I've not been entirely satisfied with my reasons why King of California will be my souvenir from Santa Clarita when we finally move to Henderson. I liked what I wrote in the entry explaining why it will be one of three souvenirs of Southern California (http://scrapsofliteracy.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-southern-california-souvenirs.html), but it didn't get to the core of what I was thinking, and I only discovered yesterday what I was thinking when I looked at that loft building across from MacArthur Park.
The reasons detailed in that entry still stand. But the main reason I'm taking King of California with me as a souvenir is because it got completely right what this valley is about. The shallowness and aversion to history is threaded throughout these very different lands, despite being of the same valley, and yet King of California doesn't concern itself with that. The movie is not about the valley; it is about using this valley as a means to something, in this case Charlie (Michael Douglas) seeking buried treasure which leads him and his daughter Miranda (Evan Rachel Wood) to the Costco that it's buried under. (The Costco in the movie is the one that's here in this valley, and I've been to it at least twice. It may seem obvious, but King of California was filmed partly in Santa Clarita and in other locations, though it's meant to be Santa Clarita alone.)
If you were to look at this valley on its own, what it has, what the people are like, you'll find nothing you can grasp. But if you have something you're striving for within this valley, then it has something, but that's because it's come from you, not this valley. I can't wait to finally leave because there's nothing of this valley. There's nothing truly organic within it.
In Las Vegas, I can go to the MGM Grand, to the Luxor, to Caesars Palace, and know that it has been here before, that these are parts of what makes Las Vegas what it is. This is history, shiny and smooth as it is. As much as the corporate overlords of these casinos would want to deny the history that Vegas has, they can't. It is here in other forms. It is in the Neon Boneyard, part of the Neon Museum, which has various neon signage from decades long gone. It is in the Mob Museum in downtown Las Vegas that is vociferously supported by former mayor and mob lawyer Oscar Goodman, whose wife is the current mayor of Las Vegas. It opens on Valentine's Day next year. It is in authors and others who work to make sure the history remains alive.
Las Vegas is not the means to anything, and neither are the surrounding areas such as Henderson and Summerlin. It has become bigger than any resident there, which is a great benefit because you can be whoever you want there; you can reinvent yourself either temporarily if you're just visiting, or permanently if you're a resident. The city itself is never greatly affected by such action. It's all up to you.
Here in Santa Clarita, it always feels like you're on your own, that there is no city with you. It's not so much that support is required, just a system of some sort to make you feel like you're somewhere, that you can be part of a place. I get that feeling all the time in Las Vegas, and I know why writer/director Mike Cahill set King of California in Santa Clarita. The valley feels so insignificant that it steps quietly into the background once Charlie sets out on his quest. Had King of California become King of Las Vegas, Charlie would have been swallowed up by everything Las Vegas offers. The Eiffel Tower replica at Paris, the tower at the Stratosphere would have loomed much larger than he ever would be.
It's why Lucky You works even when the script doesn't. Eric Bana's character doesn't expect to be bigger than winning the World Series of Poker. That's all he wants. He maneuvers within Las Vegas to try to get what he wants, interacts with people that orbit within his universe, and knows Las Vegas intimately. That's how I want to know Vegas too, and that's why I never warmed to Santa Clarita in eight years: There was nothing to know here, nothing to connect to. You can have all the goals you want wherever you live, but if you don't have that connection, what good are they? Charlie does in King of California, but because of what Santa Clarita was long before it became crowded by housing developments, when the house he grew up in was surrounded by orange groves and was the only one there. When he gets back to it from the mental hospital, he looks around, bewildered. That connection isn't there anymore, but it doesn't matter! There's treasure to find! He's lucky that he could ignore his incongruity to the area. I can't.
Nor can I easily shrug off these eight years, as much as I want to. I arrived here when I was 19. I'm 27. That's a pretty big chunk of life. King of California as a souvenir at least makes that loss of time feel more gentle than it is. Some good times, but not enough. Once I get to Henderson, I'll begin making up for it fast.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Langer's is My Candle on the Water
A real egg cream with foam that could serve as the top of a lemon meringue pie (I know an egg cream has no egg, but this was very close to how meringue looks). A small bowl of matzo ball soup where the gently seasoned soup and the matzo ball were both very much real and supported each other incredibly well. A large order of fries, true deli fries, crisp enough on the outside without being difficult, and soft enough on the inside to make you reach for more and more. A pastrami and chopped liver sandwich that I didn't even know had been one of my dreams come true, with blessed seeded rye bread featuring a snappy crust, chopped liver that tasted like it had been made by caring minds, hearts and hands, and pastrami that cures all ills. I'm serious. If you're feeling down, this pastrami can perk you right up. If you're a vegetarian, I wish you could convert just one day for this.
All this and pumpkin cheesecake is what I had at Langer's Deli, across from MacArthur Park, where Mom, Dad, Meridith and I had gone for Dad's birthday, for us to take a picture of him under the sign, because of the adult version of the Song That Doesn't End (Think of Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop and you'll understand the reference I'm getting at). Dad was still upstairs near the restrooms (You have to go up a few steep steps to get to them because this building has been here for decades and the management of Langer's will never change any part of it and rightly so), Mom and Meridith were at the counter getting a rye bread to take home, and I was just sitting at our booth, flooded equally with pure pleasure and happiness. In eight years of living in Southern California, I had never felt like this. The music playing overhead had turned to an instrumental version of Helen Reddy's Candle on the Water, which was much more pleasant than the original. This was one of the best days of my life, a most welcome rescue from eight years of soulless living, though not by our hand.
Israel is not the Promised Land. Langer's is. I've never been more proud of my heritage because of it. The pickles served with the sandwiches were the real deal, cold and crunchy, and very possibly imported from New York. Langer's is the one true New York deli in Los Angeles. Jerry's Deli, which we went to many times, is L.A.'s idea of what a New York deli is, which is a bad idea; very, very bad. It's why the matzo ball soup there is so lousy because they are working on assumptions, not reality. It's not enough to have matzo ball soup on the menu and posters of Broadway shows in frames hung throughout the restaurant. That's not all of what New York is. It's also about finding where you feel you belong and embracing it so tightly that it can't wriggle out of your grasp.
