Thursday, December 31, 2009

K. Starkey's List #2: Places I love in Colorado

I miss Franny. When I think about it, I imagine the things I could tell her about home that would lure her back. I don't need to though--she wants to come back and the doors will open again for that when it's the right time. I have steadfastly refused to tell her that the owners of Mezcal fired the chef and frontman recently and I have worried if her favorite Mexican place would be the same. I'm pretty sure not even that would keep her from coming back if that's what is supposed to be.

Anyway, I love it here. Here are my current favorite places:

1. DIA. Nate gripes about it and I hear grumblings at the Y all the time. It makes me happy though. I love the big blue horse. I love the many-boobed roof, the flights of paper airplanes by the trains, the walk to concourse A with the various exhibits and background music, the places to eat and drink, the voices on the train although I still miss Reymelda Muse's (a former role model for me). We've never had a horrible security wait and we've always had our luggage by the time we got to baggage claim.

2. Carpenter's Peak. We live about 15 minutes from Roxborough Park where the hike starts. Sometime in May we start getting in hiking shape for the Tetons and we start hiking up Carpenter's Peak about once a week. I like to go alone too. I look at wildflowers beginning in May that are in full bloom by the end of June. We pack a sandwich and walk up in an hour and a half and sit on top and look at Denver. If we leave after 10:00, we can usually watch a summer storm come in and we have to hurry down. It's nice to know a trail so well.

3. A Knitted Peace. This is the knitting store that C.Fite teaches at and helps the souls of many knitters. It feels just right if she is there helping or teaching. All of downtown Littleton is cool.

4. Two places in Vail: a) Manor Vail, the Gore Creek below, the bridge leading to the Betty Ford Garden. Wondrous memories and a quiet world so close to the rich people stuff; and b) The Golden Bear store in the midst of the rich people stuff. There are clerks there who know me and it's where Jim buys me presents.

5. Mizuna Restaurant. I like to sit where I can see the entry and the kitchen. I think this is the only place I know the entire staff. I feel certain that whatever chef is cooking my meal, he's doing it especially for me. I feel the waitstaff is bringing the food with pride to a longtime friend. I have a "relationship" with a restuarant.

6. The Public Art Downtown. The blue bear is the best. The dancers are happy. The big rocker by the library--Ahhh. I'm loving the blue pianos downtown now where folks are supposed to stop and play.

7. Coors Field. Even when the Rockies stink, it's a great place to be. That's why the Rockies will never be great--we'll all go even when the team stinks because it's just so pretty and real as far as ballparks go.

8. My lunch spots. I go from school to school all over Denver, Littleton and Aurora for my job. I usually take a short lunch and camp somewhere with lunch and whatever book I'm reading at the moment. I like being alone and reading and feeling a part of some giant work force fueling the economy. I feel kind of grown-up at these times and that's actually pretty rare for me. Anyway, I like my private lunches at The Squeaky Bean, The New Saigon, Masterpiece Deli, Bones, Abe's, Tom's Home Cooking, My Brother's Bar, Steuben's.

9. Mesa Verde and Rocky Mountain National Park. I haven't been to either recently. I keep vowing to get back to both soon. Both fill me with awe.

10. My House. For reasons I don't know, people are drawn to our house, especially the kitchen. I'm loving the backyard since Jim built Deck 1 on the side and Deck 2 in the back--so good for family gatherings we have every Sunday in the summer.

That's it for now.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

American Lion

Consider this passage toward the end of Jon Meacham's biography of Andrew Jackson.

Speaking of Jackson in death, alluding to the crisis with South Carolina in 1832-33, George Bancroft said: "The moral of the great events of those days is this: that the people can discern right, and will make their way to a knowledge of the right; that the whole human mind, and therefore with it the mind of the nation, has a continuous, ever improving existence; that the appeal from the unjust legislation of to-day must be made quietly, earnestly, perseveringly, to the more enlightened collective reason of to-morrow; that submission is due to the popular will, in the confidence that the people, when in error, will amend their doings; that in a popular government, injustice is neither to be established by force, nor to be resisted by force; in a word, that the Union which is constituted by consent, must be preserved by love."

I have believed in the truth of that statement all my life, with the possible exception of my Ayn Rand period somewhere around my sophomore year in high school. I've always believed that the history of the world is the story of Good outlasting Evil. I've always believed that William Golding was wrong. People, if left to their own devices on a deserted island, would not become feral cannibals worshipping a boar's head. People would instead synergistically seek the Good, form a society, and keep perfecting that society.

It is hard to keep believing that nowadays, but reading Jackson's biography gives me a little hope. The acrimony today, the ranting heads on Fox News, the tearful fearmongering of Glen Beck, the unapologetic hatred spewed by Rush Limbaugh, comes at us at such a level that it is impossible to believe it has ever been this bad before. It is therefore comforting to see the same poisonous atmosphere in the Washington of Andrew Jackson. It is even reassuring to note that Henry Clay gave Jackson a much more formidable adversary than any that Obama has to face. So it has been ever thus. Congress isn't beyond repair; it has always worked that way. It makes you wonder how anything has ever been accomplished, but history tells us that the system works. At least that is one message I pulled from the book.

However, all of the screamers in Jackson's day shared one major quality: they selflessly and unwaveringly loved their country. I'm not sure the same can be said today. Isn't it obvious that the only disappointment the right wing pundits felt over the recent terrorist incident on the airplane from Amsterdam was that the attack wasn't more successful. That would have given them even more capital in their cynical use of the incident to attack Obama. It is just a matter of time before the incident will somehow be linked to Obamacare. I'm sure Sarah Palin is tweeting* something about it even as I type this.

I don't think a love of the conservative movement is synonymous with a love of country. Where is the patriotism in a default republican position that says to block any move/appointment Obama makes as a matter of course and then to scream that our country is less secure because Obama has yet to make the necessary appointments to Homeland Security?!

I believe in the primacy of Love, but I fear that primacy is currently undergoing its sternest test.

* The one hundred and forty character limit is the perfect vehicle for Palin's entire philosophical base.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

K. Starkey's List #1: Books I've Read This Year Worth Mentioning

Katherine today. I just finished off two books this morning so I'd be ready for fresh reads when we head to Mexico on Saturday. I dutifully wrote the titles, authors, and my personal ratings in my journal. I always do that. My journal is full of lists. Not just book lists. Anyway, I decided to share an abbreviated and annotated list of the books I read last year. I'm as good a reading guide as anybody I suspect.

