I've nothing Else - to bring, You know - / So I keep bringing These- (E.D. #253)

Emily Dickinson feels about right for the present moment, am cooped up, looking out a lot of windows, in my case moving between the couch and the bedroom. This morning, the light in the living room seemed more white than yellow, the light in the bedroom more yellow than white. But everything still felt blurry. Or, like I had to find the blurry in the sharp to tell the truth of right now.

Am sick. Am a lot less sick than I could be and let’s hope it stays that way, knock on wood. But still definitely, actually sick. I look sick. I sound sick. But, again, I don’t feel as bad as I know I could. I wish I weren’t sick. In fact, I wish I could go back in time and do one or two things differently, which might have prevented this, but.

That’s impossible. The light now is different than it was this morning. No surprises there. The light in the bedroom feels drab, even beige, but the bright red-orange-blue paisley of the duvet cover brightens the scene. Still, though. That’s the background. Not the foreground. The foreground—in the metaphorical sense, though not necessarily the artistic sense—is the gaze always looking out, or, in some cases, looking in. To extend rather than define the boundary.

Living room scene, white light. Blurry, out of focus, but the colors pop. Blue-gray sofa, white pillows, red quilt. White lampshade with a gold lamp post in the background, poster on wall. All set against a bank of windows, light streaming through the blinds.

Self-portrait of a smiling me, purposefully out of focus and overexposed. Gray watch cap set over brownish hair—side ponytail visible—and pink sleeveless shirt against white wooden bedstead. Motion shows in the photograph. Something’s wrong, but I’m showing up the way I want to and maybe that’s the most important thing.

Blurry bedroom. A white wooden chest of drawers, a brown hamper with a folded piece of clothing on top, a bank of windows covered in blinds but that hardly matters because the light streams through. White AC window unit. Radiator covered in cream paint below the window with a gray cat resting on top. Extremely blurry. Like watching a still tableau form underwater. Maybe the light isn’t yellow after all, or maybe it was at one point, just not at this moment, not in this frame. The truth is, the best way to blur an image is to get your subjects to move, but if that can’t or won’t happen, just move the camera instead.

TELL THE TRUTH BUT TELL IT SLANT (Edition 1)

Hallway (Underwater or Not)

Out of focus. Light-drenched. The top landing of the main stairwell of an apartment building. Brown, sepia, white. How the familiar can blur and in the strangeness we find ourselves all over again.

Cubist Self-Portrait

Mostly a face taking up the frame. The first field. Mostly a face moving into different positions, kinetically, for the benefit of a static lens. Or. Not static, not at all. Still. Ever-drinking. Ever-absorbing the wisps of brown hair, the faint ghosts of four blue eyes, the two mouths of pink, floating lips. In the background, warm yellow light glows in its fixture, white walls, a white arch, brown woodwork, an open brown door, a wood floor, a white bookcase, books.

Sunburst/Light Ghosts

Early morning. A bedroom scene. The focus clearer now. Or, considering the timeline, clear before the motifs got blurrier, cloudier, subjects less able to be ascertained. The way light first makes itself apparent. A perfect circle—a sphere, a disk, a globe—glows at the top righthand corner of the blinds. The blinds backlit, aflame. Darkish, elsewhere, shading the blue-white stripes of the duvet cover. Stuffed animals lie strewn across the bed, deep in shadow. A white dresser, an orange painting, a whirring ceiling fan, a brown wicker hamper, white walls, a white ceiling, a white radiator. Imperfections, too. Little scrapes of flourescence marring the photograph in two places. Maybe though. In the end. Gasps rather than flaws. Reminders of how everything needs to breathe.

45429+56+1

My mom died on May 17, 2024. 45429 is the result of entering 5/14/2024 into Excel, then converting the date to a general number. My original intention going forward was to post every Friday—every seventh day—a photo taken that day for as long as I wanted (or needed) to. Incidentally, 7 is also the number by which I count back from 100 to stave off panic. Eventually (read: almost immediately) the schedule became somewhat oppressive and impractical, but 7 still feels like an important unit by which to organize time.