I know nothing about actually being in New York. My parents do, having lived there long before I was even an idle thought, growing up there, and I've had so much of it drilled into me (along with having a subscription to "The New Yorker" that will so far last until September 2014), that it's not a stretch to consider myself an Honorary New Yorker. I don't want to live there, but I like what it represents in food and culture and one day, in my travels to all the presidential libraries in the nation, I'll stop in New York City after going to the FDR Presidential Library and Museum upstate to gawk and genuflect at The Strand, which has "18 Miles of Books," as they so proudly state on their website. By the time I do this, I know it'll still be there. This kind of bookstore can only exist in New York City.
None of the interior of Langer's seems to have changed since 1947, though probably modernized where necessary, but out of view of the customers. It's tight seating, it sits squarely in a heavily Latino area, but it will not move. It has been here for decades and it will remain for decades more. I wouldn't be surprised if Langer's is still around in 2043. This is most important because it feels peaceful inside. This is a sanctuary for masterful pastrami, for all the dishes that make me proud to be Jewish, including kishka, which we ordered too.
What helped this day become great was not just the food. At MacArthur Park, it had been a view of a loft building, four floors, and you could see a bit into the lower-level lofts from ground level. I had Meridith take photos of it with her phone because it feels like there's something there for me to write. It may be a play, or a novel, and even though I don't know what it is yet, I think I will in a few weeks or a few months. I have time because of all the other books I want to write. I take my inspiration from locations first, and then fill out the rest. Nothing is more important to me than place.
The day also became one of the greatest of my life because of a waiter named Kevin, who has clearly been an employee of Langer's for years and years. He didn't say much, and didn't have to, because he had an instinct of what we wanted. He was patient, a little flummoxed by my sister's request for a pastrami and whitefish sandwich which couldn't be done, but he never showed it. There was a slight change in his voice, but that was it. No ridicule, nothing. When I ordered cheesecake, he came back after a few minutes and said that there was also pumpkin cheesecake. I immediately said "Pumpkin," and he sounded amused because I'm enthusiastic about pumpkin pie. It's my favorite. So to get pumpkin cheesecake is not only preferred, but rare, since I don't have cheesecake very often.
Kevin felt like the paintings on the walls next to and near our booth. The largest, by an "M. Welman" in 1968, was of a man working behind a deli counter, slicing pastrami, with a stack of rye bread near him, old ladies waiting in front of the corner, and one looking over the counter, making sure the man is slicing it right. I miss those pushy old ladies at Lox Haven in Margate, Florida. I prefer them to the stone figures in my current neighborhood, who merely glare and travel in packs, tut-tutting everything about the neighborhood that doesn't conform to their long-held standards. Those old ladies at Lox Haven were pushy, but it was because they knew what they wanted and they were tenacious in getting it. The ones I knew are probably long gone, but as much as I was miffed at their pushiness, I wish I had it now. I think it's because they were with me in solidarity. We were all Jewish, we knew that there was lox and whitefish in those cases and we were going to live as we were meant to.
The paintings one booth down from us, also by Welman, were of men slicing pastrami in the kitchen. Kevin seemed like he could have been one of them in that time, dignified, knowing the work had to be done, and taking pride in it. He wasn't an actor just slumming as a waiter, as so many seem to be in Greater Los Angeles. It looked like he makes the profession an artform. When we ordered our drinks and I ordered an egg cream, he misheard me and thought I ordered a cream soda like Mom and Meridith did. I told him, politely as I always am, that I ordered an egg cream, and he apologized in his low-key tone. No apology needed. I was in awe of him at the start, at his efficiency, at his careful managing of his tables, at his way of seemingly floating through the restaurant, because there were moments when he appeared and I wondered where in the heck he had come from.
I was right about chili cheese fries feeling disrespectful at Langer's. I had already made up my mind before we walked in, but after we did, I knew it wasn't possible. Not with tile flooring that reminded us of Publix's floors back in Florida. Not with walking past the counter seating where real people were eating, real Los Angeles denizens. Not with passing the revolving glass case of cheesecake and other cakes. Not with passing a vertical refrigerated double-door display case that had the Langer's logo across the top. Not with sitting down and being ushered into a universe of Jewish food that had eluded us in all the time we've lived in Southern California. Mom asked Dad later on how in the hell we could have gone to Jerry's Deli many times when this was here.
On the freeway back to Santa Clarita, on my mp3 player, I listened to the "Star Tunnel" music that's heard when entering Space Mountain in Tomorrowland at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azxQYf9KT94&feature=related), and decided that if there is an afterlife, that's what I want to hear on the way in. There also had better be a Langer's there too, just like this one. A little while ago, I had a slice of the rye bread we brought home, and that's the first thing I want when I get there.
In early October, I wrote about where I am in my head when I write and when I'm reading my writing, and editing (http://scrapsofliteracy.blogspot.com/2011/10/where-i-go-when-i-write.html). I'm adding Langer's to that, because I'm going to spend a lot of time back at that booth, with that pastrami and chopped liver sandwich in front of me, with Kevin appearing out of nowhere, and that perfect egg cream. It's not possible for me to live at Langer's, so this is the next best thing.
All this and pumpkin cheesecake is what I had at Langer's Deli, across from MacArthur Park, where Mom, Dad, Meridith and I had gone for Dad's birthday, for us to take a picture of him under the sign, because of the adult version of the Song That Doesn't End (Think of Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop and you'll understand the reference I'm getting at). Dad was still upstairs near the restrooms (You have to go up a few steep steps to get to them because this building has been here for decades and the management of Langer's will never change any part of it and rightly so), Mom and Meridith were at the counter getting a rye bread to take home, and I was just sitting at our booth, flooded equally with pure pleasure and happiness. In eight years of living in Southern California, I had never felt like this. The music playing overhead had turned to an instrumental version of Helen Reddy's Candle on the Water, which was much more pleasant than the original. This was one of the best days of my life, a most welcome rescue from eight years of soulless living, though not by our hand.