Here goes: What I read last year(mostly)and what I thought of it(mostly):

1. "Born to Run." McDougall. An article in "5280" and an interview on "The Daily Show" led to this one. A non-fiction narrative about a writer/wannabe runner constantly struggling with injuries. His quest to run without pain leads to the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico's Copper Canyons and numbers of ultra-runners (all bizarre and interesting folks). The Tarahumara run hundreds of miles in their bare feet, sometimes sporting cool looking capes, fueled by some drink made of chia seeds (yes, like the chia plants they sell at Christmas time). This is a cool book. ***

2. "Eat, Pray, Love." Gilbert. I'm supposed to love this book. I don't love it. It bothers me. All I see is an incredibly self-centered and selfish woman who gets a publishing company to pay for her personal year of doing whatever the fuck she wants to do. Only Seymour Glass could smile at this. *

3. "The Last Night at the Lobster." O'Nan (I think that's the name--I can't read my handwriting). This is the tale of the last night at a Red Lobster restaurant outside a mall in Minnesota or someplace like that. The manager is struggling with his personal life, but makes a mission of making the last night, in the midst of an awful storm, run as smoothly as a place devoted to elderly eaters can be. It's not great, but a wonderful portrait of how regular folks heroically plug away. **

4. Books by Jeffrey Long. Long is my new favorite writer. He writes very passionate love stories. They are not traditional and not really happy, but I love the passion.
In "A Peculiar Grace" he explores the nature of the artist through the eyes of a modern blacksmith. The blacksmith idealizes a love of the past while loving a girl grounded in reality in the present.
"In the Fall" tells the stories of three men who all fall in love in such a way their lives are forever altered--always in the fall. A better book, not as happy.
"Lost Nation" puts together two very lost souls who fill each other's gaps as they try to become part of a new western "nation." Don't get attached to the dog.
Long's books are poetry to read. I have his newest set for Mexico.
****

5. "Fool." Christopher Moore. This is "King Lear" from the fool's point of view. I like "A Dirty Job" and "Coyote Blue" better, but this one is fine and funny. Made me think of Jim teaching Lear and then turning into Lear. Lots of bodily fluids. Really. I emailed Moore about the book and actually got a reply. That was very cool. **

6. "The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet." Larson. A beautiful book in content and presentation. It's about a gifted 11 year old map-maker from Montana who wins a prize from the Smithsonian that he's afraid to tell his parents about (a hardcore rancher and a failed biologist). He hops a train and goes to DC by himself. The maps in the margin are gorgeous. Lots of moments I stopped and thought about sentences and how they meant something in my life. ****

7. "The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo." Larsson. This book was next to the one above at the book store and had a bright yellow, green, and orange cover. Impulse purchase that turned out just fine. This is a terrific mystery about missing people and Swedish banking systems. It's a good time, but not much more than that. **

8. "Drood." Simmons AND "The Last Dickens." Pearl. Dickens was working on a mystey about opium eaters when he died of a stroke and both these books explore what was going on with that. "Drood" comes from the point of view of a envious contemporary writer and "The Last Dickens" follows an American publisher trying to find the ending to the unfinished novel. I read one last spring in Belize and just finished the other this morning. Both are good, but I wouldn't do them together unless you're Dickens obsessed. **

9. "Bandolino." Umberto Eko. This book is long. I finished it. I've read two others by Eko. I liked "The Name of the Rose." I own one more book by Eko. We'll see. *

10. "March" and "The People of the Book." Brooks. "March" is a fine book as the Pulitzer people have acknowledged. It tells the tale of "Little Women" from the father's point of view while he is away at the Civil War. Powerful. ****
"The People of the Book" traces the story of a remarkable religious book over history. I was in a books-about-antique-books mode last year ("Sixteen Pleasures," "The Book of Air and Shadows," etc.) and this would have fit right in. **
I'm taking a book by Brooks about the plague in England in 1666 to Mexico. I like this lady's stuff.

11. Nevada Barr and C.J. Box books. Barr is a National Park ranger and writes mysteries occuring in the parks. C.J. Box writes mysteries about a park and game ranger in Wyoming. No sentence crafting here, but I like to read one or two before we head to the Tetons to get in an outdoorsy kind of mood. Sheer escapism. **

That's enough for list number one. I read lots more, but that's a start.

Christmas Foodfest

As I think I've mentioned in a previous post, our Christmas traditions have undergone quite a transformation over the years. Now Kathie and I spend Christmas Day in the kitchen cooking for friends and family who drop by for various meals. We didn't have as big a turnout as last year primarily because Nate and Ashley were in Georgia this year and Franny and Ken were in Santa Rosa. Not as many people, but the food was just as good.

We spent the day before Christmas making tortellini en brodo from the Babbo cookbook. Kathie made the brown chicken stock (just like regular chicken stock only you cut up the chicken and brown it before adding the liquid) and I spent most of my time making the pasta. Tortellini is perhaps my favorite thing in the world. The stuffing is a combination of browned chicken breast, mortadella, pancetta, parmesan reggiano, and egg. The pasta is just the normal well-method home made kind (five eggs plus 3 and a half cups of flour). Drop a teaspoon of filling into a two inch square of pasta, fold it to look like Venus de Milo's navel, drop it in the boiling broth, then enjoy one of the culinary wonders of the world. We put the broth in the icebox, the tortellini in the freezer and then went out to a Christmas Eve party.

Breakfast Menu Christmas Day
1 - Bloody Marys
2 - Biscuits and Veal Sausage Gravy
The biscuits come from the Mizuna cookbook and are basically made entirely of butter. The gravy comes from a homemade veal sausage we found in the freezer. This was a winning combination. We get up at 6 in the morning, so rarely do we have company for our breakfasts and since none of the kids were home, today was no exception.