A bank of windows. Cream sills. Beige Venetian blinds. White AC unit in the righthand window. Focus: blurry. Exposure: shutter at 2 seconds, aperture 22. All the light comes in at once.

45429+28-1

My mom died on May 17, 2024. 45429 is the result of entering 5/14/2024 into Excel, then converting the date to a general number. My original intention going forward was to post every Friday—every seventh day—a photo taken that day for as long as I wanted (or needed) to. Incidentally, 7 is also the number by which I count back from 100 to stave off panic. Eventually (read: almost immediately) the schedule became somewhat oppressive and impractical, but 7 still feels like an important unit by which to organize time.

In the foreground, an open book: Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King. Text on right page somewhat clear, blurrier on left page, plus left page striated by morning light coming in through the blinds. Book lies on duvet, cotton cover of wide denim-blue and white stripes. An afghan in various shades of blue also lies on the bed. All set against a dark, blurry background but the white keys of an electronic keyboard are just barely visible.

45429+21+1

My mom died on May 17, 2024. 45429 is the result of entering 5/14/2024 into Excel, then converting the date to a general number. My original intention going forward was to post every Friday—every seventh day—a photo taken that day for as long as I wanted (or needed) to. Incidentally, 7 is also the number by which I count back from 100 to stave off panic.

Life gets in the way sometimes and yesterday afternoon/evening after work mostly involved laundry and cleaning my apartment in anticipation of guests who might stop over before or after my mom’s memorial gathering. (However, as a general rule, I try to clean every Friday.) Then I watched an episode of Eric on Netflix. This morning, though, while folding laundry, I found my photos. Something about the blurriness of fairly complicated grief, the conundrum present in the question, “How are you doing?” which I mostly find impossible to answer, or maybe I don’t want to offer a response, because none feels complete. And then, something else about the only clarity I can find arriving with the lack of pressure inherent in more solitary scenes where no need exists to so much as place myself in the frame. Literally or figuratively. One way or another. This way or that.

Blurry (almost seasick) vertical image of a dining room/study area with white wooden bookshelves laden with books, colorful wall art, a gray litter box and mat, and the end of a white table with a printer on it in the background. In the foreground, a white metal dry rack sparsely hung with clothes: sports bras, a pair of cotton underwear with a floral print rimmed in bright orange and yellow, a gray t-shirt, a black tank top, and orange running shorts with white piping. All set against a golden brown wooden floor. A dark brown wooden door in the background dividing the dining area from the kitchen. How grammar can also always write out autobiography. The implication of the continuous—none of this is simple.

The focus sharpens. A clearer vertical image taken in a bedroom (where the laundry gets put away in the dresser and closet, both out of frame). In the upper lefthand corner: a white wooden nightstand with books, a box of tissues, several small spray bottles (lavender mist, dry mouth relief), a black smartphone connected to a white charger, a large bottle of lube. A white wooden headboard with white railings, bedding (duvet cover and pillowcases with stripes of soft denim blue and blowzy, beach-cotton white), a menagerie of stuffed animals (a huskie, one yellow and one black Angry Bird, a set of hugging monkeys, a frog, a guinea pig—plus a few others not quite visible). A pair of pink plaid (kariert) sleep shorts purchased at the Galeria Kaufhof department store in Bonn during a particularly hot summer. A black camera bag on the upper righthand side of the bed. (Process equalling comfort but also, always, proof of life.) All bathed in early morning, gray-day light plus a comfortable, soothing wash of cool shadow. Cream-white wall behind the bed and nightstand. Centered above the bed on that wall: a single, rectangular print of a Caspar David Friedrich painting framed in dark wood and portraying a solitary figure in a long coat (Mantel) and a broad, flat hat standing under moonlight with bowed head before a large horizontal slab of rock.