Israel is not the Promised Land. Langer's is. I've never been more proud of my heritage because of it. The pickles served with the sandwiches were the real deal, cold and crunchy, and very possibly imported from New York. Langer's is the one true New York deli in Los Angeles. Jerry's Deli, which we went to many times, is L.A.'s idea of what a New York deli is, which is a bad idea; very, very bad. It's why the matzo ball soup there is so lousy because they are working on assumptions, not reality. It's not enough to have matzo ball soup on the menu and posters of Broadway shows in frames hung throughout the restaurant. That's not all of what New York is. It's also about finding where you feel you belong and embracing it so tightly that it can't wriggle out of your grasp.
I know nothing about actually being in New York. My parents do, having lived there long before I was even an idle thought, growing up there, and I've had so much of it drilled into me (along with having a subscription to "The New Yorker" that will so far last until September 2014), that it's not a stretch to consider myself an Honorary New Yorker. I don't want to live there, but I like what it represents in food and culture and one day, in my travels to all the presidential libraries in the nation, I'll stop in New York City after going to the FDR Presidential Library and Museum upstate to gawk and genuflect at The Strand, which has "18 Miles of Books," as they so proudly state on their website. By the time I do this, I know it'll still be there. This kind of bookstore can only exist in New York City.
None of the interior of Langer's seems to have changed since 1947, though probably modernized where necessary, but out of view of the customers. It's tight seating, it sits squarely in a heavily Latino area, but it will not move. It has been here for decades and it will remain for decades more. I wouldn't be surprised if Langer's is still around in 2043. This is most important because it feels peaceful inside. This is a sanctuary for masterful pastrami, for all the dishes that make me proud to be Jewish, including kishka, which we ordered too.
What helped this day become great was not just the food. At MacArthur Park, it had been a view of a loft building, four floors, and you could see a bit into the lower-level lofts from ground level. I had Meridith take photos of it with her phone because it feels like there's something there for me to write. It may be a play, or a novel, and even though I don't know what it is yet, I think I will in a few weeks or a few months. I have time because of all the other books I want to write. I take my inspiration from locations first, and then fill out the rest. Nothing is more important to me than place.
The day also became one of the greatest of my life because of a waiter named Kevin, who has clearly been an employee of Langer's for years and years. He didn't say much, and didn't have to, because he had an instinct of what we wanted. He was patient, a little flummoxed by my sister's request for a pastrami and whitefish sandwich which couldn't be done, but he never showed it. There was a slight change in his voice, but that was it. No ridicule, nothing. When I ordered cheesecake, he came back after a few minutes and said that there was also pumpkin cheesecake. I immediately said "Pumpkin," and he sounded amused because I'm enthusiastic about pumpkin pie. It's my favorite. So to get pumpkin cheesecake is not only preferred, but rare, since I don't have cheesecake very often.
Kevin felt like the paintings on the walls next to and near our booth. The largest, by an "M. Welman" in 1968, was of a man working behind a deli counter, slicing pastrami, with a stack of rye bread near him, old ladies waiting in front of the corner, and one looking over the counter, making sure the man is slicing it right. I miss those pushy old ladies at Lox Haven in Margate, Florida. I prefer them to the stone figures in my current neighborhood, who merely glare and travel in packs, tut-tutting everything about the neighborhood that doesn't conform to their long-held standards. Those old ladies at Lox Haven were pushy, but it was because they knew what they wanted and they were tenacious in getting it. The ones I knew are probably long gone, but as much as I was miffed at their pushiness, I wish I had it now. I think it's because they were with me in solidarity. We were all Jewish, we knew that there was lox and whitefish in those cases and we were going to live as we were meant to.
The paintings one booth down from us, also by Welman, were of men slicing pastrami in the kitchen. Kevin seemed like he could have been one of them in that time, dignified, knowing the work had to be done, and taking pride in it. He wasn't an actor just slumming as a waiter, as so many seem to be in Greater Los Angeles. It looked like he makes the profession an artform. When we ordered our drinks and I ordered an egg cream, he misheard me and thought I ordered a cream soda like Mom and Meridith did. I told him, politely as I always am, that I ordered an egg cream, and he apologized in his low-key tone. No apology needed. I was in awe of him at the start, at his efficiency, at his careful managing of his tables, at his way of seemingly floating through the restaurant, because there were moments when he appeared and I wondered where in the heck he had come from.
I was right about chili cheese fries feeling disrespectful at Langer's. I had already made up my mind before we walked in, but after we did, I knew it wasn't possible. Not with tile flooring that reminded us of Publix's floors back in Florida. Not with walking past the counter seating where real people were eating, real Los Angeles denizens. Not with passing the revolving glass case of cheesecake and other cakes. Not with passing a vertical refrigerated double-door display case that had the Langer's logo across the top. Not with sitting down and being ushered into a universe of Jewish food that had eluded us in all the time we've lived in Southern California. Mom asked Dad later on how in the hell we could have gone to Jerry's Deli many times when this was here.
On the freeway back to Santa Clarita, on my mp3 player, I listened to the "Star Tunnel" music that's heard when entering Space Mountain in Tomorrowland at the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azxQYf9KT94&feature=related), and decided that if there is an afterlife, that's what I want to hear on the way in. There also had better be a Langer's there too, just like this one. A little while ago, I had a slice of the rye bread we brought home, and that's the first thing I want when I get there.
In early October, I wrote about where I am in my head when I write and when I'm reading my writing, and editing (http://scrapsofliteracy.blogspot.com/2011/10/where-i-go-when-i-write.html). I'm adding Langer's to that, because I'm going to spend a lot of time back at that booth, with that pastrami and chopped liver sandwich in front of me, with Kevin appearing out of nowhere, and that perfect egg cream. It's not possible for me to live at Langer's, so this is the next best thing.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
For the Love of a Great Book and a Big Pastrami Sandwich
I wasn't exaggerating last night when I briefly hailed Best Friends, Occasional Enemies by Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Serritella as me never having been more in love with books. In fact, I may have understated it.
