80 years old? Not at all. I don't care when a movie was made. A good movie is a good movie, period. I happily listen to Miles Davis and John Coltrane all of the time. I've never stop listening to "Kind of Blue." Every time I hear it I swear it's as if I've never heard it before. Does the fact that it was recorded more than 50 years ago somehow invalidate it? Of course not. So why should I feel guilty because I still like to listen to Hendrix and the Dead? The answer is I don't. Good music is good music and it doesn't matter when the hell it came out. I refuse to feel guilty anymore when I find myself getting down with an old Buffalo Springfield album.
I don't know what any of this means. I don't know if I've just achieved a new level of inner rock and roll peace or if I've simply reached a state of self-justifying old fartdom. But here's the good part: I don't care. I'm cool with it.
"Who are you listening to these days?"
And so I told him. I'm listening to Sam and Dave. And Otis Redding. There's just something about the energy of the Stax sounds that gets me going no matter how shitty a day I'm having. I'm listening to "The Road to Escondido," an Eric Clapton-J.J. Cale collaboration from a couple of years ago that I keep coming back to again and again. I'm listening to, well, I'm listening to pretty much the same gnarly old white guys whom I've always listened to: Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Tom Petty. Also a lot of my same dead guitar heroes like Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Duane Allman and Jeff Healey. In fact, I find I'm listening to the same bands I used to listen to in high school and college. The Grateful Dead. The Rolling Stones. The Beatles. Traffic. Cream. To my ears, most of their music sounds so fresh and alive that it could have been recorded last week.
Rick nodded sagely and said, "So you don't listen to anybody new?"
Not so, dude, I said defensively. I like a lot of new people. I like Green Day and The Dave Matthews Band. I love Eddie Vedder. I was just about to say I love U2, too, when Rick broke into hysterical laughter. We both did. Because, of course, those are contemporary performers but they're not new. Not even close. They've been around for, what, 20 years?
Which got me to thinking long and hard about my taste in rock and roll. Up until a few years ago I used to feel I had to keep up with everything new that was coming out. If a college freshman was listening to it then I wanted to be there. Hell, I even tried listening to rap music, which I finally realized I just plain didn't like. I was terribly bothered by this realization. Positive that it meant I'd become paleo, uncool, old. I was ashamed to admit that I still enjoyed listening to music that had been recorded more than 40 years ago.
You want to know something? That''s not where I am anymore. I've moved on. I've decided that from now on I'm going to put rock and roll in the same cultural category as movies and jazz. I happily enjoy watching old Cary Grant screwball comedies and Robert Mitchum noir thrillers. I can never get enough of Bogart. I can watch a Preston Sturges farce any time, day or night. Does it bother me that a lot of my favorite movies are 60, 70, even 80 years old? Not at all. I don't care when a movie was made. A good movie is a good movie, period. I happily listen to Miles Davis and John Coltrane all of the time. I've never stop listening to "Kind of Blue." Every time I hear it I swear it's as if I've never heard it before. Does the fact that it was recorded more than 50 years ago somehow invalidate it? Of course not. So why should I feel guilty because I still like to listen to Hendrix and the Dead? The answer is I don't. Good music is good music and it doesn't matter when the hell it came out. I refuse to feel guilty anymore when I find myself getting down with an old Buffalo Springfield album.
I don't know what any of this means. I don't know if I've just achieved a new level of inner rock and roll peace or if I've simply reached a state of self-justifying old fartdom. But here's the good part: I don't care. I'm cool with it.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
What I'm Reading
People are always asking me what's on my night stand. They're not referring to the tin of Bag Balm that's parked next to my Big Ben alarm clock. Or to the stray shirt buttons, ball point pens or note pads that are scattered there. Or to Freddie's brush, Freddie's toenail pruners or to Freddie himself, who at this very moment is perched on the night stand glaring out the bedroom window at the skinny black cat who's had the nerve to wander into our herb garden.
