Manic Bookstore Cafe

Though it was in the 80s again on Saturday, I was in the mood for autumnal baking. It might be because I was reading MFK Fisher's  Alphabet for Gourmets . Despite her reputation as a French and/or California writer, one can find a Russian cast to her alphabet: although she disdainfully rejects the too-easy B is for Borscht, she does end the alphabet with Zakuski,  the ubiquitous Russian appetizers. Zakuski  generally serve as the beginning to a meal, and she does note that irony. MFK Fisher may have known an "extravagant hunger," as her biographer has it, but she surely didn't know the extreme thirst of a true Russian alcoholic. What Fisher may not have known is that sometimes, if the purpose of the gathering is drinking, zakuski may be the only food available... And I'm quite certain her circle of acquaintances did not extend to the truly hard-drinking Russian -- the kind who can drink even  without   zakuski,  merely by sniffing a piece ...

Being affiliated with a major university -- and knowing the right people who point you to cool events -- has its advantages. Yesterday I attended the Ohio State Theatre Research Institute lecture featuring Pamela Howard. This woman -- a "director, scenographer, visual theatre artist and educator" -- was amazingly smart, thoughtful, funny, generous, intelligent, talented. What can I say -- I was honored to be in her presence. Many people were there to find out about her current work-in-progress, a production based on Charlotte Salomon's graphic memoirs Life? or Theatre?  If you haven't heard of her, Charlotte Salomon was a 23-year-old Jewish refugee sheltering with her grandparents in Vichy France in 1940 when she learned of a strange fate that surely awaited her -- she learned that eight members of her family in the matrilineal line had committed suicide, a fact that had been hidden from her when her mother threw herself out a window in 1926 and only came to ligh...

Last weekend I went to a wedding where the couple were getting married a second time, for the benefit of their American friends and relatives. They had first married in Israel in May, and the mother-of-the-bride got up to thank them for "bookending" with joy and love this summer, so filled with tragedy and sadness. Israel, Syria, Afghanistan, Russia and Ukraine, not to mention Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria,  -- this has indeed been a terrible summer. But I take solace in the peaceful international border crossings that continue to go on, and the excitement of the young (and old) who continue to travel and study foreign places. Some of my friends, in their early 70s, did not even consider canceling a train trip they took in August from Beijing to Moscow. A student stopped by looking for volunteering or work opportunities next summer in Russia. My own Russian friends continue to send love and news, despite the rhetoric of our leaders who are accusing each other of lie...