If you're a genuine writer, anything can be written about. Scottoline makes her travails on an elliptical machine very funny. Serritella, Scottoline's daughter, turns an attempt to get rid of the mice in her apartment into three epic parts. All that they write, from occasionally getting at each other, but never with malicious intent, to the powerhouse that is Mother Mary, Scottoline's mother and Serritella's grandmother (Wait until you see the photo of her wearing a lab coat simply because she'd found it at the Dollar Store and likes to wear it), to the occasional references to George Clooney (Scottoline's man of choice) and ex-husbands Thing One and Thing Two (Scottoline's reasons for happily living with her dogs and cats), makes me thankful that I pre-ordered this from Amazon. I'd read Scottoline's Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog and My Nest Egg Isn't Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space (which included a few pieces from Serritella, but not as many as this book), and when I heard this one was coming, I knew it wasn't one I could leave until I got a library card in Henderson. I needed this one now and it was worth every page.
It also made me realize that I can't merely wait for Scottoline and Serritella's next book, and there has to be another. There must be.
I'd been satisfied with going from Scottoline's first book of columns to the next and now this. But suppose her other books hold the same kind of satisfaction? Until I Googled Scottoline's name last night, I didn't know that she writes legal thrillers under the "Rosato and Associates" series, starting with Everywhere That Mary Went from 1993, the latest being Think Twice from last year. And then there's two serial novels she co-wrote with a bevy of authors, as well as six stand-alone novels, the sixth, Come Home, coming out next year.
I know I can't expect the same good-natured writing found in Best Friends, Occasional Enemies to be prevalent in her legal thrillers, but having read the first page of Everywhere That Mary Went last night on Amazon, I know I can expect the same level of knowledgeable insight from her (Being that she had been a trial lawyer) and writing that makes me feel comfortable even before I start on the first page. I ordered that one last night, and as soon as it arrives, it's shooting straight to the top of my reading list. A legal thriller suits me since I read Grisham in 3rd grade and continue to do so today, and one of my interests is the Supreme Court, and the inner workings of the lower courts, so it fits.
Shifting from books to food, Dad's birthday is tomorrow and he wants to go to MacArthur Park in Westlake in Los Angeles to get a picture taken with the sign (because of the song), and to Langer's Deli across the street from MacArthur Park. Being Jewish, we can tell if we're at an honest-to-kishka Jewish deli, and just by looking at the massive menu on the website alone, this feels like it.
For pastrami, I've contentedly subsisted on the pastrami sandwiches offered by Weinerschnitzel. It's the best I can do living in the Santa Clarita Valley where the only things that are Jewish are the little slivers of spaces for Hanukkah stuff at the supermarket. We're not the majority here, and certainly don't expect to be, but what brings in the most profit is what gets the most attention. In Las Vegas, it's different. Supermarkets there have a good-sized aisle for Jewish food. Packaged, sure, but at least it's more attention than we get here.
Compared to what Langer's has, I'm apparently not getting real pastrami from Weinerschnitzel, but I don't mind. It's cut very thinly, and it's good at least. That's all I can ask for from this empty-soul valley. But tomorrow, oh lord. I've scrolled through that menu and I've drooled many times. I'm not intimidated by the size of it, and in fact, I'm never taken aback by any large menu. Give me a 25-page menu and I can reduce it to what I want within two minutes. Speed reading is a major component of that, but I also generally go into restaurants with what I like right at the forefront of my mind. If it's an Italian restaurant, and I've been a good boy with my diet in the weeks before, I order fettucine alfredo. If it's Mexican, I want a quesadilla. If it's a Jewish deli, I want some kind of sandwich, big enough to make me not care about how many calories I'm consuming, just to be in awe of the masterwork in front of me.
Mom looked at the Langer's Deli menu first yesterday and she was intimidated by it. It has everything we've been starved of here, including whitefish and lox, but which, coupled with cream cheese, is a tad pricey at $15.95 for an appetizer. And you can have either the whitefish or the lox. Not both. And they've got matzo ball soup which I hope isn't served as large as it is at Jerry's Deli to try to cover up the fact that it's so-so. I hope there's respect given to the matzo ball in relation to the soup and vice-versa. I'm also harboring high hopes for the cheesecake. I love cheesecake. I can't have it often because I like my thinning frame. With a menu like this (http://www.langersdeli.com/langers-menu), the hope is justified.
I looked at the menu late yesterday afternoon, scrolling past the hot sandwiches, the "daily entrees" including corned beef and cabbage and "One-Half Boiled Chicken", the steaks, the deli plates, though I had already decided what I wanted when I saw it at the top of the page. I was just seeing what else Langer's offered, just to be assured that this was the Jewish deli I had hoped to find after eight years of not having any.
A pastrami and chopped liver sandwich with "Russian Style Dressing." That's what I want tomorrow. They have chili cheese fries, but I'm not keen on that. It feels disrespectful. They have regular fries, and as long as there's mustard, which undoubtedly there will be, I'm fine with that. I just can't fathom chili and cheese on a separate dish next to a pastrami and chopped liver sandwich. Not when there's kishka and knishes available on the menu.
I told Mom I'd found what I wanted and she was stunned. She had picked out the pastrami and chopped liver sandwich too. For her genes, I'm grateful, as they include a steely resolve, patience, and a love of black olives and cheesecake. This wasn't really a surprise to me because with Jewish delis, what I pick is relatable to Mom or Dad or both. I've been raised well.