They want to know what I'm reading. I happen to be a restless reader. I often have a stack of four or five books that I'm reading at once on my night stand. I'm also a major league re-reader. I'm someone who comes back to my favorite authors again and again -- especially when I'm in the middle of writing a book of my own. If I'm lost in a jungle of my own invention all day long with no trail, no map and only a dull pocket knife to hack through the dense undergrowth with, then I like to curl up in bed at night with someone who I know I can count on. My favorites are like a form of comfort food to me.
Here's what is on my night stand this very morning:
On top is the latest Alan Furst novel, Spies of the Balkans. Alan Furst is my favorite contemporary writer and whenever I start one of his books I can't put it down so I usually save it for a long holiday weekend. If you aren't familiar with him he writes noirish, murky, incredibly good spy novels that are set in Europe in the early days of World War II. My favorite is Red Gold, which I've read four times. I'm halfway through the new one and so far it's great.
Underneath the Alan Furst is The Black Ice Score, which is one of the Parker novels that Donald Westlake wrote under the name Richard Stark. I probably re-read the entire Parker series from start to finish every three years or so. They're lean, stripped-down criminal caper novels starring the most ruthless, asocial, unsentimental son of a bitch you'll ever meet. The first Parker, The Hunter, was made into the Lee Marvin movie Point Blank. I find them incredibly addictive. I'm also a fan of Westlake's lighter spirited Dortmunder caper novels, but I don't come back to them nearly as often as the Parkers.
Let's see, under The Black Ice Score is The Seersucker Whipsaw, by the great Ross Thomas, who also wrote under the name Oliver Bleeck. Like Don Westlake, Ross is one of the writers whom I started reading when I was college. To this day he remains one of my favorites. He was witty, sly, cynical, nimble and a great plotter. He could do it all -- hard-boiled detective novels, international spy novels, caper novels, Washington novels, you name it. He did it with seemingly effortless grace. He was also one of the nicest guys I've ever met. The Seersucker Whipsaw is a typical Ross tale about warring factions of greedy Western capitalists and spooks who are all trying to rig the same African election.
Beneath the The Seersucker Whipsaw is an old 1960 John D. MacDonald paperback original called Slam the Big Door, which is a tight little crime novel about a messed up journalist who goes down to a small town in Florida to visit a well-off friend only to discover that the well-off friend is in even worse trouble than he is. I'm a huge MacDonald fan. I almost always reach for one of his more famous Travis McGee novels as soon as the weather turns cold here in Connecticut. But as the years have gone by I've come to love his huge output of non-McGees even more. There's no recurring, larger than life hero in any of them. Just average people trying to get out of the messes they've made of their lives. You can almost always find one of his paperbacks on my night stand.
Anchoring the bottom of the stack is Assembly, which is one of the dozen or so short story collections by John O'Hara that I return to when I'm not in the mood to read a novel. I love short stories and for me John O'Hara is the greatest short story writer of the 20th century. His fabulous career took him from a small town newspaper in Western Pennsylvania to Broadway and to Hollywood. He wrote hundreds of short stories along the way. My favorite story of his, The Man With The Broken Arm, is found in Assembly. I've probably read it a half-dozen times. O'Hara was a famously unpleasant person to be around but he understood human nature better than just but any writer I've ever read.
And now, if you'll excuse me, time's a wasting. I want to finish reading that Alan Furst novel before this weekend slips away.
They want to know what I'm reading. I happen to be a restless reader. I often have a stack of four or five books that I'm reading at once on my night stand. I'm also a major league re-reader. I'm someone who comes back to my favorite authors again and again -- especially when I'm in the middle of writing a book of my own. If I'm lost in a jungle of my own invention all day long with no trail, no map and only a dull pocket knife to hack through the dense undergrowth with, then I like to curl up in bed at night with someone who I know I can count on. My favorites are like a form of comfort food to me.