Lunch Menu Christmas Day
1 - Gorditas
These come from Rick Bayless' "Mexico One Plate At A Time." Just add some baking powder and flour to a regular corn tortilla masa and deep fry them until they pop up and form little pockets. Fill the pockets with a stewed tri-tip roast mixture and serve to order piping hot (I love being a short order cook with family and friends all gathered in the kitchen).
2 - Fresh Vegetable Quesadilla
This comes from Bobby Flay and is a traditional quesadilla filled with jack and cheddar cheese, fresh corn kernels, peppers, and anything else that sounds yummy. We had about eight or nine folks for this menu and they all kept coming back for more.

Dinner Menu Christmas Day
1 - Tortellini en Brodo
Enough said. Our neighbors came over so did our lifelong friend Barbara. The brodo was a hit and so was the conviviality. We ended the day by cleaning up the disaster in the kitchen and then headed over to cousin Roger's house for a traditional (at least in our family) Christmas night bowl of chili and plenty to drink.

We are going to recover from this day by heading to Puerto Vallarta with Bud and Janet. We can't wait.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Lunch

I don't care what Anthony Bourdain says, Denver is a great restaurant town. It isn't New York, but then what city in America is? But I'm convinced there are any number of restaurants here that would do quite well in the Big Apple, thank you very much.

Let's talk about lunch. It is my favorite meal to have in a restaurant and my least favorite to have at home. That is probably due to the fact that making your own lunch invariably interrupts some other activity and generally messes up the entire day. But lunch out is an event. The whole day, instead of getting messed up, revolves around the lunch. And there are so many likely lunch spots in the Denver area.

There is Tom's Home Cookin' in Five Points for the best soul food in town. How about Bones at 7th and Grant for steamed buns with pork belly and any noodle bowl on the ever changing menu. What could be better than Osteria Marco's bar with house made mozarella, Frank's Salumi Plate and a couple of quartinos of house red? How about a pitcher of Sangria and some kind of mole at Tamayo. Get a cubano sandwich at Masterpiece Deli and take it home, since it will probably be impossible to find a place to sit. Tacos at Jack 'n' Grill, and in the summer, the upper level deck at Morrison Inn is a great place to hang out with some shrimp enchiladas. And one musn't leave out Benny's for the quintessential Colorado tex-mex experience.

Hamburger joints abound. The perennial 5280 winner for best hamburger is the Cherry Cricket in Cherry Creek and rightly so, but I prefer the ambiance at Brothers Bar on 15th street. How can you not like a bar and grill so established that it doesn't even bother to put up a sign? The smashburger at Elway's is hard to beat and if you really want to get ambitious, drive up to Aspen for a burger at the J Bar in the Hotel Jerome.

However, if it is just a great hamburger you are after, let me recommend Park Burger at 1890 S. Pearl in the DU area. Jean-Philippe Failyau, chef and part owner of Osteria Marco as well as a long time Mizuna stand out, has followed the recent craze of places that only serve burgers and fries. I ate at one such place in D.C. recently and there were lines out the door for their counter service. Five Guys in Parker and throughout the country even tells you what part of the country your fries came from.

I think Park Burger is better than any of them. Like all places spawned from the Frank Bonnano restaurant machine, Park Burger has drunk the Michael Pollan Kool-Aid (We're talking the credo of THE OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA.) Everything is grass-fed, sustainable and never frozen. There is an impressive beer and wine list and an even more impressive chocolate shake. The buns hold up to the fresh juiciness of the patty and the french fries are ample, crisp, and perfect.

Park Burger is a straight forward burger joint with great drinks and classy art on the walls. Try it.

Friday, December 18, 2009

The Problem With Liberals

I just finished reading "Dean's Blind Spot" by Ronald Brownstein on The Daily Dish. Brownstein writes about what has been driving me crazy about health care reform, Afghanistan, Copenhagen, and Obama's falling approval ratings.

Let's talk about approval ratings before getting back to Brownstein. Obama's approval rating hovering around fifty percent (according to Karl Rove, the lowest of any new president at the end of the first year)is deceptive. Eight years ago the people who disapproved of Bush II's performance were united in their disdain, or disgust. United also were the fifty percent of the population who disapproved of Ronald Reagan's performance at the end of his first year. (Rove, not surprisingly, was wrong. Reagan's ratings were equal to if not worse than Obama's. Of course that fact would not be convenient to Rove's argument.)

In Obama's case, the disapproval is coming from totally different camps. Bill Maher, Howard Dean, Ed Schulz, and the like are screaming (You would think Dean would have learned about screaming!)because the bill will not include EVERYTHING they demand. Obama should get tough with Joe Leiberman they say. Bully the holdouts. Threaten the republicans. Stop trying to be bi-partisan. What they actually want is for Obama to be, well, Rovian. The conservative shouters, on the other hand, are screaming because the bill seems to be getting ANYTHING Obama wants. Even though THE HUFFINGTON POST disagrees, I suspect those approval numbers will jump dramatically once health care passes in some form because the necessity for posturing will be over.

As a liberal, I'm angry and frustrated that recalcitrance has become the republican default position. But I am more flabbergasted at the liberal reaction. After all, getting mad at republicans for wanting to cut services as they cut taxes is like getting mad at sharks for nibbling on swimmers. Is it possible that Bill Maher, Arianna Huffington, Howard Dean, et. al. really believed Obama and his non-majority majority would accomplish everything the campaign promised? Has there ever been such a campaign? Is it possible that all these liberals would be willing to cut off their nose to spite their face because the health care bill, while the biggest social program since The New Deal, is not perfect?

Back to Brownstein who says the biggest reason why so many liberals are abandoning the Obama bandwagon is because college educated white voters tend to be the demographic using the internet as its main information source and the internet "makes more noise" politically than just about anything you can think of. This is the demographic that Howard Dean mined in his ill-fated presidential bid. That demographic also provided the energy behind Obama's campaign, but it didn't stop there. It spread because of the nature of Obama and his promise.

According to Brownstein, the problem is that "college educated white voters . . . tend to see politics less as a means of tangibly improving their own lives than as an opportunity to make a statement about the kind of society they want America to be."

These statement makers don't have to really worry about health care. Approximately 97% of this group has great coverage. So the health care debate for them really is an intellectual exercise, a parliamentary battle like the kind they used to have in junior high when they first learned ROBERTS RULES OF ORDER.