The focus softens but doesn’t blur haywire. Vertical shadow of the laundry drying rack, shot from the opposite direction, now with the living room in the background. Slight grain to some of the objects in the background, which include a bank of windows with closed Venetian blinds letting in scant, low, early morning light (more shadow and dark), a router in the far corner of the living room just below part of a framed print of the Caravaggio version of Judith beheading Holofernes, a black and gray exercise bike, a blue plastic cat toy, neon yellow-green dumbells, a cat’s scratching post, and (closer to the front) a dark gray-blue puffy sofa topped with fluffy white throw pillows and a folded red and blue flannel quilt. Behind the dry rack, a golden-brown wood floor partially covered by a cream area rug featuring a symmetrical blue and sepia swirly design meant to approximate (probably without success) the look and feel of a Persian rug. In the foreground, the now mostly-empty laundry rack bears only a number of ankle socks packed together in a few places. Everywhere else on the rack: empty space.

45429+14+1

My mom died on May 17, 2024. 45429 is the result of entering 5/14/2024 into Excel, then converting the date to a general number. My original intention going forward was to post every Friday—every seventh day—a photo taken that day for as long as I wanted (or needed) to. Incidentally, 7 is also the number by which I count back from 100 to stave off panic.

As it turns out, life gets in the way, and yesterday afternoon, I went on a happy hour tour with a friend and got a bit too tipsy on very good cider to take or post any photos. Nor could I ‘find’ my photo. This morning, though, on the way back up to my third-floor apartment after my run, I did.

Vertical picture of a shadowy back stairwell. Staircase is wooden, painted a deep, darkish gray. The building itself is constructed of reddish-brown brick. The brick wall in the background is a tiny bit blurry. In the upper righthand corner of the photo, a landing is visible, shining with stark, white, but still natural light.

45429 + 7

My mom died on May 17, 2024. 45429 is the result of entering 5/14/2024 into Excel, then converting the date to a general number. My intention going forward is to post every Friday—every seventh day—a photo taken that day for as long as I want (or need) to. Incidentally, 7 is also the number by which I count back from 100 to stave off panic.

Blurry photo of a living room…bare calves and feet with blue polish on the toenails and legs propped up on houndstooth ottoman, cream area rug with blue and sepia swirls on wood floor, guitar cases, gray cat and light blue plastic cat toy, closet door with full-length mirror showing reflection of part of an exercise bike, plastic fan on top of stereo set on floor, white media stand with flat-screen TV showing scene from Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries.

Recommendations-10/9/2023

Getting Started

The Adoption of Johnny Depp from the 1491s: The 1491s are a Native comedy troupe I first encountered while reading We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans & Comedy by Kliph Nesterhoff (see previous newsletter for more on this title). I ended up spending some time checking out their sketch comedy on YouTube. Some of the jokes went over my head—not surprising, considering the group’s goal is to create comedy by Natives for other Natives. This particular bit, though, sends up Johnny Depp in a Dateline-esque “reenactment” and eyewitness account of that one time he was adopted by the Comanches. Funny on many levels, all the more so post-, well, you know, the big brouhaha.

Recent Reads

Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed by Dashka Slater: An account of a truly awful and deeply racist Instagram account started and followed by a small number of high school students in Albany, California—all in the name of so-called “edgy” humor. (One part of this book that I appreciated—a fulsome explanation of how at least some kids these days, especially boys, use social media and how many adults do not understand this.) Slater carefully and thoughtfully details not only the perplexing motivations and thought processes of the individuals creating and liking posts and/or scrolling through without intervening but also the heartbreaking—and predictable—effects on those targeted.