Here's what is on my night stand this very morning:
On top is the latest Alan Furst novel, Spies of the Balkans. Alan Furst is my favorite contemporary writer and whenever I start one of his books I can't put it down so I usually save it for a long holiday weekend. If you aren't familiar with him he writes noirish, murky, incredibly good spy novels that are set in Europe in the early days of World War II. My favorite is Red Gold, which I've read four times. I'm halfway through the new one and so far it's great.
Underneath the Alan Furst is The Black Ice Score, which is one of the Parker novels that Donald Westlake wrote under the name Richard Stark. I probably re-read the entire Parker series from start to finish every three years or so. They're lean, stripped-down criminal caper novels starring the most ruthless, asocial, unsentimental son of a bitch you'll ever meet. The first Parker, The Hunter, was made into the Lee Marvin movie Point Blank. I find them incredibly addictive. I'm also a fan of Westlake's lighter spirited Dortmunder caper novels, but I don't come back to them nearly as often as the Parkers.
Let's see, under The Black Ice Score is The Seersucker Whipsaw, by the great Ross Thomas, who also wrote under the name Oliver Bleeck. Like Don Westlake, Ross is one of the writers whom I started reading when I was college. To this day he remains one of my favorites. He was witty, sly, cynical, nimble and a great plotter. He could do it all -- hard-boiled detective novels, international spy novels, caper novels, Washington novels, you name it. He did it with seemingly effortless grace. He was also one of the nicest guys I've ever met. The Seersucker Whipsaw is a typical Ross tale about warring factions of greedy Western capitalists and spooks who are all trying to rig the same African election.
Beneath the The Seersucker Whipsaw is an old 1960 John D. MacDonald paperback original called Slam the Big Door, which is a tight little crime novel about a messed up journalist who goes down to a small town in Florida to visit a well-off friend only to discover that the well-off friend is in even worse trouble than he is. I'm a huge MacDonald fan. I almost always reach for one of his more famous Travis McGee novels as soon as the weather turns cold here in Connecticut. But as the years have gone by I've come to love his huge output of non-McGees even more. There's no recurring, larger than life hero in any of them. Just average people trying to get out of the messes they've made of their lives. You can almost always find one of his paperbacks on my night stand.
Anchoring the bottom of the stack is Assembly, which is one of the dozen or so short story collections by John O'Hara that I return to when I'm not in the mood to read a novel. I love short stories and for me John O'Hara is the greatest short story writer of the 20th century. His fabulous career took him from a small town newspaper in Western Pennsylvania to Broadway and to Hollywood. He wrote hundreds of short stories along the way. My favorite story of his, The Man With The Broken Arm, is found in Assembly. I've probably read it a half-dozen times. O'Hara was a famously unpleasant person to be around but he understood human nature better than just but any writer I've ever read.
And now, if you'll excuse me, time's a wasting. I want to finish reading that Alan Furst novel before this weekend slips away.
Saturday, November 13, 2010
The Mind Of A Mystery Writer, Part Deux
I participated in a panel discussion on crime writing the other day as part of an all-day program called Literary Life in the Lymes that was held at Old Lyme Town Hall. Believe me, this was quite some impressive event they put together. There were panels crammed with local poets, children's authors, illustrators and non-fiction writers. There was even cake. Really good cake. Honestly? I had no idea there were so many talented people living in this area. My panel featured top-notch crime writers like Jim Benn and Eugenia West.
Anyway, when our moderator threw things open for audience questions a very nice lady looked in my direction and asked how I manage to write such intricate murder plots.
To which I replied, "Excuse me, are you talking to me?"
She was talking to me. "Do you already know who committed the crime before you actually start writing the book?" she went on. "Do you start with the ending and then write your way back to the beginning? Or do you have no idea who the killer is as you go along? How do you do it?"
How do I do it? Wow, how do any of us do it? Really good question. If you ask a hundred mystery writers how they do it you'll get a hundred different answers. Trust me on this. I know a hundred mystery writers. And we all go about our business differently.
