From the hotline

Some quotes from calls to the hotlines I manage at work:

Stuck in the 40s
"A man, or any person, has more than one face. He's an ugly traitor and I think a German spy in addition."
- from a rather elderly lady with a rather strident yet trembly voice. She's a repeat caller, thinks her neighbors are spying on her.

PC? What's that?
A lady whose tones were slightly tinged with the South, once I'd given her my name, asked me, "Is that Oriental?" quickly followed by: "You sound exactly like an American."

Well thank you, ma'am, as a matter of fact, I am.

A Dish Best Served Cold
A rather vindictive caller said of her landlord: "I had visions of garroting the old bitch. Her husband dropped dead recently, which was one of the highlights of my summer."

Having detailed her fruitless efforts contacting various government and business agencies, she sighed with resignation.

"I guess the only thing left to do is to hire a hit man. The problem is, every time someone hires a hit man they get an undercover cop."

I wonder what kind of environment she grew up in.

New York: Sound

Tuesdays are the rattle of aluminum cans, the dull tink-clink of bottles knocking against each other. It's the night before recycling collection, and bags of metal, glass and plastic line the sidewalks in haphazard piles - a monstrous xylophone dismembered and scattered up and down the New York grid.

What other musicians to play the giant sidewalk instrument, but the homeless? Some rake through the piles con fuoco, producing a rapid cacophony of cans, while others search slowly enough for one to distinguish between the different pitches of empty or partially-filled bottles. Sometimes the tumbling glass crescendoes to a halting shriek as a particularly large bag is hauled a short distance.

Singly or in groups, with gloves or bare hands, loading backpacks or bulky shopping carts, they rifle through countless bags of recyclables, searching for the right containers to turn in. In colonial times you could cheat the natives into selling you huge tracts of land for glass and metal beads. Nowadays all you get is enough change for a burger.

Tuesdays ring with the sound of trash en route to becoming not treasure, but survival.

Memory I: Taste

Raspberries will always taste of Paris. The burst of that intense tartness on my tongue, undercut with a hint of something floral, brings me back to the summer of 2004, when I spent five weeks exploring the city and studying French at the Institut Catholique de Paris.

I shared a small room with another student at the Maison des Mines, the dormitory for the engineering, technical and social science school Ecole des Mines. There were two beds, a long desk against the windows, and a small kitchenette comprised of a sink, mini-fridge and cupboard. Carrie and I mostly bought our own food, but each week we split a large carton of yogurt mixed with fruit. Strawberry yogurt I'd had before, and peaches and bananas, but it was my first encounter with raspberries. I would later enjoy them in jams or coated lightly with powdered sugar atop desserts, but there was something more vivid about the taste of that yogurt in my humble dorm room in the Latin Quarter, a slice of la vie boheme. (Or as close as to the bohemian artist's garret as I was going to get.)

That summer was filled other flavors, too: of juicy doner kebab pitas and dark chocolate tinged with orange, of dark-red wines and late-night runs for crepes and Orangina juice. I ate cheese of all types, chocolate-studded pain Viennois, the offerings of the local student cafeteria Resto U. But none of these evokes Paris so much as the nubbly texture and tart sweetness of raspberries.

Eight Years Later

Here we are again
mundanity overlaid with memorial
just a Friday workday
mere blocks from where it happened
my jeans are soaked
where the sky let fall its tears

Routine maintains its endless pace
though we pause today to look back.

I headed to work in miserably wet and cold weather, and the strangeness of living out my everyday in a place so central on the world stage was intensified for me as I emerged from the subway in New York's Financial District. Grey skies, grey buildings, dark cars, punctuated by a cop in neon orange poncho directing traffic. I walked east, where once others ran. I took the elevator up, where once others dashed down the stairs. And as I sat at my desk, listening to the live broadcast from the memorial service a few blocks away, I heard a tolling bell - where once the snapping, rumbling roar of a collapsing tower razed the air. September 11 in New York City. I wasn't there, and now I am.

A Robot and an Opera Ghost

The link between the frames through which we view the world and the experiences that shape and are shaped by those frames is fascinating. How else to explain the fact that I immediately seized upon parallels between the film I was watching, Pixar's Wall-E, and various incarnations of the Phantom of the Opera? (Yes, let me acknowledge here and now, fully and freely, that I am a devotee of the Opera Ghost's tale - the original novel more so than the Lloyd Webber musical, as well as other versions. So sue me.)