They tend to forget that for millions of americans this is no parliamentary game; this is literally about life and death. They have neither the wherewithal nor the time to cruise the net every day to see what the pundits are saying. They don't have the time to wait for perfection.

Who does?

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Christmas Traditions

When I was a boy in Estes Park our Christmas tradition was set in stone. All of the kids would be sent into the basement or the back bedroom early on Christmas Eve where we would be given games to play and admonished to stay put, otherwise Santa wouldn't come. By the time I got into junior high school and both of my sisters started reproducing like rabbits, the mob of kids in the back bedroom became almost more than I could bear.

While we were in seclusion, my mother, aunt, and grandmother would put up the tree and decorate it. We were never allowed to have a tree in our house before Christmas Eve. It just wasn't done.

Then my mother would ring sleigh bells to evoke Santa and we would all run out to the living room where we were greeted by a stunning tree decorated with generations of glass ornaments and tinsel. And underneath that tree was a miracle of presents. At least that is what it seemed like at the time.

After opening presents, normally a two to three hour orgy of materialism, we would all clean up and go to midnight mass at Our Lady of the Mountains. I always got a ride to church earlier than the others because I was the main altar boy in our youth group and one did not take that responsibility lightly. The church was always beautiful and the choir (my mother and aunt were altos; my grandmother was a bass) sang the Ave Maria, Gounod's version, and we were all filled with the wonder of the whole thing.

That tradition went away pretty much at the same time I grew up, got married, and had children of my own. So we substituted a new ritual around the holiday season and mostly with Katherine's family.

There is always the name drawing party the weekend after Thanksgiving. The extended family all shows up at Sharon and Roger's house for drinking, a little dancing, a lot of conversation, and finally dinner at around 9:30. As I get older it has become increasingly difficult to remain convivial all the way through dinner.

Then we have a family gift opening at our house. When Franny was a little girl she passed out the presents and paced the whole ordeal like a gifted head waiter. Since Franny has grown up, other young ones in the family have tried to take her place. In my opinion, they can never quite pull it off with Franny's aplomb.

Christmas Eve Chris and Nate would spend with their mother and Katherine and Franny and I would go to Mike and Barb's for a lovely dinner and small party. When we got home on Christmas Eve and got Franny into bed, we stuffed and put up the stockings with care. The next morning Mary would bring Chris and Nate back home. Actually, I would go and pick them up. And we would all gather round the tree and open the stockings and have cinammon rolls and hot chocolate or something equally Christmassy. Later that day we would go to Katherine's parents' house where we would meet Chuck and Teena, their kids, and Roger and Sharon. The gift opening that followed was always obscenely huge and more than a little embarassing. After that we would have a fancy dinner, invariably with mail order filet mignon and twice baked potatoes. Later that night everyone in the family would end up at Roger and Sharon's for more drinks and LATE night chili. Whew. End of holiday.

That tradition has changed as the kids have all grown up and moved away. We still have a name drawing and gift opening party for the family and we still go to Roger and Sharon's late Christmas night. As far as Christmas Day goes, Kathie and I spend the whole day making various tapas-like food and family and friends stop by throughout the day and visit, open presents, drink bloody marys, wine, beer, and sit around the kitchen table and eat. Late in the afternoon before heading to Roger and Sharon's we make Mario Batali's short rib recipe paired with Frank Bonnano's pirogi recipe and no one can get enough.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Why Is Economics More Important Than Morality?

Doug, a guy I work out with at the Y every morning and a past president of the Aurora teacher association, came up to me outside the weight room and whispered (There are lots of republicans at the Y so we have learned to be discreet) that someone had commented that universal health care should not be an economic issue, but a moral one. I think you will agree Doug's discovery is not a new one. The remarkable thing about Doug's comment is that he had to make it at all.

Why is it that everything the Obama phenomenon was predicated on was about doing the right thing, doing the moral thing, changing the atmosphere, and now everything is about what is practical, what is efficient, what will help the economy? When did this shift happen? The huge post war government programs both here and abroad were not responses to the question of what would be the most efficient and profitable thing to do, but what would be the moral thing to do.

If I approached the health care debate from an economic angle, I would be as passionately and irrationally against it as Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck. I've got mine! It is a great plan. I don't want anything messing it up. As far as those people who don't have a plan as good as mine, or who have no plan at all, fuck 'em. I mean this is America (I'm resisting an impulse to spell that with a K). If you don't have health care it is likely to be your own fault. In any event it is not my problem. "Have we no poor houses?"

When I approach the debate from a moral perspective, my argument is embarassingly short. It is the right thing to do. The thought that it might raise my taxes, or alter the scope of my current benefits isn't even a factor in my considerations.

The problem with this position is that it seems laughable. People who heard the argument would all resist urges to pat me on the head before walking scornfully away. And yet, being the hopeless liberal I am, I am pretty convinced moral questions should take precedence over economic ones.

That is why I was so taken by Tondy Judt's "What Is Living and What Is Dead in Social Democracy?" ("The New York Review of Books, December 17, 2009). His masterful essay starts with the question (much more eloquently and coherently stated) that I asked above. He doesn't go on to answer it so much as amplify it. I have to get this down so I can remember his arguments in case I want to lay waste some conservative friend.

He makes the point that we are the only democracy in the modern world that is not a social democracy. In fact, our traditional distrust of central government makes any other approach nearly impossible to visualize. Judt does allow for the fact that the USA is considerably larger and more diverse than other democracies and that diversity mitigates against a social element. In other words, if we all lived in a country the size of Montana and had a similar population base, we would have no problem establishing social institutions that would help out rancher Ben down in the valley when he hit on hard times because we know Ben would do the same for us. We trust him.

But the thing (one of the things) that has happened to dilute this social contract is privatization. The New Deal ushered in the idea that government had certain responsibilities to preserve the general good (postal delivery, regulation of public services, establishing roads, providing for defense, etc.). Even though many of my conservative friends would point out therein lies the source of all our current problems, Judt maintains that this governmental role helps serve as a buffer between the individual and the larger demands of a society. When you privatize many of these governmental roles, you end up with gated communities, both literally and figuratively. If you and your fellow community members put up your own fence (or pay for it through your homeowners) and hire your own security guards, are you still invested in society as a whole? Is there even such a thing as society any more? And if there is no longer a society as such, why in heaven's name should you feel the need to brunt the costs of someone else's healthcare, or unemployment,or foodstamps?