The author also details how the school district bungled its response to the situation at every step of the way, including an attempt at restorative justice that went horribly awry, in large part because the single session was not conducted according to best practices. In my view, one of the most interesting aspects of the story were the tensions that erupted between the parents of the account followers and the parents of those targeted in racist posts. On the one hand, the sometimes white parents—genuinely horrified by the racist actions of their children—made misguided attempts to explain that they themselves were not racist. On the other hand, some of the parents of those targeted insisted in an (in my view) equally misguided way that the racist attitudes expressed in the online posts must have been learned in the students nuclear households. (See above about adults not always understanding and/or taking into account how social media works or the pervasive influence it can have over young people—or ask any elementary school teacher about the influence of Andrew Tate over their young male charges.)

Slater carefully and thoughtfully details how adults in a small community added to already boiling-over tension by saddling onto the actions of…well, stupid teenagers their (justified) anger over centuries of systemic racism, their own white guilt or desire not to be seen as racist as a result of the racist actions of their children, or deeply-held beliefs about free speech/how legal protections should work—including with regards to the privacy of minor offenders. (Without losing sight of the fact that the specifically anti-Black racism expressed in the posts would not even exist if not for the centuries of systemic racism.) Actually YA Nonfiction, the book interested me on a formal level as well—the shorter chapters, the voice, and occasional use of verse all led to meaningful impact but with enough depth and breadth to maintain my adult interest.

Podcast

There Are No Girls on the Internet hosted by Bridget Todd: I’ve really enjoyed listening to various episodes of this podcast detailing, well, life online. Among other things, the host has chronicled Elon Musk’s series of self-inflicted wounds over in the Twitter-as-was/X-as-is space, but the episode I enjoyed most was inspired by Ashton Kutcher’s letter in support of Danny Masterson during the penalty phase of the latter’s rape trial.

A little context—I am much less online than I used to be and haven’t paid too much attention to the ensuing controversy. My basic understanding is that these letters are a normal part of the penalty phase, something I have zero problems with though I have witnessed some outrage on that count alone. Nor does Todd seem interested in litigating that. The host is most concerned with a different aspect of Ashton Kutcher’s identity—his anti-trafficking work. (On a side note, I did manage to see no small number of people defending his letter because of all the work he does in that space. Okay, maybe I’m still a little more online than I’d like to be.)

In the episode, Todd points out that it’s really important to take a closer look when anti-trafficking comes up and details the history of Kutcher’s so-called anti-trafficking activities under the umbrella of his foundation—first founded with Demi Moore, then rebranded after their very messy public split. Todd carefully shows how Kutcher’s work has done little to prevent harm to children even as it has done real and lasting harm to consenting adult sex workers. I also appreciated the breakdown of harmful  SESTA and FOSTA laws, which Kutcher’s foundation supported and a discussion about how the numbers anti-trafficking organizations use to support their fund-raising activities (cha-ching!) are thoroughly inaccurate.

Film/Television

Corsage: Marie Kreutzer’s phenomenal take on Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1837-1898) with Vicky Krieps in the starring role. The figure of Elisabeth (AKA Sisi/Sissi) may be familiar to many in the English-speaking world from the Netflix series Die Kaiserin. The Netflix show’s first season follows fifteen-year-old Sisi’s courtship with the young Kaiser, then her struggle to adjust to court life where the freedoms she enjoyed as a girl in Bavaria are revoked and her high spirits are less appreciated. Her every move also faces enormous public scrutiny. (For a number of reasons, Sisi and Princess Diana have earned a comparison.)

Corsage, though, follows an older, more jaded Elisabeth. At forty, she struggles to maintain her impossible thinness and suffers under the (literal) weight of her famously long hair. On the domestic front, whatever romance that may have existed at the beginning of her relationship with Kaiser Franz has long since soured. Mostly, Elisabeth seems overwhelmed by an existential case of ennui, her only sanctioned role to show up and look pretty. Always unsuited to life in the nineteenth-century Austrian version of The Firm (supposedly how the British royal family refers to itself), she also suffers the indignity of being criticized by her children for not keeping up Kaiserin-like appearances.