If you're a genuine writer, anything can be written about. Scottoline makes her travails on an elliptical machine very funny. Serritella, Scottoline's daughter, turns an attempt to get rid of the mice in her apartment into three epic parts. All that they write, from occasionally getting at each other, but never with malicious intent, to the powerhouse that is Mother Mary, Scottoline's mother and Serritella's grandmother (Wait until you see the photo of her wearing a lab coat simply because she'd found it at the Dollar Store and likes to wear it), to the occasional references to George Clooney (Scottoline's man of choice) and ex-husbands Thing One and Thing Two (Scottoline's reasons for happily living with her dogs and cats), makes me thankful that I pre-ordered this from Amazon. I'd read Scottoline's Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog and My Nest Egg Isn't Empty, It Just Has More Closet Space (which included a few pieces from Serritella, but not as many as this book), and when I heard this one was coming, I knew it wasn't one I could leave until I got a library card in Henderson. I needed this one now and it was worth every page.
It also made me realize that I can't merely wait for Scottoline and Serritella's next book, and there has to be another. There must be.
I'd been satisfied with going from Scottoline's first book of columns to the next and now this. But suppose her other books hold the same kind of satisfaction? Until I Googled Scottoline's name last night, I didn't know that she writes legal thrillers under the "Rosato and Associates" series, starting with Everywhere That Mary Went from 1993, the latest being Think Twice from last year. And then there's two serial novels she co-wrote with a bevy of authors, as well as six stand-alone novels, the sixth, Come Home, coming out next year.
I know I can't expect the same good-natured writing found in Best Friends, Occasional Enemies to be prevalent in her legal thrillers, but having read the first page of Everywhere That Mary Went last night on Amazon, I know I can expect the same level of knowledgeable insight from her (Being that she had been a trial lawyer) and writing that makes me feel comfortable even before I start on the first page. I ordered that one last night, and as soon as it arrives, it's shooting straight to the top of my reading list. A legal thriller suits me since I read Grisham in 3rd grade and continue to do so today, and one of my interests is the Supreme Court, and the inner workings of the lower courts, so it fits.
Shifting from books to food, Dad's birthday is tomorrow and he wants to go to MacArthur Park in Westlake in Los Angeles to get a picture taken with the sign (because of the song), and to Langer's Deli across the street from MacArthur Park. Being Jewish, we can tell if we're at an honest-to-kishka Jewish deli, and just by looking at the massive menu on the website alone, this feels like it.
For pastrami, I've contentedly subsisted on the pastrami sandwiches offered by Weinerschnitzel. It's the best I can do living in the Santa Clarita Valley where the only things that are Jewish are the little slivers of spaces for Hanukkah stuff at the supermarket. We're not the majority here, and certainly don't expect to be, but what brings in the most profit is what gets the most attention. In Las Vegas, it's different. Supermarkets there have a good-sized aisle for Jewish food. Packaged, sure, but at least it's more attention than we get here.
Compared to what Langer's has, I'm apparently not getting real pastrami from Weinerschnitzel, but I don't mind. It's cut very thinly, and it's good at least. That's all I can ask for from this empty-soul valley. But tomorrow, oh lord. I've scrolled through that menu and I've drooled many times. I'm not intimidated by the size of it, and in fact, I'm never taken aback by any large menu. Give me a 25-page menu and I can reduce it to what I want within two minutes. Speed reading is a major component of that, but I also generally go into restaurants with what I like right at the forefront of my mind. If it's an Italian restaurant, and I've been a good boy with my diet in the weeks before, I order fettucine alfredo. If it's Mexican, I want a quesadilla. If it's a Jewish deli, I want some kind of sandwich, big enough to make me not care about how many calories I'm consuming, just to be in awe of the masterwork in front of me.
Mom looked at the Langer's Deli menu first yesterday and she was intimidated by it. It has everything we've been starved of here, including whitefish and lox, but which, coupled with cream cheese, is a tad pricey at $15.95 for an appetizer. And you can have either the whitefish or the lox. Not both. And they've got matzo ball soup which I hope isn't served as large as it is at Jerry's Deli to try to cover up the fact that it's so-so. I hope there's respect given to the matzo ball in relation to the soup and vice-versa. I'm also harboring high hopes for the cheesecake. I love cheesecake. I can't have it often because I like my thinning frame. With a menu like this (http://www.langersdeli.com/langers-menu), the hope is justified.
I looked at the menu late yesterday afternoon, scrolling past the hot sandwiches, the "daily entrees" including corned beef and cabbage and "One-Half Boiled Chicken", the steaks, the deli plates, though I had already decided what I wanted when I saw it at the top of the page. I was just seeing what else Langer's offered, just to be assured that this was the Jewish deli I had hoped to find after eight years of not having any.
A pastrami and chopped liver sandwich with "Russian Style Dressing." That's what I want tomorrow. They have chili cheese fries, but I'm not keen on that. It feels disrespectful. They have regular fries, and as long as there's mustard, which undoubtedly there will be, I'm fine with that. I just can't fathom chili and cheese on a separate dish next to a pastrami and chopped liver sandwich. Not when there's kishka and knishes available on the menu.
I told Mom I'd found what I wanted and she was stunned. She had picked out the pastrami and chopped liver sandwich too. For her genes, I'm grateful, as they include a steely resolve, patience, and a love of black olives and cheesecake. This wasn't really a surprise to me because with Jewish delis, what I pick is relatable to Mom or Dad or both. I've been raised well.
Deep, Passionate Book Love
I'm reading "Best Friends, Occasional Enemies" by Lisa Scottoline and Francesca Serritella, and have never been more in love with books.
That is all.
For now.
That is all.
For now.
Monday, November 28, 2011
That Old Feeling Again
Every month or so, I get an insatiable yen for anything to do with Superman, Captain Nemo, and Zorro. I want every Superman comic ever made, every book to do with Superman, Captain Nemo and Zorro, and every TV show and movie centered on the three of them.
But about a day or two later, the yen fades because of other books I want to read, other movies I want to see. Last month, it got as far as me watching most of Superman: The Movie from my sister's massive DVD box set that I got her for her birthday a few years ago. It includes all four Christopher Reeve Superman movies, as well as Superman Returns from 2006, cartoons and serials featuring Superman, and documentaries, along with a director's cut of Superman II and an expanded version of Superman: The Movie.