Consider:
- Wall-E lives a lonely existence with naught but a cockroach for company. Erik (aka the Phantom aka O.G. for Opera Ghost) also lives a lonely existence, but he has to accompany himself (on the piano).
- The somewhat rusty, beat-up trash robot falls for the sleek, white EVE. Erik, who wears a mask to hide his deformity, also goes for a younger woman, the soprano Christine (often dressed in white to emphasize her innocence).
- Both characters have a retreat where they keep their personal treasures and long for companionship, one watching his "Hello Dolly" VHS, and the other working out his frustrations by (depending on the version) composing, hanging with the Christine look-alike automaton, or consulting with the rats.
- After a tour of the gents' pads, their respective ladyloves each go into sleep mode: EVE to protect the plant life she's been sent to search for, Christine because she's lulled to sleep by Erik's heavenly voice. (Or because aforementioned automaton creeped her out into a faint. Take your pick).
- Plenty of other small parallels, but here's the kicker: Wall-E clearly identifies with "Hello Dolly" character Cornelius Hackl, whose voice is heard singing throughout the film. Cornelius is played by none other than Michael Crawford, who originated the role of the Phantom in the Lloyd Webber musical.

It was amusing to me to realize what I was reflecting upon after the film, and to know that other people with other expertise, life experiences, hobbies and degrees of introspection, would have had completely different musings than mine. Moral environmentalism, animation techniques, soundscapes, health crises, all these - connected to disparate topics and frames of religion, politics, regional and national cultures. In a sense, these others were watching a different movie.

Truth, objective? Don't think so. Not everyone connects an anthropomorphized trash compactor robot with a mad, masked musical genius.

Characters from the "office"

On some days, going in to work for me means going to court, and like any other workplace, it has its characters.* Go often enough, and you begin to recognize the ones with recurring roles: the court officers who rotate metal detector and wanding duties at the courthouse entrance, the window clerk snatching bites of her bacon-and-egg sandwich between customers, the slightly frumpy court attorney with rapid-fire speech who flutters about the judge like an anxious satellite...


This is not including the various shades of lawyer there to represent and defend clients: there's the 40- or 50-something ponytailed lawyer whom I've never seen in a suit, always in dress shirt and slacks or khakis. Another one seems to come straight from the eighties - salt-and-pepper goatee, unkempt salt-and-pepper mullet, rumpled suit, sometimes sneakers. He's usually short and impatient with his client's opponents. Another of the attorneys always seems to be in a bad mood, her face a puffy red as she galumphs off to another appearance, files tucked under one arm and uncoordinated purse swinging wildly about.

And of course you can't forget the judges. I only see one of them with any regularity, but he's a hoot. In contrast to his surname, Judge Little is a giant of a man who looks especially imposing when he strides into the courtroom, black robe streaming behind him. Everything about this 50- or 60-something figure is broad and measured: his frame, his gestures, and especially his speech. Little speaks as though each word were a particularly tough morsel that he must bite and chew carefully: he bares his teeth before speaking, and enunciates every syllable in a slightly gravelly, even tone. He uses the same tone even when he's joking, so it's difficult to tell at first. I remember how he prefaced one occasion when we'd appeared before him for at least the eighth time in a contentious case. To our client: "Ms. Cutler, Mr. Perfiglio has said he wants to write you a check and be done with everything." Turning to Perfiglio: "Ms. Cutler has said she is very happy with your concessions and never wants to come back here again. So what do you need me for?"

Judge Little asks tough questions of both sides, and you'd be afraid of him generally, except for moments like these. Every so often he'll also take out a large plastic container from behind the bench and start offering candy to everyone in the courtroom like a sombre St. Nick.

Nearly ten months after being on the job, it seems my own character has acquired a name: "HP Girl," referring to the type of case I usually work on. Never mind about the inaccuracy of calling a woman a girl. I've arrived at last and can now join the circus performers who make up New York's courts.

*Names in this post have been changed to protect privacy.