Corsage details—in a somewhat ahistorical fashion—Elisabeth’s slow escape from her gilded cage. Backed by an ethereal soundtrack from Camille, the film operates along the lines of wish fulfillment by offering the central character the oblivion she seeks even as any audience familiar with Elisabeth’s story knows that—in reality—true escape was never a possibility.

Another Look

Prime Suspect: When this groundbreaking British police procedural starring Helen Mirren as Detective Chief Inspector (later promoted to Detective Superintendent) Jane Tennison first aired, I was a teenager, well able to pick up on all the misogyny and institutionalized sexism the protagonist faced. As she slogged through and solved case after case, she became kind of a hero of mine. Because she didn’t take shit from anyone. Because she gave as good as she got. Recently, at the much wiser and more worldly age of forty-eight, I sat down and watched (almost) all seven seasons through again and, well, I have some thoughts. The first thing I noticed? She may have been a trailblazer, gender-wise, but first and foremost, Jane Tennison was a cop. And for all the ground the series purportedly broke, it’s easy to see how the series also laid the foundation for so many of the toxic policing myths foisted upon the ever-growing number of viewers of a genre that keeps so many of us riveted in our seats, even when deep down inside, we know better.

A few things I noticed…Jane is doggedly determined. She always gets her man (or woman) in the end, but in a lot of ways she goes by her gut even when there’s no evidence to support her theory. In other words, it’s the detective’s hunch that’s going to solve the case, not the careful gathering and analysis of evidence. Of course, in TV-land, hunches lead to the apprehension of the real criminals rather than tunnel vision and railroading—real-world problems. In another instance of damaging crime-drama mythology, Jane stubbornly refuses to revisit a case she closed when questions of innocence arise. Again, of course she turns out to be right, whereas this kind of recalcitrance in the real world can have devastating effects. 

This rewatch also had me picking up a lot more with regards to sexism. As a teenager, again, I viewed Jane as some kind of feminist hero. Mostly, I think, because she was a trailblazer. This time around, I noticed Jane could—at times—be something of a queen bee. (Why women operate like this—or perhaps more accurately feel they need to—is worthy of an entire essay or  book on its own, one that’s probably been written many times over.) On the other hand, I felt genuine rage on Jane’s behalf as a result of a first season domestic subplot. See, Jane has a live-in boyfriend, Peter. As the show kicks off, she is presented as a loving and supportive partner. But then— on account of getting a once-in-a-lifetime big break at work—she suddenly has less time for him. This eventually results in Peter dumping Jane because for some reason she needs to be the one to boil water, cook noodles, toss the finished pasta with (prepackaged!!) smoked salmon, seasoning, and cream, then serve fruit and cheese for dessert. To impress his boss. Peter can’t even seem to bring himself to do the shopping to help prepare for the big dinner despite the fact that he seems to be only nominally employed and have a lot more free time than Jane. His final accusation boils down to: BuT JaNe I jUsT wAnTeD yOu To Do SoMeThInG fOr Me! Don’t get me wrong. Obsessed with the case, Jane does slack off at home. But the consequences she faces as a result only left me with questions (and rage) about the expectations weighing on her shoulders in the first place.

Full disclosure: At the time of this writing, I haven’t yet finished watching the series. I hit pause in the middle of the final episode. Series Seven is utterly devastating—at least so far—in that Jane comes so close to finally finding some care and comfort for the awful wear and tear multiple decades of police work have worn on her psyche. But then—in an awful twist—tragedy rips away that care and comfort at the very moment it’s needed most, leaving Jane to flounder on her own. When I left her, she was well on her way to alienating anyone at all who might offer some small bit of emotional succor.

The final episode also plays on Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s short story, “The Pledge,” about a detective on his last case who promises a victim’s family that he will find the perpetrator, a decision which will haunt the detective. (For a full-fledged retelling of this Dürrenmatt story and examination of this trope, see the 2001 film The Pledge, directed by Sean Penn and starring Jack Nicholson, Robin Wright, and Benicio del Toro. Bonus: Helen Mirren also appears.) The truth is, I probably will finish Prime Suspect. Narrative is a powerful drug and I would like to see Jane’s story through to the end. For better or worse, I’ve learned so much from watching—from the reality of the lives of women during a certain time period to the way tropes begin and spread until they take on lives of their own.