This time, it won't go away. I need to give some time to this craving. So in my room at this moment, I have 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, of course; Captain Nemo by Kevin J. Anderson, and Zorro by Isabel Allende. I also have the Zorro: The Complete Series DVD box set, which is the early '90s Zorro TV series. And I have the Smallville pilot on the Tivo, back from when it aired a week before the series finale (Or was it right before the series finale?)
But that doesn't feel like it'll be enough. I need more. So from Amazon, I ordered The Mask of Zorro, The Mark of Zorro (1940, featuring the greatest swordfight in movie history), and Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. From AbeBooks (http://www.abebooks.com/), a slew of titles: It's Superman! by Tom De Haven, The Last Days of Krypton by Kevin J. Anderson, Enemies & Allies, also by Kevin J. Anderson (about Superman and Batman reluctantly teaming up), The Death and Life of Superman by Roger Stern, The Other Log of Phileas Fogg by Philip Jose Farmer, which involves a search for Captain Nemo, who's actually Professor Moriarty from the Sherlock Holmes stories, Voyage into the Deep: The Saga of Jules Verne and Captain Nemo, a graphic novel about Jules Verne writing 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Captain Nemo by Jason DeAngelis and Aldin Viray. Even though manga doesn't interest me, that one does because of Captain Nemo.
Oh, but we're not done yet. Remembering that the Warner Bros. Studios store site (http://www.wbshop.com/) still had its Cyber Monday sale going (from which I ordered the third season of Night Court earlier in the day for $8.15), I searched for Superman DVDs, hoping that in the section of heavily discounted TV DVDs, the ten seasons of Smallville would be available, of which I was only interested in the first season to see if I like it enough to want more.
No chance of that, as they remained pricey at $47.95 each. But what about Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman? Yeah! I was an addicted nine-year-old when that first season aired. I especially loved a scene in which Clark Kent flew as Superman to China to pick up Chinese food, though as I learned, that had happened in a later season.
There on the Warner Bros. site was the first season of Lois & Clark for $12. And the first season of The Adventures of Superman with George Reeves. And Superman Serials: The Complete 1948 & 1950 Collection. Done, done, and done. I don't think this craving is going to wear off by the time any of these books and DVDs arrive. Thank god the books are always cheap.
Just now, while typing the Superman Serials title, I was reminded of the Dick Tracy serials, the 1990 Warren Beatty movie (which I watched a lot at the same age I was hooked on Lois & Clark), and the Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy books available, volumes of them. Thankfully, that feeling passed without kicking up anything in me. Dick Tracy doesn't have half the same effect as Superman, Captain Nemo, and Zorro do, though he's still a deeply rooted interest.
This is why I will always believe that the inside of my head looks like the sets on Beakman's World. Because not only am I thinking about these three great fictional figures, I'm also mulling over my desert playlist, full of music that I think represents, for me, Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder City, and the surrounding desert, and wondering if Matchbox sells its cars individually, not just in packs. I really want that city bus.
But about a day or two later, the yen fades because of other books I want to read, other movies I want to see. Last month, it got as far as me watching most of Superman: The Movie from my sister's massive DVD box set that I got her for her birthday a few years ago. It includes all four Christopher Reeve Superman movies, as well as Superman Returns from 2006, cartoons and serials featuring Superman, and documentaries, along with a director's cut of Superman II and an expanded version of Superman: The Movie.
This time, it won't go away. I need to give some time to this craving. So in my room at this moment, I have 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, of course; Captain Nemo by Kevin J. Anderson, and Zorro by Isabel Allende. I also have the Zorro: The Complete Series DVD box set, which is the early '90s Zorro TV series. And I have the Smallville pilot on the Tivo, back from when it aired a week before the series finale (Or was it right before the series finale?)
But that doesn't feel like it'll be enough. I need more. So from Amazon, I ordered The Mask of Zorro, The Mark of Zorro (1940, featuring the greatest swordfight in movie history), and Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. From AbeBooks (http://www.abebooks.com/), a slew of titles: It's Superman! by Tom De Haven, The Last Days of Krypton by Kevin J. Anderson, Enemies & Allies, also by Kevin J. Anderson (about Superman and Batman reluctantly teaming up), The Death and Life of Superman by Roger Stern, The Other Log of Phileas Fogg by Philip Jose Farmer, which involves a search for Captain Nemo, who's actually Professor Moriarty from the Sherlock Holmes stories, Voyage into the Deep: The Saga of Jules Verne and Captain Nemo, a graphic novel about Jules Verne writing 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Captain Nemo by Jason DeAngelis and Aldin Viray. Even though manga doesn't interest me, that one does because of Captain Nemo.
Oh, but we're not done yet. Remembering that the Warner Bros. Studios store site (http://www.wbshop.com/) still had its Cyber Monday sale going (from which I ordered the third season of Night Court earlier in the day for $8.15), I searched for Superman DVDs, hoping that in the section of heavily discounted TV DVDs, the ten seasons of Smallville would be available, of which I was only interested in the first season to see if I like it enough to want more.
No chance of that, as they remained pricey at $47.95 each. But what about Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman? Yeah! I was an addicted nine-year-old when that first season aired. I especially loved a scene in which Clark Kent flew as Superman to China to pick up Chinese food, though as I learned, that had happened in a later season.
There on the Warner Bros. site was the first season of Lois & Clark for $12. And the first season of The Adventures of Superman with George Reeves. And Superman Serials: The Complete 1948 & 1950 Collection. Done, done, and done. I don't think this craving is going to wear off by the time any of these books and DVDs arrive. Thank god the books are always cheap.
Just now, while typing the Superman Serials title, I was reminded of the Dick Tracy serials, the 1990 Warren Beatty movie (which I watched a lot at the same age I was hooked on Lois & Clark), and the Complete Chester Gould's Dick Tracy books available, volumes of them. Thankfully, that feeling passed without kicking up anything in me. Dick Tracy doesn't have half the same effect as Superman, Captain Nemo, and Zorro do, though he's still a deeply rooted interest.