Holding the Door Open

I know an actor, who, though straight, went through a spate of roles playing lesbians. Discussing this, she commented that there must have been something about her that brought out the lesbian in others, given that a good percentage of the women she'd kissed finally realized they were gay. My flippant mind quickly responded with a tagline per magic bullets seen on TV: "Unsure if you're in the closet? Just one kiss and all your sexual identity issues will disappear like that!"

Never trust infomercials.

Recipe

NPR once did a report on people who made charts and graphs of various life experiences - quantifying the qualitative. For example one woman made a graph spanning several years of the number of her random hook-ups, a couple rated then averaged each of their perceptions of how good the sex was, etc etc.

Springing off this general idea, here is my "recipe" for a typical meal:

Main Dish
1/16-1/8 parts oil, fats, SPICES
1 part meat or protein
2 parts vegetables
2 parts carbs...aka rice

Drink
Water

Dessert
1/2 to 1 part

Midnight Oil

You know the feeling of being exhausted by the day's events yet unable, nay, unwilling to sleep? Unwilling to let go of these feelings and experiences and thoughts toss-tumbling in the head to simply lose the self in oblivion, to be dead to the world. On those nights, the body slumps forcefully towards rest, and yet something wants to hold on to consciousness, to feeling, to being present. A small something that wishes to remain connected to the world of the thinking, breathing, living. Of intention, and not Morpheus' realm of unconscious chaos.

Well, this is it.

They Eat Trees in Canada

I think this John Stewart quip from yesterday's Daily Show must have prompted one particular part of my dream last night. In it, I stood on a bridge overlooking some body of water, trying to ward away a trio of anthropomorphized beavers. They wore wigs or hats, and faded tags that warned people to hum or maintain eye contact in order to avoid being attacked. So I stood on that bridge, staring down these beavers while striving to hum them away.

Dreams as bizzare as this occur so frequently that they no longer warrant a "Wtf?" moment upon waking.

The Upwellings of Memory

I like when memories take you by surprise, that sudden recollection of smell or sound or sight that comes unbidden. You again possess knowledge of what was perhaps lost, another piece of yourself has returned to you.

Today I was doing some research on David Sedaris, and how he had gotten his big break reading his "SantaLand Diaries" essay on NPR back in 1992. The description triggered a memory, though I didn't even know who Sedaris was at the time - I had heard this broadcast. Christmas week, 2004. A hotel room in New York City, my first visit there. I'd turned on the radio, tuned it to NPR, a holiday broadcast. I specifically recall Sedaris singing a carol in the style of Billie Holiday (I didn't know who she was then, either).

Just to be sure, I found the broadcast online, and listened to it. Yep. David Sedaris, singing like Billie Holiday.

I remembered.

Street Talk

Snippets gleaned from the street.

Morning - a hoarse, moderately low male voice with a New York accent:
"She was a real looker back in her day."

Morning - brisk weather, a woman with sharp gestures and punching delivery:
"In general, stagehands are assholes."

Letdown

My coffee has failed my expectations. Or perhaps it was my senses that let me down.

To fight off the post-lunch, middle-of-the-afternoon lethargy, I'd fixed myself a cup of joe. Two creams, two sugars, nothing fancy. Coffee nonetheless, with its inimitable smell: nutty, rich, a slight hint of vanilla - something with depth and nuance. At least, that's what my nose promised me. My taste buds, however, were unimpressed.

Just savor that bouquet - this is amazing! enthused the olfactory.

Don't know what you're talking about, retorted my mouth. It's sweet and a little watery, very blah.

But smell it, insisted my nose.

But taste it, my mouth mocked back.

When the coffee's only half-enjoyed, the glass is definitely half-empty.

Lucky

In the current revival of Waiting for Godot, John Glover's Lucky reminded me of a blown racehorse wrecked by too many times round the track with a rider who didn't spare the whip. With stringy hair and reddened eyes, he wheezes and coughs most pitifully, cheeks working like a mad puffer fish. His voice echoes his spindly limbs, reedy and trembling, yet capable of enduring....and rambling.

Quaquaquaquaqua.

Poor wretch.

Twitter Knockoff

In the absence of a decent amount of time for me to sit down and formulate proper blog posts (or proper writing of any sort - this whole 9-to-5 thing really throws a spanner in the artistic works), I've decided to resort to short, Tweet-like statements. My own version of Twitter, if you will, with only my time and demands to limit the characters.

Better a trickle of words than a drought.