Recommendations-September 2023

Getting Started

The Hu: I have been listening to the Mongolian metal band The Hu a lot lately and their video for “Bii Biyelgee” in particular gives me a lot of life. Lots of dancing and leaping. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

 Recent Reads

Joan by Katherine J. Chen: This reimagining of Joan of Arc’s life strips the central character down to a fierce, martial, not-quite-so-religious core, grounding Joan’s driving motivations in her childhood in Domremy and her experience of the Hundred Years’ War. While the novel details Joan’s successes—for example, the Siege of Orleans—Chen also paints her downfall not as the result of bad luck—being captured by the Burgundians at Compiegne—but as a slow fall from the Dauphin’s graces on account of court intrigue, a reality Joan isn’t equipped to deal with or even recognize due to her peasant background. As a result, this lushly detailed historical novel serves also as a  powerful and thoughtful meditation on worldly power and authority even as the author considers—through Joan’s eyes—what truly serving the world—and the divine—might mean.

Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma by Claire Dederer: I devoured this book over the course of an evening and the next morning. I had previously encountered an excerpt published in The Paris Review under the title, “What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?” The excerpt’s title, however, doesn’t quite do the larger book justice as Dederer seems much more concerned with exploring the how and the why behind our reactions than in offering any pat answers about what we should do with the work. The section on (some) men scolding women for reacting negatively—for very justifiable and sometimes complex reasons she carefully details—to Woody Allen’s Manhattan is brilliant. (In case you’ve just arrived to Earth from Mars, Manhattan revolves around a 42-year-old man played by Woody Allen dating a…sorry, throwing up a bit in my mouth here while typing…high schooler. On a personal note: Woody Allen’s films have meant so much to me over the course of my life, but even when I considered myself a huge fan, Manhattan was one I could never bring myself to watch.) Other highlights include the author’s analysis on so-called “abandoning mothers,” who put the importance of their art on par with the importance of their children. (Which she juxtaposes to the fact that absolutely no one ever ever refers to male writers and/or artists this way.) At one point, Dederer writes that—I’m paraphrasing here—over the course of [I forget how many years, but it was a lot], her primary artistic concern has been childcare. This book is full of such gems.

We Had a Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native Americans & Comedy by Kliph Nesterhoff: Named for Oneida comedian Charlie Hill’s most famous joke, this book serves not only to highlight the well-established but largely ignored existence of Native Americans in comedy but also to ground the reader in the all-too-often racist history of Native Americans first in entertainment—beginning with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West shows—then in the film and television industry, detailing along the way how Native Americans have always advocated for realistic depictions. Comedy historian Nesterhoff structures the text as an oral history, thus giving his subjects the opportunity to tell their own stories in their own words.  Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the book is its examination of humor both as a natural cousin to the long-established practice of teasing within many Native cultures and as a survival strategy in the face of inherited trauma.

The Verifiers by Jane Pek: An all-around fun read. Pek’s novel tells the story of Claudia Lin, who works—in both sanctioned and unsanctioned ways—as a detective of sorts for Veracity, a company that verifies information on online dating profiles for interested parties. The stakes rise when a client turns up mysteriously dead and Lin throws herself into investigating what happened. Interwoven with this story is the story of the protagonist’s immigrant family and her resistance to aspiring to the myth of the model minority.

From the Shelf

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite: Braithwaite’s novel was published in 2019, but including here after my participation in a library book group prompted a recent second read-through. I zipped through the 240 pages in one-and-a-half sittings, not because the novel is a page-turner in the sense of a traditional thriller, but rather because I delighted in reading of the protagonist’s genuinely bizarre predicament—she acts as a kind of support staff intent on keeping her narcissistic serial killer sister out of trouble. Well worth a first read, but this second read-through had me digging deeper into issues surrounding the narrator’s own culpability and the origin story of the serial killer herself. There’s also a great bit for our age in which the serial killer sister starts a fake Instagram campaign after the man she’s been dating goes mysteriously ‘missing.’

