A Darndest Thing
Jan. 9th, 2003 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oakenguyAs part of my Onerous Duties working between semesters with no students or faculty around, I was forced to go over to the bookstore and find an office calendar. Woe, woe, woe, these are the times that try my soul. ;P While I was there I just happened to pick up Anne Lamott's book on writing, Bird by Bird, and was almost safely away when I noticed a new collection of Season Two Buffy scripts. (Cue high-pitched girlie scream.)
I retreated to the closest available restaurant, which turned out to be The Cheesecake Factory, to sit and examine my prizes. (Why in the name of Eddie Munster did someone think the word 'factory' should be used as part of a restaurant title? Yes, I want to associate coal, soot, heavy machinery and union lockdowns with my food, thank you. But I digress.) My salad came....and it had a head of hair.
Not real hair. Remember (oy, this dates me) the old Playdoh Barbershop, with these hollow people with little holes in their heads that you squeezed the playdoh through, making them sprout little afros? Apparently someone's invented a way to do this with vegetables. I kid you not, they'd taken a carrot, a cucumber and a beet and turned them into linguini.
It was a good salad. And I'd've tossed down a couple more dollars if they'd let me watch them make it.
Sidenote: Bird by Bird is excellent. Every page has something quotable. Plus she describes the reaction of her creative writing students to this poem, by Phillip Lopate:
We who are
your closest friends
feel the time
has come to tell you
that every Thursday
we have been meeting,
as a group,
to devise ways
to keep you
in perpetual uncertainty
frustration
discontent and
torture
by neither loving you
as much as you want
nor cutting you adrift.
Your analyst is
in on it,
plus your boyfriend
and your ex-husband;
and we have pledged
to disappoint you
as long as you need us.
In announcing our
association
we realize we have
placed in your hands
a possible antidote
against uncertainty
indeed against ourselves.
But since our Thursday nights
have brought us
to the community
of purpose
rare in itself
with you as
the natural center,
we feel hopeful you
will continue to make unreasonable
demands for affection
if not as a consequence
of your disastrous personality
then for the good of the collective.
I retreated to the closest available restaurant, which turned out to be The Cheesecake Factory, to sit and examine my prizes. (Why in the name of Eddie Munster did someone think the word 'factory' should be used as part of a restaurant title? Yes, I want to associate coal, soot, heavy machinery and union lockdowns with my food, thank you. But I digress.) My salad came....and it had a head of hair.
Not real hair. Remember (oy, this dates me) the old Playdoh Barbershop, with these hollow people with little holes in their heads that you squeezed the playdoh through, making them sprout little afros? Apparently someone's invented a way to do this with vegetables. I kid you not, they'd taken a carrot, a cucumber and a beet and turned them into linguini.
It was a good salad. And I'd've tossed down a couple more dollars if they'd let me watch them make it.
Sidenote: Bird by Bird is excellent. Every page has something quotable. Plus she describes the reaction of her creative writing students to this poem, by Phillip Lopate:
We who are
your closest friends
feel the time
has come to tell you
that every Thursday
we have been meeting,
as a group,
to devise ways
to keep you
in perpetual uncertainty
frustration
discontent and
torture
by neither loving you
as much as you want
nor cutting you adrift.
Your analyst is
in on it,
plus your boyfriend
and your ex-husband;
and we have pledged
to disappoint you
as long as you need us.
In announcing our
association
we realize we have
placed in your hands
a possible antidote
against uncertainty
indeed against ourselves.
But since our Thursday nights
have brought us
to the community
of purpose
rare in itself
with you as
the natural center,
we feel hopeful you
will continue to make unreasonable
demands for affection
if not as a consequence
of your disastrous personality
then for the good of the collective.
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no subject
Date: 2003-01-09 06:58 am (UTC)Answer A: Andy Warhol's lingering influence.
Answer B: The original name, "The C + C Cheesecake Factory," seemed somewhat dated after 1993, what with the lack of techno music.