Some writers like to outline the entire mystery in great detail, scene by scene, before they ever start writing it. They want to know in advance exactly who did what, why, when and how. I don't do that. For me, outlining a book in advance eliminates the joy of discovery, which is half of the fun of writing (the other half is finishing). Outlining also reminds me way too much of my years in television, where you're often required to break a story down, scene by scene, before you're allowed to go to script.
Some writers are strict adherents of Sturgeon's Law, a philosophy attributed to the great fantasist Theodore Sturgeon that goes something like this: The reader can never know where the story is going if the writer himself does not know. In other words, they have zero idea ahead of time who the killer is. They're uncovering who did what as they go along, much as the reader is. I don't do that either. For me, it just doesn't work.
How do I do it? Here's how: Before I ever set out to write a mystery I need to be able to grasp in the palm of my hand what the story really, truly is going to be about. Which means I want to know who did the killing and, more importantly, why they did it. I can usually sum it up in a single sentence: The sister killed her brother so she wouldn't have to share the inheritance with him. Once I know that then I can start having some real fun.
For me, writing the first draft of a book is a lot like taking a cross-country car trip. It's a journey. I know that I'm starting out in here Connecticut. I know that my destination is, let's say, Los Angeles (see above re: sister killing her brother so she won't have to share inheritance). What I don't know is which roads I'm going to take or where I'm going to stop along the way or who I'm going to meet or what sorts of strange, interesting things are going to happen to me. I have no itinerary. I don't want one. I want to be surprised. That's the whole point of making the journey. I'm excited when I wake up in the morning because I don't have any idea where I'm going to end up that day. I just get behind the wheel and start driving. Sometimes I get lost. Sometimes I stumble onto wonderful people and places that become the highlight of the novel. The only thing I know is that I will eventually arrive in Los Angeles.
It usually takes me about six or eight giddy, dizzying weeks to get there. When I have what's before me on my desk is a very sketchy draft of the book. It isn't until I write my second draft that I strap on my tool belt and really begin to construct the book. That's when I focus on the mannerisms and speech patterns of the characters who I've met along the way. Describe the places I've been to in detail. Do the research I need to do. And so on. I usually produce about 25 pages of second draft a week. Then I spend a couple of months cutting and polishing. That's when my pacing and style come to the forefront. I pay little attention to my voice early on. I'm just trying to have fun on my way to Los Angeles.
That's how I do it. And it's how I've been doing it since I first started writing mysteries 25 years freaking ago. You want to hear something insane? I thought I was going to write one mystery and then move to something completely different. But, like I said, I have no itinerary. I want to be surprised. And I almost always am.
Anyway, when our moderator threw things open for audience questions a very nice lady looked in my direction and asked how I manage to write such intricate murder plots.
To which I replied, "Excuse me, are you talking to me?"
She was talking to me. "Do you already know who committed the crime before you actually start writing the book?" she went on. "Do you start with the ending and then write your way back to the beginning? Or do you have no idea who the killer is as you go along? How do you do it?"
How do I do it? Wow, how do any of us do it? Really good question. If you ask a hundred mystery writers how they do it you'll get a hundred different answers. Trust me on this. I know a hundred mystery writers. And we all go about our business differently.
Some writers like to outline the entire mystery in great detail, scene by scene, before they ever start writing it. They want to know in advance exactly who did what, why, when and how. I don't do that. For me, outlining a book in advance eliminates the joy of discovery, which is half of the fun of writing (the other half is finishing). Outlining also reminds me way too much of my years in television, where you're often required to break a story down, scene by scene, before you're allowed to go to script.
Some writers are strict adherents of Sturgeon's Law, a philosophy attributed to the great fantasist Theodore Sturgeon that goes something like this: The reader can never know where the story is going if the writer himself does not know. In other words, they have zero idea ahead of time who the killer is. They're uncovering who did what as they go along, much as the reader is. I don't do that either. For me, it just doesn't work.