Now back to the question. Is it possible to make morally efficient or efficiently moral decisions? The question not only seems absurd, but beside the point. Judt gives a great example. He wants us to imagine the best way to run a railroad. If we simply ran express routes between big population centers with no stops in between, we would make a profit and the railroad would be efficient, but it would provide horrible service to those who live in one horse towns. If, on the other hand, we based the railroad on what is best for the customer, we would have local trains in addition to the express trains and those local trains would lose money. What to do? Don't ask Congress to decide!

Trains, mail, schools, health care are SOCIAL services. They can't be left to the vagaries of the market place. THEY WILL PROBABLY NEVER BE EFFICIENT OR PROFITABLE. That is just the nature of the beast.

But Judt does give us an uplifting end to his polemic. Maybe we should change the way we figure value? Maybe we should look at things that can't be so easily quantified as profit and loss? For instance, it is more efficient to simply give donations (food stamps, religious charities, etc.) to the poor than it is to fix the infrastructure in such a way as to ease the social humiliation of poverty and the huge disparity between rich and poor in this country (I read the other day in The Daily Beast that the disparity between rich and poor in the USA is greater than that of China. Startling information!) What is the COST of the humiliation that is indicative of the current system? The fact that we can't measure it doesn't take away from its importance. Maybe, as Judt says, if we considered the cost of the humiliation and despair of poverty, we might just discover that things like universal health care, subsidized transportion, and the guarantee of higher education might just be worth the investment. But there I go confusing economy with morality again.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

THE SELECTED WORKS OF T. S. SPIVET

THE SELECTED WORKS OF T. S. SPIVET
By Reif Larsen

This book is a literature teacher's dream. Name a trope about coming of age and you'll find it here. That could be bad and derivative and read like some horrible adolescent novel, the kind you'll find in high school reading labs, but in Larsen's wondrous book those tropes get enlarged and refined.

The most obvious comparison here is to CATCHER IN THE RYE. Our hero is a twelve year old genius cartographer who has recently lost his brother to an accident for which he feels culpable. His freakish abilities and insight make him estranged from everyone except his sister, Gracie, and his mentor, Dr. Yorn. His mother, at least in his eyes, is something of a failed scientist and his father is a gruff old rancher recovering from the loss of his son. So we have here a character just like Holden: brilliant, insightful beyond his years, isolated, and confused. And, just like Holden, T. S. goes on an odyssey of sorts to Washington D. C. and the Smithsonian which has somehow awarded him the Baird Fellowship and is expecting a Mr. T.S. Spivet to be in residence for the next six months.

On this improbable journey from his Montana ranch to the east coast, T. S. hops a freight train, amost gets stabbed to death by a religious fanatic, and hitches a ride from Chicago to D. C. from a truck driver reminiscent of the hipster trucker in Jim Dodge's NOT FADE AWAY. When the book finally settles in Washington and our hero's picaresque adventure comes to an end, everything slows down a little and to my taste seems to get side-tracked with some secret society weirdness that better belongs in a book by Dan Brown than here, but you can't have everything. All I can say is that riding along with T.S. Spivet between Montana and D.C. is a trip rich with discovery and insight.

Once T.S.'s roadtrip begins, he stumbles across the story of his great-grandmother's trip across country with the Hayden Expedition as a geologist as well as her romance with signalman Tecumseh Tearho Spivet. Generations of similarly named scientists, miners, artists, and ranchers ultimately lead, T.S. comes to realize, to his hoboing across country on this particular train or that particular semi on his way to that particular museum. You come of age by taking ownership of who you are and where you come from. It is a lesson that always comes in a flash of insight.

But enough about the story. I want to talk about the book itself. The hardcover edition I have in front of me from The Penguin Press (New York:2009) is the size and shape of a history textbook, which is to say that it has wide pages just right for holding lots of illustrations and graphs and, of course, maps. This kid maps everything and we get to see the results in the margins as he creates them. He polishes off maps of local water tables, maps of male pattern baldness, and a particularly nice map of grown men dancing, all drawn in one of his hundreds of meticulously organized notebooks. Along with the maps are fascinating sidebars exploring such questions as "When Does a Child Become an Adult?", or a chart depicting the evolution (or devolution) of the length of shorts in answer to the question, "When Did a Short Become a Pant?"

My advice is to postpone all further activity and go out and read THE SELECTED WORKS OF T.S.SPIVET.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Post Thanksgiving Day Eats

The first step in designing the perfect day after Thanksgiving is to make sure there are no leftovers, or to come as close to that goal as possible. With all the television news magazine shows and feature sections of newspapers and even THE DAILY BEAST offering tips on what to do with leftover turkey and stuffing for the weeks after the big day, it seems almost sacreligious not to do something clever with the remains. One year we were really into cracking eggs into little pockets of dressing and baking them. The first few bites are terrific and you feel proud of yourself for being so clever, but the dressing inevitably gets too dry and you end up just scooping egg out of pockets of day old stuffing when what you really want is a breakfast burrito at Snooze. The whole point is that if your turkey is so good and moist that it flies off the carcus and onto guests' plates, you won't have to feel guilty about spending the next day hanging out at your favorite restaurants.

Thanks to my wife's "We-don't-need-no-stinking-brine" turkey mastery, at most we have enough white meat for a couple of sandwiches, a few dollops of dressing, a handful of asparagus spears and a tub of gravy.

After some preliminary cleaning late Thanksgiving night after the guests have left, my perfect follow-up day starts in the kitchen at about 6 in the morning before anyone else has gotten out of bed. The kitchen, mess and all, is all mine and I can sneak bites of left over pecan pie as I winnow out the detritus. By the time the rest of the house is up, the kitchen looks like new, the table has been rearranged for normal non-Thanksgiving day life, and I am at the table drinking coffee and working the crosswords.

On this latest post-Thanksgiving lark, we all pile into the car and drive down to Snooze for pineapple upside down pancakes, monstrous breakfast burritoes, and eggs benedicts to die for.

To our way of thinking, Snooze is the Mizuna of breakfast joints (more on Mizuna later). When we told the owner that a few visits ago he almost got on his knees to give obeisance to our praise. But it is true.

