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The last word -- the last recap of the RHONY Reunion Show Part 3 ... and it's too delicious not to share. Thank you Richard Lawson, you are now released from bondage to write whatever you want to write, wherever you want to write it. The harpies have harped and you have plucked their strings. As you have written beautifully and dare I say biblically:
"The Earth muttered and groaned, shifted its weight, began to make room for the next great big whatever."
I know, I know...never count your tomatoes, or your eggplants, before they ripen, but I finally scored me some Dipel Dust over at Farmer D Organics on Briarcliff Road. Dipel Dust is a formulation containing bacteria (Bacillus Thuringiensis). It's the choice of organic gardeners and presumably the least toxic pesticide you can buy to defeat the dastardly tomato hornworm (manduca quinquemaculata). For protection, I sprinkled Dipel Dust all over my eggplants which now look like they've been dusted with Colombian Marching Powder.
Hornworms go for nightshade plants -- potatoes, tomatoes and eggplant. These brilliant camouflage artists wait until the fruit is set and ripening, just when things are looking rosy, and then go to work chomping on your plants. It's tragic. I have blogged about them before and continue to inspect my plants daily for signs of hornworm damage. So far so good.
The problem with hornworms is that they lay eggs in the soil. Because I do so much container gardening, many of my large pots are infested. The remedy would be to empty them (too heavy) and replace with new soil. I can't manage that so I'm hoping, praying, that Dipel Dust does the trick.
They're calling it a separation, not a divorce. Sigh. After 40 years of marriage! What I hate about it is that it just makes separation and divorce seem like an acceptable, rational, and even laudable option. OK, so we're getting in each other's way a bit, and well, Tipper's not so "hot" anymore, and yeah, Al's on the road so much we're just ships passing in the night. And she snores, and he has a pot belly, so let's do the "sensible" thing and separate. We gave it 40 years, and that's a respectable amount of time, so fuck it all, let's get divorced. C'mon, this is Washington and success in marriage is just a "mystery." Besides, everybody does it.
Did anyone ask the Gore kids how they feel about it? Or the Gore grandchildren?
How dreadfully borrrring to be committed. How terribly tedious to be tied. Read here what we can learn about love and fidelity from pets.
Of course I know nothing about why the Gores are doing this. I'm just saying, it sucks.
Jennifer Homans: Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet
Brilliant and BIG new history of ballet. Cool to be reading this after "The Black Swan."
Zoe Heller: The Believers: A Novel
Fun novel of family dysfunction -- an iconic leftie family (think William Kunstler) in NYC wrestles with truth and and loyalty as the patriarch lies in a coma.
Patti Smith: Just Kids
Patti Smith's style is lean and direct, but she still grabs your heart and soul in this memoir of NYC in the 70's and her lifelong friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe.
Allegra Goodman: The Cookbook Collector: A Novel
I didn't even realize it was a riff on Jane Austin. Well done novel dealing with themes of family, greed, trust and identity during the dot com boom.
Howard Jacobson: The Finkler Question (Man Booker Prize)
Substitute "Jew" for Finkler and you have a biting and hilarious novel about Jews in England.
David Kamp: The United States of Arugula: The Sun Dried, Cold Pressed, Dark Roasted, Extra Virgin Story of the American Food Revolution
How I forgot to read this I'll never know...had a copy on the shelf and overlooked it. A very entertaining and well done overview of the Foodie Revolution. Putting all the players and trends into a time line makes me see how far we've come, and how far we still have to go.
Anthony Bourdain: Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook
The always entertaining Tony Bourdain comes to terms, sort of, with aging, old grudges, and the delights of fatherhood. He hasn't totally lost his edge, but there are some knicks on the blade. The chapter on the guy who breaks down 700 pounds of fish every day for Le Bernardin is worth the whole book.
Hilary Thayer Hamann: Anthropology of an American Girl: A Novel
Well, I finished it. And I liked it alot. But then, I love books about bourgeois life where nothing much happens. The writing is sharp and evocative. The story is, I dunno, familiar? Most interesting is the story of how this book went from a self-published effort to a mainstream book. Kudos to HTH.
Clay Shirky: Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age
A must read for anyone involved with social media or who is left breathless by the pace of change in our world.