How do I do it? Here's how: Before I ever set out to write a mystery I need to be able to grasp in the palm of my hand what the story really, truly is going to be about. Which means I want to know who did the killing and, more importantly, why they did it. I can usually sum it up in a single sentence: The sister killed her brother so she wouldn't have to share the inheritance with him. Once I know that then I can start having some real fun.
For me, writing the first draft of a book is a lot like taking a cross-country car trip. It's a journey. I know that I'm starting out in here Connecticut. I know that my destination is, let's say, Los Angeles (see above re: sister killing her brother so she won't have to share inheritance). What I don't know is which roads I'm going to take or where I'm going to stop along the way or who I'm going to meet or what sorts of strange, interesting things are going to happen to me. I have no itinerary. I don't want one. I want to be surprised. That's the whole point of making the journey. I'm excited when I wake up in the morning because I don't have any idea where I'm going to end up that day. I just get behind the wheel and start driving. Sometimes I get lost. Sometimes I stumble onto wonderful people and places that become the highlight of the novel. The only thing I know is that I will eventually arrive in Los Angeles.
It usually takes me about six or eight giddy, dizzying weeks to get there. When I have what's before me on my desk is a very sketchy draft of the book. It isn't until I write my second draft that I strap on my tool belt and really begin to construct the book. That's when I focus on the mannerisms and speech patterns of the characters who I've met along the way. Describe the places I've been to in detail. Do the research I need to do. And so on. I usually produce about 25 pages of second draft a week. Then I spend a couple of months cutting and polishing. That's when my pacing and style come to the forefront. I pay little attention to my voice early on. I'm just trying to have fun on my way to Los Angeles.
That's how I do it. And it's how I've been doing it since I first started writing mysteries 25 years freaking ago. You want to hear something insane? I thought I was going to write one mystery and then move to something completely different. But, like I said, I have no itinerary. I want to be surprised. And I almost always am.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
The Joy of Raking Leaves
There's no denying the truth of what's going on outside of my office window. There are more leaves down on the ground now than there are up on the trees. Heaps more. It's time to get out there and start raking them. A lot of people whom I know groan at the prospect of having to take care of their leaves. They consider it an onerous chore. Some of them even pay other people to do it for them.
Not me. I look forward to it.
I love to rake leaves. I love romping in them. I love the smell of them. I love holding them in my hands. I'm an absolute nut when it comes to dead leaves. They're one of the reasons why I moved to New England from Los Angeles (with a twelve-year layover in New York City). Truly, nothing makes me happier than being outside on a crisp, sunny fall afternoon with a rake in my hands.
Mind you, my approach to the job is different from that of a lot of other people. For starters, I'm not disposing of them. I'm gathering them. Diana has a vast complex of wire compost bins out back where I deposit them. Today's leaves will be next year's nutritious mulch for our planting beds.
Plus I'm not a perfectionist when it comes clearing my property of fallen leaves. Anything but. I let plenty of them stay right where they are in the flower beds all winter long just like nature intended. And the lawn? Forget about it. The lawn is never completely clear of leaves. Why should it be? It's not my living room rug. It's outside. I don't understand this fetish that a lot of guys have about forcibly removing every single fallen leaf from every blade of grass. And I really, really don't understand those stupid leaf blowers that they use. I actively detest leaf blowers. They pollute the air with gas fumes and they are absolutely deafening. Have you ever noticed that the guy who's standing there using one always has ear muffs on? Dude, how about some ear muffs for the rest of us? Better yet, how about you get rid of that whiny, stinky thing and use a rake?