Let's face it, breakfast is pretty much the same wherever you end up. Two eggs over easy with two strips of bacon and hashbrowns at Denny's isn't all that different than the same at the Brown Palace. The difference is in the details and that's why people are lined up all morning long outside Snooze's door at Park Avenue and Larimer. There is a newer Snooze on Colorado Boulevard somewhere around
8th Avenue. I'm sure the food is equally wonderful, but from the outside the place looks too much like a Denny's for hipsters. The place downtown looks like what it is, a converted whore house with great food and service.

We don't get our names on the list until 11:30 and we finally sit at a quarter past noon. I like the fact that Snooze steadfastly refuses to play favorites when it comes to seating. They don't take reservations and they aren't even interested in you calling in your name from the car on the way down. On the other hand 45 minutes does push my patience a little even though the food is worth it.

After they call our name, we work our way through the awkward corner-front door with a post placed in such a way as to make a quick entry or exit impossible. I always like being led through the mobs of hopeful diners and to a table. The four of us (daughter and son-in-law were with us) score a circular vinyl upholstered booth, one of a string of booths lined up and down the middle of the room. A few former waiters stop by to say hi as we wait for bloody marys and coffee. Both are wonderful, especially the coffee. One of the main draws of Snooze for me is that I like to bring home bags of coarsely ground Snooze coffee (They come in colorful cloth bags that make great gift bags for the holiday season.).

It takes a while to order at Snooze. I, for one, carry on a running debate with myself on the way downtown. Will it be the Spuds Deluxe this time, or Pork Benny? Why not just get a flight of pancakes? The burrito was amazing last time, maybe I should order it again? It is a tough decision but someone has to make it.

The four of us end up ordering one breakfast burrito, two benedicts and one Spuds Deluxe. Mine comes with pulled pork and great green chili with two eggs over easy. And then the same thing happens that always happens during great meals. The conversation slows down and turns to the food and when we take bites we all variously look up and glance heavenward with a knowing look that says this is the best thing I've ever tasted. And then you keep saying that with the next bite and the next.

The meal over and as much as we want to camp out we don't. That would be tacky. So we get up and out of the way so the next happy foursome can rotate in. That's the way it goes at Snooze.

But the day has just begun. On the way home we stop at St. Nicks on South Santa Fe and spend two hours looking at every kind of Christmas ornamentation possible. As a added bonus, we spot a group of three coyotes standing out by the Platte looking for some lap dog to munch on. I can't guarantee the coyotes at every visit, but you might get lucky and have a lap dog nearby as well. I keep leading my wife and daughter down to see the artificial trees every time we go to the joint. My subtle hints have not panned out so far, but I'm still hoping.

Since this perfect day is going to end with dinner at Mizuna, the rest of the afternoon has to be devoted to hanging out. Watching football. Catching up on Facebook. Reading. But under no circumstances should there be any eating or drinking. You can only consume so much in a day.

Walking into Mizuna is always like going to a family reunion only without any irritating cousins. Everyone just seems happy to see us. Even the car valet seems pleased, like he's been looking forward to our arrival. We get one of our two most cherished tables over in the corner by the entrance to the back dining room and almost simultaneously Chris, Ryan, Greg and Steve come by to welcome us back and ask our daughter how life is in the White House and congratulate her husband on his new job. These people are good!

I love seeing the food I order at Mizuna being brought to the table. The servers act like they are excited to see your reaction to the presentation and when they walk away from the table they sneak glances over their shoulders to catch, for instance, my look of sheer bliss when I took my first bite of the sweet and sour pork, or Franny's amazed reaction to the fois gras.

I also love, after I get settled and have a sip of wine, to just look around the room at Mizuna. Every table is full. The sandstone colored walls (maybe they are yellower than sandstone) punctuated with Quang Ho's wonderful oils wrap around Denver's classiest and cosiest dining room. The most important thing is that you almost never see any sad faces at Mizuna. Just lots of toasts and smiles.

This time the four of us order salmon, a veal porterhouse and two tenderloin preparations. I figure this combination will give Ryan a nice wine challenge and he comes back with a ruby red syrah from California that is so good we order a second bottle.

Every main course was exceptional, but I have to pay special attention to the perogis that accompany the tenderloin. I make perogis at home as a kind of new Christmas day tradition and they are quite good. In fact they are made from the Mizuna cookbook, but eating the real thing helps show me the difference between a restaurant cook and a home cook. Mine are delicious and the family keeps coming back for more, but Mizuna's are more carmelized than mine (easily fixed) and I think the olive oil they use and finish with is infinitely better. Mostly, I fear, it is all in the touch, the technique.

We have some coffee and dessert, pay the check (GASP) and drive the long way back up Santa Fe to our home in Littleton. Whenever I make that drive (which is quite often) I always kinda wish that Mizuna would open up a Mizuna II in downtown Littleton, or some such place. When I come to my senses, I realize that if that actually happened I would gain 50 pounds and be bankrupt in six months. Be careful what you wish for. . .

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Bones: a noodle bar

Bones
701 Grant

Tucked in a tiny corner between Luca d'Italia and Lancer's Lounge at 7th and Grant and right across the street from Benny's sits Bones. This Asian-fusion noodle bar is the brain child of Frank Bonanno and his partner on this venture, Chris Gregory. And you can tell, because it has the same feel that all of Bonanno's restaurants have: casual elegance and the aroma of killer food.

As opposed to Luca next door, Bones offers a relatively affordable dining experience. The small menu has approximately nine appetizers and two salads as starters and five varieties of noodle bowls. Dessert offerings all spring from the soft serve ice cream maker behind the bar. And just to add to the charm of the place, if you order one of their inventive cocktails or some Sake or beer, you will spot your waiter edging his way up the backstairs to the tiny bar located at the top. The place is just too small to wedge a bar into the main floor.

The place might have 25 seats if you don't count the tables on the outside patios flanking either side. But even though the place is small it doesn't feel crowded. That is probably due to the ample chairs and the equally ample table spacing. I can think of some other restaurants around town that might try to crowd forty bodies into this same space. And the art work by Quang Ho helps to turn this potentially pedestrian location into a sophisticated foody spot.