This is why I will always believe that the inside of my head looks like the sets on Beakman's World. Because not only am I thinking about these three great fictional figures, I'm also mulling over my desert playlist, full of music that I think represents, for me, Las Vegas, Henderson, Boulder City, and the surrounding desert, and wondering if Matchbox sells its cars individually, not just in packs. I really want that city bus.
The Flour Truck of Henderson
In Casselberry, in the late '80s, my four-, five-, six-year-old self loved plunging his hands into a rectangular plastic wastebasket filled with toy figurines and cars. Hot Wheels, Matchbox, Camaros, a Lamborghini, and a car wash set and a racetrack that hooked up on one end of a table, and letting the car go at the top, hoping it would build speed fast enough to race through the loop-the-loop on the other end. All with so much to love, though in hindsight, no clue why.
I guess it was the young American boy thing to do, probably the same reason I had a collection of baseball cards in a binder, though I liked basketball much more. I also read Motor Trend when I was eight and nine, but I don't think I was looking at and admiring specs and engines. Maybe just the cars themselves, the shapes, the style.
On the second-to-most-recent trip to Las Vegas, I returned to that little boy form, in a different aspect. We spent a lot of time in Henderson, deciding even then if that's where we wanted to live, exploring the area, seeing what fit and what didn't. We stopped at a Smith's supermarket, and I walked around in awe because it felt like a neighborhood supermarket should. It felt like people cared about what they bought, whereas at a Ralphs or Vons here, people just grab what they need on an errand, throw it into the cart, zoom right into the checkout lane, pay for it, and zoom right out. At that Smith's, it felt like people took their time to shop, to buy what they truly wanted, what would fulfill them.
It was also a supermarket of unusual sights, namely a circular display outside one aisle filled with toy cars and trucks. Toy aisles at Ralphs and Vons are perfunctory and brief, filled with cheap crap to buy only when you're heading to a birthday party that you really don't want to go to, and you have to bring something.
Here were cars, VW Beetles, school buses. I looked at all of them, picked a few up, not for nostalgia's sake, but out of curiosity, because I still have that part of me. I discovered that my taste for cars had been replaced by working vehicles: School buses, ice cream trucks, street cleaners, daycare transports, moving vans and trucks, anything with a daily purpose.
At that display, I found a flour truck, dark brown at the front, lighter brown in the back, with doors that open on each side, and light peach-colored bags of flour that are highest at the top, and seem to have tumbled toward the bottom. On the left and right side of where the bags of flour are held, the logo of the "Diamond Flour Co." is stamped, and each side says, "Good Quality & Good Service." It was probably about six or seven dollars and I bought it. I wanted it as a reminder of a good place, and to start a collection of working vehicles.
That collection grew by five at Target in Valencia on Friday night. While Mom and Meridith looked at styluses for the Nintendo DS (since we'll need some new ones soon), I found a Curious George doll that reminded me of kindergarten at Sterling Park Elementary in Casselberry, and Mrs. Moffat let each student take home the Curious George doll for one night and bring it back the next day. At the end of the year, one of us got to take it home for good, and it wasn't me. It sure wasn't as big as the one that I picked up. I hope there is still something like that in some kindergarten classes.
After I showed it to Mom and Meridith, I put it back and then stopped at the Matchbox aisle to see if there were any airplanes, namely commercial airliners. Nothing with real-life airline logos on them since that's too specialized and it's what hobby shops and stores such as Puzzle Zoo are for, and especially "The Airplane Shop" near McCarran International in Las Vegas, which I'm jonesing to visit the next time I'm there.
Looking more closely at the packs of cars available, I spotted a five-pack with a street cleaning vehicle ("City Cleaner"), a moving truck ("Move-It"), a blue-and-green polka-dotted ice cream truck ("Polka Dot Ice Cream Co."), a daycare bus ("Child Care Learning Center"), and a red van for roadside service ("Mobile Vehicle Service"). I grabbed it, loving that I could get these five for nearly $6. I'm not sure if I'll have another plastic rectangular wastebasket filled with these kinds of vehicles, since I'm far more choosy than I was back then (If it was a car and the wheels moved, I wanted it) and I intend to treat these much more carefully.
Right now, I'm searching on Amazon for what Matchbox cars are available, and so far, there's a water truck, a garbage truck, a "Wildfire Crew Transport" truck, a dump truck, an RV camper, a dry bulk truck, a cement truck, a forklift, and a city bus I'd really like to find. And thinking about the Cheeseball Wagon food truck from the food truck festival that opened the newly refurbished Auto Row in Valencia early in the year, from which Meridith got a t-shirt, toy food trucks would be most welcome in my collection. I hope there's some enterprising minds thinking about that.
I guess it was the young American boy thing to do, probably the same reason I had a collection of baseball cards in a binder, though I liked basketball much more. I also read Motor Trend when I was eight and nine, but I don't think I was looking at and admiring specs and engines. Maybe just the cars themselves, the shapes, the style.
On the second-to-most-recent trip to Las Vegas, I returned to that little boy form, in a different aspect. We spent a lot of time in Henderson, deciding even then if that's where we wanted to live, exploring the area, seeing what fit and what didn't. We stopped at a Smith's supermarket, and I walked around in awe because it felt like a neighborhood supermarket should. It felt like people cared about what they bought, whereas at a Ralphs or Vons here, people just grab what they need on an errand, throw it into the cart, zoom right into the checkout lane, pay for it, and zoom right out. At that Smith's, it felt like people took their time to shop, to buy what they truly wanted, what would fulfill them.
It was also a supermarket of unusual sights, namely a circular display outside one aisle filled with toy cars and trucks. Toy aisles at Ralphs and Vons are perfunctory and brief, filled with cheap crap to buy only when you're heading to a birthday party that you really don't want to go to, and you have to bring something.
