Tagging Along

Prowling Amy Rigby’s blog/diary, I have tagged myself with her “7 Deadly Dull Things About Me” post. Each of the seven will riff off of her opening statement. Ergo:

1. “I am a lip balm addict.” Well, I am not. If the topic were chocolate, or Padgett Powell fiction, or, believe it or not, the steamed kale at Greens restaurant here on Bouvet Island, well then, I could chime right on in. For years, I simply could not get the idea of that hard stick of chap my cousin assiduously applied (or was it rasped? How can you possibly “apply” something that hard to your “chap?”) to his weathered lips. I will say that in my later New Orleans days, I did finally stumble upon a lip balm “manufactured” in Taos that could in fact be applied: I called it Nanook, because I could never remember its actual name, though Nanook was close. Our delightful Whole Foods was so committed to serve me that it came up with its own pales by comparison substitute, 86’d Nanook, and left me mildly pleased with their tangerine flavor.

2. “I can walk pretty fast in high heels.” Well, I can’t, though I’ve had, let us say, decidedly less practice than Ms. Rigby. Mind you, I did have some, back in the early to mid-seventies, when we all sported at least one pair of platform shoes, so’s we could all hope to look like Rick James—sure as hell couldn’t move nor sing like the brother. I believe I retired mine after stumbling about Boston one very cold evening in search of Jimmy’s Harborside restaurant with a Simmons College undergrad who was eminently more practical in her choice of shoe.

3. “I love broccoli.” I believe the word with which I must take exception is the middle one. I “something” broccoli, but that something is certainly not love. If we’re looking for vegetarian love, I refer you to item #1 above—that kale was shockingly good.

4. “My current favorite movie is ‘A Star is Born’ with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson.” Said flick was never on my current favorite movie list, though it is THE movie that marks the point at which I no longer went to BS movies without giving it a second thought. Van’s “Days Like This” album and Sting’s “Mercury Falls” rival ASIB as other sad benchmarks of “falling in and out of love” for me. Van clearly just wants to bartend his own little Belfast dive and be master of the jukebox (playing all of his faves, while sporting a cowboy hat) and it’s about time that Sting moved on to his frumpy Jungian analyst second career dream from way back (he’ll have a hard time with the frumpy part, what with all the yoga.) Mind you, these are the cries of deeply faded love for the master fishboys that brought us thirty years of pre-Days Like This and The Soul Cages. Yes, I know: what was McMurtry to do after his masterwork of Lonesome Dove? Ya gotta groove, no matter what, right?

5. “I really missed seeing the Oscars this year.” Amy’s been too long away from Amerika, too long in the French countryside. But, hey, who can blame her. Back in 1978, after 6 weeks of trolling the beauteous undercurves of Spain’s Costa del Sol, Italia’s glorious Firenze, and the quiet, simple opulence of Greece’s Sifnos Island, the Mississippi band of three rolled into Athens “aching” for “Amerikan” food. I’m sure there was as much baloney in that desire as in what Oscar rolled, or didn’t roll, out.

6. “I love making (and eating) good American pancakes.” The American part of this confession may be the problem. Somewhere along the way, I discovered that by cutting the flour content and the baking powder, you are left with positively delectable crepe-style pancakes. Ergo: “I love making (and eating) delicious French-style pancakes.”

7. “I have dozens of scarves.” Short of the basics, socks and underwear, there’s really not any article of clothing that I can say I have dozens of. I have, in truth, owned but one scarf, one of those enormously long wraparound wool scarves, the better to make snow angels while lying in Harvard Stadium with whatever Ali McGraw non-lookalike was snowswimming along with me. Ties? Well now: I have certainly loved me some ties in my NOLA days, back when Armani was the only designer who truly had the gift, long before any of the others figured out what a goldmine lurked in the souls of the latent American male clotheshog. This particular ex-hog now takes great delight in mining for elegant neckwear to be found, of all places, at Salon Goodweel. Easily 20 ties can be found for the price of one Armani; in some cases, the $1.50 artpieces are Armani themselves.

[Tag away, one and all…]