But we should talk about the food. Call ahead for reservations to be safe and ask to sit at the bar so you can check out the preparations. And since Bonanno scurries between Mizuna, Luca, and Bones, you might be treated to a view of him whipping up steamed buns or roasted bone marrow appetizers.

I can only think of one other place in Denver serving bone marrow, but the marrow at Bones is creamier and easier to get at than the buffalo marrow at The Fort. Ask your server to suggest a Sake to complement your order and settle back and start spreading the marrow over the toast points. I can't think of a more luxurious way to start a meal.

Actually that is not true. An order of the steamed buns--particularly the ones with pork belly--is about as decadent as it gets. If you are with a companion, whatever you do play it safe and get two orders. Don't share the buns. They come three to an order and the fight over the last bun could do serious damage to any relationship.

There are other apps and they are all delicious. The beef short-rib eggrolls are perfect with crispy skins and juicy melt-in-your mouth chunks of beef inside. Don't forget the potato three-ways for a lesson in spud management. Did I mention the salads, crisp and beautiful and fresh.

Please don't stop there. The Udon noodle bowl with slow cooked pork shoulder topped with with a poached egg is unlike anything I've had before. The dish gives testament to Bonanno's mastery of the pig that has been on display next door at Luca for years. They even have nifty little plastic containers that will easily allow you to bring home the inevitable left overs. There is a poached lobster ramen, an egg noodle bowl with chicken quarters, but my favorite is the Soba noodle bowl. It is served cold like a salad with rare Ahi tuna and a variety of vegetables of the season all set off with a grapefruit ponzu. Wonderful! Wonderful! Wonderful!

A soft serve twist cone is a nice way to end if you feel the need for something sweet. The sweetest thing of all is just the place itself, the way all the servers act so happy and proud, the bustle behind the bar, Chris Gregory touching tables like the best front man in Denver that he is. Go to Bones for lunch (an abbreviated menu) or dinner, but go by all means.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

FLOTUS

Under normal circumstances just following Ali through Hangar 909 and past the half dozen fighter planes parked there might have been the visual highlight of our day. There was more to come. We waited on the tarmac (I've always wanted to be able to use the word tarmac in a sentence involving me.) for the First Lady's plane to arrive. Our assignment was to sit in the straggler van and wait for Franny to climb in so we could surprise her. Then we would ride in the motorcade from Buckley Air Force Base to the Governor's Mansion for the first event of the day.

We got a small glimpse of the First Lady alighting from the plane, but the biggest treat was watching Franny bustle around in her business clothes with her cell phone in permanent text position directing people--important people--to go this way and that. She looked busy and in control the way Holly Hunter looked in "Broadcast News." It is important to note that, as opposed to Holly Hunter, she also looked happy--that Franny smile.

It wasn't supposed to happen this way. Originally we were to meet Franny at South High School where the First Lady was scheduled to talk to/with a group of selected girls about their futures, their nows, their questions, etc. It was all part of a successful female mentoring program Mrs. Obama is launching--and Franny is organizing--to give promising young women a head start. After the kickoff event in D.C., Denver was her first stop on the "Mentoring Tour". Other stops to be announced.

Those plans changed when Ryan, one of Franny's advance team, emailed us that they wanted us to surprise her and spend the day with them instead. We thought it was a potentially good idea and that is why we ended up at Buckley at ten on Monday morning. The happy look on F.'s face told us it was a good idea.

If I were president, getting to ride in a motorcade with sirens blaring, running through red lights with impunity, and shutting down whole portions of interstate highways just so I could transit rapidly from one spot to another would be reason enough to seek a second term. Right now, I can't think of another.

We motorcaded out of Buckley, waving at people lining portions of the streets, and proceeded to commandeer I-225, I-25, and finally Logan on the way to the Governor's Mansion, the site for a luncheon with dozens of girls chosen from local school populations and a handful of famously successful, or successfully famous women. Janet Neopolitano was there, and Katherine Sibelius. Susan Sarandon was the only lady there not power dressed in black or shades of gray with pointy toed and spikey heeled black footwear. She came in a sweater, cords and running shoes, and I'm sure she was the envy of every lady there. Mrs. Ritter and Mrs. Hickenlooper were in attendance, of course. One of the Desperate Housewives made the gathering, but I couldn't make her out. I thought a severely dressed black tressed lady with the spikiest boots I ever saw might be the desperate type, until I was otherwise informed by a van driver.

With the exception of those named above, it was a lot like watching "Dancing with the Stars." I can never tell which is the star and which is the dancer.

After the lunch and some Broadway entertainment (It seems that Mrs. Obama's young life was changed when she saw her first musical and she wanted to share that experience with the gathered kids.), we took the motorcade to South, closing up more streets and avenues en route. I loved the way kids filled South's windows to get a glimpse of the First Lady and other famous types. Getting out of the van I suppressed an urge to give one of those hand rotating waves that famous people give. I wish I would have because I think I might have disappointed a few of them. Oh well.

We finally met the First Lady after the event at South finished around 3:30. As I expected, Michelle Obama is a hugger. Not one of those polite little half-assed hugs, but a full-fledged bear hug that makes the recipient feel like the First Lady had been waiting all day for this reunion-like moment. I was more than a little impressed.

After it was all over we took Franny away (she decided to spend the night in Denver and catch a commercial flight back to D.C. in the morning). We had a great dinner at Bones and went home to talk and go to bed.

A great day.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Knitting, Allende and Twelve Year Old Boys

Katherine here.

I feel like I'm living in triangles upon triangles. There's a job triangle that puts together 21 teachers, 17 school cultures and a driving and scheduling puzzle that would take a Zen master to do with lightness and efficiency. There is a home triangle composed of my friend Jim, my colleague Jim, and my lover Jim. There's a health triangle of doctors, and vitamins, and ghost boobs. Another health triangle is put together with running, bathing in the woods, and playing tennis. Lots of triangles.

There are numbers of triangles that live in my head when I wake up early in the morning. Sometimes the moon makes nifty shadows on the wall at 3:00 in the morning. There's kind of a Plato-in-the-cave effect caused by the railings of our bed that adds to my thoughtfulness at times as well.

