Out and About In the World

Nothing beats going into the world, and how many of us really do? I have friends and fellow writers who had no clue what a so-called "wife beater" undershirt was. I have friends who don't know anyone who is black or gay or poor.

So Friday night we take the MBTA into town for a concert. Left with plenty of time to spare which was quickly eaten up by a wreck on I-95, where someone had been rear-ended. A long wait for the subway. Lots of people going to the Celtics game. We are quite obviously the only couple headed for Symphony Hall.

At Park Street a young Chinese man asks which train goes to Symphony Hall. We must look like we know, which, of course, we do. Train takes forever, too. Hustle up three flights of stairs from the MBTA station, and are shown to our seats with about one minute to spare. Glad I work out.

Nice all Mozart-Beethoven concert. The orchestra really has to break a sweat on the Prometheus Overture and the 8th Symphony. Mozart more sprightly. Good crowd. Nowadays, one worries about the arts.

During intermission I eavesdrop shamelessly on the tales of the woman behind me who also went to New Hampshire (and Ohio) to ring doorbells for Obama. There was an army of unlikely types to went forth and canvassed.

We have dessert at Brasserie Jo, still crowded at 10:00 p.m. Economy has not totally tanked, and lots of young people are in the restaurant. S.O. orders the bread pudding and I take a slice of lemon tart with fresh berries. Delicous. Berries salve conscience.

Back on the T. We wait forever at Park Street. The game is over and the Celtics won. Crowd in a good mood. A group of young ladies (teenagers) en route back to Quincy. They remind us of some of the girls in Quinceneara, the movie we watched last night. A group of eight, all very different, and they are having fun.

Friday we watched Rabbit Proof Fence. Both good movies. No explosions. We do not always have to go out into the World to go into the world.

Yesterday I went to a meeting, and I'll preserve the anonymity, because there was a panel about self-publishing and unfortunately, I knew more than most of the panellists. Two of them had spent a combined amount of $50,000 to self-publish, which is beyond most writer's budgets. This was all non-fiction, and some of the advice was so bad. They did not even mention Print On Demand.

Some comments:
"I didn't hire an editor because I didn't want anyone changing my words." "Just get it out there, and you can fix it in the next edition." "I only found out what a literary agent is this morning."

Oh my god. The panels at Crimebake, which eschews the mere mention of self-publishing as being beyond the pale, are more entertaining and certainly better-informed about whatever the topic may be.

Came home to the rest of the Garbure, wherein the cabbage had disappeared, but the potatoes seemed to come to the fore. Tonight I'm roasting a chicken and we have fresh cranberries and acorn squash. Baked apples for dessert. See photos. These are dynamite apples, and a) don't break the bank and b) may even be good for you. What ho!

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Garbure

I'm making a French peasant soup, Garbure, that sounds like a cross between garbage and ordure. We've had it before and found it quite tasty. Of course, Dr. Atkins would NOT approve, since the soup contains beans and potatoes and bread. Did I say peasant? Hearty fare. I used a slice of ham instead of ham hocks which the store doesn't carry anymore. A head of cabbage is another ingredient. Even more common.


We're doing the yin/yang thing with some delicous stuffed apples from Gourmet. Actually, the garbure is also from Gourmet, a magazine not adverse to the random food of the people recipe.

In my latest work in process, In Flight, I have three characters (man, woman, child), eating a casual meal on a patio, with a contrast between the two bad guys who are having lunch at Lincoln Road Mall in Miami Beach. The baddest one has a terrible hangover and just about loses it when a waiter splashes soup on his expensive pink shirt.

Significant Other found a CNN video with the Columbian (I guess) marines taking over a drug submarine being loaded with cocaine. Very cool, and I got a close up of the sub, which plays a small but important part in the new book and an even bigger part in the short story of my CIA robot fish. The short story and the book are cross-polinating each other right now. Of course I had "seen" the bad one in my mind's eye, but imagine my surprise when his photo turned up in the newspapers the last few days, the spitting image of Obama's chief of staff, who is supposed to be rather pugnacious and very smart--very rich, too. Writing bad guys, antagonists, whatever you call them is fun, as well as challenging, but I like my anti-heros be believable and my bad guy is good to his old mum. When I had his "voice" all wrong, I wrote him in the first person and that worked wonderfully well. He swears too much, but whatchagonna do?

Off to Handel & Haydn tonight at Symphony Hall. No rain in the forecast. Haven't had any culture for ages. La-di-dah.

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