No chance of that. For a lot of guys a mere rake won't do. They must, must get every single leaf off of their precious lawn. That's another thing I don't understand -- guys and their lawns. We're talking about a creepifyingly intimate form of attachment here. We're talking about someone fertilizing the grass to make it grow faster so that he has to -- or I should say gets to -- mow it more often. Does that make any sense to you? Why would someone want to mow the lawn more often than he has to? A lot of guys are also into this whole ethnic cleansing thing when it comes to what kind of grass they're growing. They dump toxic herbicides and pesticides all over their very own property just so they can eradicate everything but the one perfect species of perfect grass that they yearn for. Then they water it and water it so as to make sure it's an absolutely perfect emerald green all summer long. I swear, they're more devoted to their lawns than they are to their wives. Hmm...maybe we'd better not go there. Forget I said anything.
My lawn must have eight or ten different kind of grass growing in it. There may even be some terrorist weeds in it. Actually, I don't actually think of my lawn as grass. I think of it as Assorted Field Greens. I can't remember the last time I fertilized it or did anything to it. It's green. It grows. Once every week or two, depending on how much rainfall we get, one of us gets out our non-motorized push mower and mows it. The job takes fifteen minutes. That's my entire relationship with my lawn. I doubt whether I give it more than five minutes of continuous thought over the course of an entire year.
I can think of a million things rather do with my time than mow my lawn. I'm doing one of them right now. Or I was. Done now.
Not me. I look forward to it.
I love to rake leaves. I love romping in them. I love the smell of them. I love holding them in my hands. I'm an absolute nut when it comes to dead leaves. They're one of the reasons why I moved to New England from Los Angeles (with a twelve-year layover in New York City). Truly, nothing makes me happier than being outside on a crisp, sunny fall afternoon with a rake in my hands.
Mind you, my approach to the job is different from that of a lot of other people. For starters, I'm not disposing of them. I'm gathering them. Diana has a vast complex of wire compost bins out back where I deposit them. Today's leaves will be next year's nutritious mulch for our planting beds.
Plus I'm not a perfectionist when it comes clearing my property of fallen leaves. Anything but. I let plenty of them stay right where they are in the flower beds all winter long just like nature intended. And the lawn? Forget about it. The lawn is never completely clear of leaves. Why should it be? It's not my living room rug. It's outside. I don't understand this fetish that a lot of guys have about forcibly removing every single fallen leaf from every blade of grass. And I really, really don't understand those stupid leaf blowers that they use. I actively detest leaf blowers. They pollute the air with gas fumes and they are absolutely deafening. Have you ever noticed that the guy who's standing there using one always has ear muffs on? Dude, how about some ear muffs for the rest of us? Better yet, how about you get rid of that whiny, stinky thing and use a rake?
No chance of that. For a lot of guys a mere rake won't do. They must, must get every single leaf off of their precious lawn. That's another thing I don't understand -- guys and their lawns. We're talking about a creepifyingly intimate form of attachment here. We're talking about someone fertilizing the grass to make it grow faster so that he has to -- or I should say gets to -- mow it more often. Does that make any sense to you? Why would someone want to mow the lawn more often than he has to? A lot of guys are also into this whole ethnic cleansing thing when it comes to what kind of grass they're growing. They dump toxic herbicides and pesticides all over their very own property just so they can eradicate everything but the one perfect species of perfect grass that they yearn for. Then they water it and water it so as to make sure it's an absolutely perfect emerald green all summer long. I swear, they're more devoted to their lawns than they are to their wives. Hmm...maybe we'd better not go there. Forget I said anything.
My lawn must have eight or ten different kind of grass growing in it. There may even be some terrorist weeds in it. Actually, I don't actually think of my lawn as grass. I think of it as Assorted Field Greens. I can't remember the last time I fertilized it or did anything to it. It's green. It grows. Once every week or two, depending on how much rainfall we get, one of us gets out our non-motorized push mower and mows it. The job takes fifteen minutes. That's my entire relationship with my lawn. I doubt whether I give it more than five minutes of continuous thought over the course of an entire year.
I can think of a million things rather do with my time than mow my lawn. I'm doing one of them right now. Or I was. Done now.
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