Of late, the middle-of-the-night triangle marks a battle between my right and left brain. On the side of the triangle that keeps my right brain rattling are my recent knitting struggles and breakthroughs which go round and round in a daily vicious circle. They make me agonize over lace patterns in sleeves knit on the bias where each round has a different pattern. They may be too short.

There are similar problems with the lower body of the sweater. I've become a really fine knitter, I think. It's just really hard to make things fit. I thought losing the boobs after the last round of cancer would help make everything fit me. Hasn't worked that way.

The thought of un-doing and re-doing the sleeves is unbearable. The thought of losing the Lambspun turquoise yarn is unbearable. Stopping is unbearable. I'm only sane because I'm knitting a basic seed stitch scarf as a Christmas present for a friend.

The other two sides of the current nightly triangle are book-based and very left brained. I'm reading The Infinite Plan by Isabel Allende and The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet by Reif Larsen. Both are wonderful. Both have done a good job of making my brain whirl over what I am and what I am not.

I love Allende fiction. The men are almost always lovable monsters and the women who love them put up with so much and then the men finally learn mercy of some kind by the end of the book. She writes sexy stuff too.

Last night, while debating which knitting approach to take (to undo or not), I measured my life against Allende heroines. It's a hard thing to do when I only feel physically complete when Jim is holding me.

When I'm tired of playing ping pong with Allende and knitting, it's the book about T.S. Spivet that keeps me awake. T.S. is a gifted 12 year old who draws maps of everything in his life. He wins a Smithsonian Award and ends up hopping a freight train back east and then hitching a ride to DC to accept the award. It's a beautiful book. It could only be about a twelve year old boy. Stand By Me would never have worked if three girls went looking for a body. There is something magical about being a twelve year old boy.

I don't lay awake at night trying to be a twelve year old boy, but I try to figure out what the perfect, quintessential age is for a girl. I have gone through the stages of my life over and over and no memory triggers an emotion that is as pure as what the boys in Stand By Me feel or as pure as what T.S. Spivet sees. If I figure it out, I'll let you know.

Mostly, I like my triangles.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Mancaves and Aeries

My son Chris just finished installing what will be stage one in the formulation of his mancave. I'm sure Chris has been dreaming about the necessary components for the ideal mancave even before such a horrible term was coined, undoubtedly by some specialty sports network. In any event, he has put a large flat-screen plasma television with surround sound in his basement and arranged it in front of and around a large leather couch with enormous coffee table. According to Christine (my daughter-in-law), he gets up Sunday morning, heats up some wings, puts them in a bucket, opens the basement door and says "I'll see you tonight." As soon as his children grow up he is putting in a pool table. That will be nice because I will undoubtedly visit them more often. I used to be pretty good with a cue stick in my hand.

I've never felt the need for a mancave. If I had one I would be upstairs constantly to see what Kathie was doing. I would eventually either have to stay upstairs and watch the games, or Kathie would have to come down to my mancave in which case it wouldn't be a mancave anymore. This is a quandary I am putting off by the clever ploy of not putting one in.

If one of the definers of a mancave is a flatscreen television than we have one of sorts upstairs. I spend a lot of time up there watching sports or movies because our purchase of a 60 inch Panasonic plasma television has in fact ruined my life. When we had a 15 inch RCA that served us for at least the first half of our marriage we used to read and talk to each other, or take extended hikes in the Colorado mountains. Now we just sit in front of our high def screen and comment to each other about how clear the picture is. On winter nights it takes the place of the fireplace we never use. Those HD tvs put out a lot of heat.

But this room is more of an aerie than a mancave. It is in a loft for one thing. It is also Kathie's knitting room.

One might think a man would feel uncomfortable in such environs. In addition to our television which dominates the south wall, there are (time out while I go count) sixteen hooks on the west wall, each holding at least one thingee (skien?) of yarn. The different colored and textured yarns on the wall make an impressive pattern, but it isn't like having one of those plasticized slap up action enlargements of John Elway throwing a pass on the wall. The wall opposite holds two prints by Ray Knaub and one by R.C. Gorman. There are two other pieces over the television, one a stylized etching of the sun by Carol Vanous (Bartkus) and another an oil painting of a raw onion by Jeff Reeser. I remember crying (no irony intended) when Jeff gave me the painting the day before he graduated. It meant a lot.

We have a ridiculously heavy sofa sleeper in the room that no one has ever used after the first night. The floor is more luxurious. We also have Tetonish arm chair with pine trees and elks parading across the fabric. The chair is even more uncomfortable than the couch. There is a pine bench with drawers for yet more of Kathie's yarn that is actually quite comfortable. And there is a table in the middle of the room covered in knitting needles, stray pieces of yarn, cook books, novels, political rants, empty wine glasses and the like.

You can find us there most nights. Katherine will be in the elk chair puzzling over her latest knitting project. I will be on the couch watching tv while reading a book, more than likely nodding off.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Shifting Gears

My daughter set up this blog for me as a Christmas present the same year she and her mother bought me a very expensive classical guitar as a joint present. I was thrilled and that first year was characterized. Strike that. That first month was characterized by diligent poetry postings and daily practice sessions on my guitar. I was getting particularly good at C scales in all their variations.

But then things changed. I started working more regularly as a handyman. It was hard to tile floors and frame basements and still keep my nails long enough to play. It least that was and is the rationalization I used back then to explain away my diminished interest in both this blog and that guitar.

Isn't it interesting how things change again and again. I'm not "handymanning" as much and even though I am having a hard time of thinking of things to write poetry about--I guess I am too happy and complacent to feel compelled to SAY something--I have been working on my guitar recently. I consider that a good sign.

All this rambling is complicated or created or spurred on--I'm not sure which--by the Julie and Julia movie. If you haven't seen it here is a quick recap. It is about a young, married, frustrated writer in NYC who is looking for something worthy of her talents, for something to accomplish on her own. She decides to make every recipe in MASTERING THE ART OF FRENCH COOKING, Child's masterwork, and write about it every day in a blog. Recipe leads to recipe which leads to one posting and then another. Pretty soon she is getting hits on her blog. She is getting an audience. Publishers find out about it and the rest is pretty much history.

So I'm going to start posting on this thing again, but my wife is going to join in. We are going to talk about what we enjoy the most: Knitting, Cooking, and Dining Out. There will also be some poetry. A short story or two. Some political rants. Time will tell.