Here were cars, VW Beetles, school buses. I looked at all of them, picked a few up, not for nostalgia's sake, but out of curiosity, because I still have that part of me. I discovered that my taste for cars had been replaced by working vehicles: School buses, ice cream trucks, street cleaners, daycare transports, moving vans and trucks, anything with a daily purpose.
At that display, I found a flour truck, dark brown at the front, lighter brown in the back, with doors that open on each side, and light peach-colored bags of flour that are highest at the top, and seem to have tumbled toward the bottom. On the left and right side of where the bags of flour are held, the logo of the "Diamond Flour Co." is stamped, and each side says, "Good Quality & Good Service." It was probably about six or seven dollars and I bought it. I wanted it as a reminder of a good place, and to start a collection of working vehicles.
That collection grew by five at Target in Valencia on Friday night. While Mom and Meridith looked at styluses for the Nintendo DS (since we'll need some new ones soon), I found a Curious George doll that reminded me of kindergarten at Sterling Park Elementary in Casselberry, and Mrs. Moffat let each student take home the Curious George doll for one night and bring it back the next day. At the end of the year, one of us got to take it home for good, and it wasn't me. It sure wasn't as big as the one that I picked up. I hope there is still something like that in some kindergarten classes.
After I showed it to Mom and Meridith, I put it back and then stopped at the Matchbox aisle to see if there were any airplanes, namely commercial airliners. Nothing with real-life airline logos on them since that's too specialized and it's what hobby shops and stores such as Puzzle Zoo are for, and especially "The Airplane Shop" near McCarran International in Las Vegas, which I'm jonesing to visit the next time I'm there.
Looking more closely at the packs of cars available, I spotted a five-pack with a street cleaning vehicle ("City Cleaner"), a moving truck ("Move-It"), a blue-and-green polka-dotted ice cream truck ("Polka Dot Ice Cream Co."), a daycare bus ("Child Care Learning Center"), and a red van for roadside service ("Mobile Vehicle Service"). I grabbed it, loving that I could get these five for nearly $6. I'm not sure if I'll have another plastic rectangular wastebasket filled with these kinds of vehicles, since I'm far more choosy than I was back then (If it was a car and the wheels moved, I wanted it) and I intend to treat these much more carefully.
Right now, I'm searching on Amazon for what Matchbox cars are available, and so far, there's a water truck, a garbage truck, a "Wildfire Crew Transport" truck, a dump truck, an RV camper, a dry bulk truck, a cement truck, a forklift, and a city bus I'd really like to find. And thinking about the Cheeseball Wagon food truck from the food truck festival that opened the newly refurbished Auto Row in Valencia early in the year, from which Meridith got a t-shirt, toy food trucks would be most welcome in my collection. I hope there's some enterprising minds thinking about that.
That Long, Peaceful Night
DirecTV had a free preview weekend of the Starz! and Encore channels, and I Tivo'd a great number of movies, deleting all the episodes I had recorded of The Good Wife to make room for them, along with episodes of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations that I probably wouldn't watch despite my interest in them because many, many, many books take priority.
Early yesterday evening, I watched most of Same Time, Next Year, which is really skilled at understated dialogue, so that the laughs are bigger. The playwright Bernard Slade who adapted his play into this movie knows rhythms in dialogue and words within lines, such as when a pregnant Ellen Burstyn says, in reply to Alan Alda's question about whether she's comfortable, "In my condition, it's hard to be comfortable in any position."
I haven't finished it because I wanted to see if I could focus again on an entire evening of reading the rest of Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton, which is wonderful in the descriptions of a career as a chef, a career that didn't take a traditional path, but is incredibly tedious in the Italy section toward the end. The same vacation dredged up over and over through different contexts. Mostly, I wanted to see if I could read a 304-page book in one day, since I had started reading it after I got up at 11 that morning. I can, but it's mighty hard when I've only got a tenuous connection to a book. I connected to a few things said, and loved the culinary descriptions, but it took some willpower to get through many portions of it. It wasn't a matter of forcing myself; I just wanted to see where the story went, though more out of curiosity than interest.
And yet, I loved how the evening turned out because the TV was off, I was sitting on the couch reading, and the entire living room was silent. Just me and a book. Mom, Dad and Meridith were in the other room, Mom resting because of heartburn, Dad watching his Korean soap opera, and Meridith reading Chore Whore by Heather H. Howard, one of my favorite novels, and one she was curious about.
Reading like I was, I felt so light inside and so did the air around me. I was exactly where I belonged. On to the next book and more of the same!
Early yesterday evening, I watched most of Same Time, Next Year, which is really skilled at understated dialogue, so that the laughs are bigger. The playwright Bernard Slade who adapted his play into this movie knows rhythms in dialogue and words within lines, such as when a pregnant Ellen Burstyn says, in reply to Alan Alda's question about whether she's comfortable, "In my condition, it's hard to be comfortable in any position."
I haven't finished it because I wanted to see if I could focus again on an entire evening of reading the rest of Blood, Bones & Butter by Gabrielle Hamilton, which is wonderful in the descriptions of a career as a chef, a career that didn't take a traditional path, but is incredibly tedious in the Italy section toward the end. The same vacation dredged up over and over through different contexts. Mostly, I wanted to see if I could read a 304-page book in one day, since I had started reading it after I got up at 11 that morning. I can, but it's mighty hard when I've only got a tenuous connection to a book. I connected to a few things said, and loved the culinary descriptions, but it took some willpower to get through many portions of it. It wasn't a matter of forcing myself; I just wanted to see where the story went, though more out of curiosity than interest.
And yet, I loved how the evening turned out because the TV was off, I was sitting on the couch reading, and the entire living room was silent. Just me and a book. Mom, Dad and Meridith were in the other room, Mom resting because of heartburn, Dad watching his Korean soap opera, and Meridith reading Chore Whore by Heather H. Howard, one of my favorite novels, and one she was curious about.
Reading like I was, I felt so light inside and so did the air around me. I was exactly where I belonged. On to the next book and more of the same!
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