Podcast

Lolita Podcast: I listened to Jamie Loftus’s ten-part breakdown of Nabokov’s novel and the resulting cultural phenomenon a while back but was reminded of its existence after reading about Nabokov as the “anti-Monster” in Claire Dederer’s book described above. I found the podcast to be incredibly illuminating. At this point, I think I may actually finally be ready to read the book, which I had previously decided to avoid for all eternity because of how I kept seeing it pop up on various men’s magazine lists of “100 Books Every Man Should Read,” invariably because it is somehow supposed to be the ultimate book about ‘desire,’ a description which has always left me feeling a little, um, squishy. Loftus, though, digs a lot deeper.

Film/Television

Gaslit: This eight-part limited series (based on Slate’s Slow Burn) tells the Watergate story anew and centers most particularly around the polarizing figure of Martha Mitchell (Julia Roberts), the glamorous and outspoken wife of Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell (Sean Penn). One of the few people to tell the truth from the beginning, Martha was actually imprisoned against her will at one point. (As it turns out, “the Martha Mitchell effect” is a term used in psychiatry to this day to describe a delusional story that turns out to be true, which says a lot about how Mitchell was treated in her own time.) My favorite aspect of the show was to see how unfolding events highlighted the limits of personal power and charisma—Martha’s, in this case—in the face of patriarchy and misogyny. In other words, being a ‘strong woman’ won’t save you if the entire system is against you. Bonus: Gaslit also features Dan Stevens of Downton Abbey and Eurovision fame as a wily, whiney but ultimately somehow (??!!) likeable John Dean.

Cookery

Trejo’s Cantina: Cocktails, Snacks & Amazing Nonalcoholic Drinks from the Heart of Hollywood by Danny Trejo with Hugh Garvey: Danny Trejo is a gift and so is this cookbook. Worth it for the nonalcoholic drinks alone—so far I’ve made Manzana Verde (a kind of green apple Agua fresca with cinnamon-honey syrup and lime), Morchata (horchata, but even better), Watermelon Agua Fresca (with lime and Tajin), and Cucumber-Jalapeño Agua Fresca. The snacks are great too. (So far I’ve made the Avocado and Elote Salsas. Both delicious.) Well worth having on the shelf, but this cookbook would also make a superb gift for someone who likes to entertain.

2022 READING HIGHLIGHTS

2022 was a year of all-around change for me. First nine-to-five office job in years, plus living on my own, meaning adding chores, cooking, etc., on top of that. Plus, all the business of staying alive…working out, hanging out. During the first part of the year, when I was still adjusting to the whole divorce/move to the US thing, I also developed a parasocial relationship with my television set, which involved me spending a lot of time binge-watching Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, among other shows. As a result, I ended up reading less than in years past, seventy-two books, which for me is an only seventy-two books. This year…I might clock in at even less, because I have been writing more again, which is nice, but it also takes time.

A few highlights, though, the only order here being the order in which I read the books. More description on some entries than on others, which doesn’t mean much either. (Also, the next list of recommendations will be much shorter, but this list encompasses an entire year.)

Dublin Murder Squad Series by Tana French (Novels)

It’s hard for me not to think of any crime-writing as a wee bit escapist, but the truth is Tana French is a great writer, period. I put her right up there with Henning Mankell as a writer who transcends any genre and who I can get absolutely lost in, yes, in that escapist way, but still feel satisfied by amazing plotting, fantastic characterization, and all-around great writing. (There are six books in the series. I spaced these out throughout the year.)

Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

One of the most fantastic things about living in the US again, and more specifically about living at my address, is that I am a mere two or so blocks from the local library. Pretty much anything I want to read is available through interlibrary loan, but I also (finally, after seven years) get to browse and find things I don’t necessarily go in looking for but end up delighted to have found. Lincoln in the Bardo was probably my first oh-I’ve-heard-that-novel’s-pretty-good random find on the library shelf right after getting my library card. And I was not disappointed. I love fiction that plays with form, is experimental in a way, but still adheres to the idea that what is happening here is first and foremost a story.

Book of the Other: Small in Comparison by Truong Tran

I actually ordered this book to be delivered to my parents’ house before I even left Germany, so it was waiting for me when I got there. Genuinely beautiful in form and language, this book details a discrimination case brought by the author against his employer, who (twice, if memory serves) passed him over for a promotion in favor of practicing some serious nepotism. The subtitle comes from something somebody said about the author (as in: the author is ‘small in comparison’ to this other person we are going to hire, based on nepotism). Nothing ‘small’ to see here, though.

Black Buck by Matteo Askeripur

A hilarious send-up of start-up culture. Enough said, I think.

Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

I really enjoy this author’s work. Lush and gothic, this is the second of her novels that I have read and I currently have a third on my to-read list.

Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler

One of my goals in life is to read more by both this author and Ursula K. LeGuin. This is only the second Butler novel I’ve read—the other being Kindred, her time-travel book where her protagonist keeps going back and forth between the present day and the pre-Civil War south, though not necessarily in a way she can control. Fledgling is a sci-fi vampire novel and I was not disappointed.

Manifesto: On Never Giving Up by Bernardine Evaristo

Another author I have come to more recently. I first read her Booker Prize-winning Girl, Woman, Other, which was amazing, then I read her verse novel, The Emperor’s Babe, and her alternative history, Blonde Roots. Manifesto is her memoir and a testament to indefatigability, which in my own lived experience, is a very useful quality to cultivate.

Fan Fiction by Brent Spiner

Brent Spiner is a gift. And this is a very funny novel, provided you are fluent in NextGen.

Nina Gladitz’s German-language biography of Leni Riefenstahl

I have no idea if/when this will be translated, but the beautiful thing about this book is that the author painstakingly lays out the case behind the truth of Leni Riefenstahl’s existence. That she was. A. Nazi. Punkt. Schluss. Not some feminist, glass-ceiling-breaking icon because idk she played with and made her way in the same arena as powerful (Nazi!) men (which disgustingly is apparently an argument that has been made) but just, again, you know. A Nazi. Who did Nazi crimes. But for some reason whom a lot of people went on to glamorize in extremely troubling ways.

Ex Machina by Brian K. Vaughn and Tony Harris

A friend at work loaned me the entire trade paperback run of this comic series about a politician/superhero (who maybe is kind of a fuck-up as a superhero, if memory serves) and honestly, yes, kind of escapist reading, but sometimes that’s what I need. I read these in March and April, when the novelty of living alone was starting to wear off and the reality of having transplanted myself geographically (again) in middle age was settling on me and I didn’t even have a cat yet and was starting to feel pretty lonely. So, I have kind of a soft spot for these comics, even though I think they are probably pretty good on their own (if you like comics). They got me through a rough time.

The Every by Dave Eggers

Various readers I have met have had very extreme reactions to The Circle and The Every, both of which are send-ups of Facebook corporate culture. Personally, I loved both novels though. I appreciate satire in general and enjoy hyperbole (when done well, as it is in this case, in my opinion) and the one-piece, form-fitting bodysuits everyone wears in this novel were honestly chef’s kiss.

Black Hole by Charles Burns

A classic graphic novel that brutally summarizes the horror of being a teenager.

And Those Ashen Heaps That Cantilevered Vase of Moonlight by Lynn Xu

I loved this book not only for the poetry but for the feeling of the book itself as artifact. A lot of play with typography in a book-as-art kind of way.

Daughters of Harriet by Cynthia Parker-Ohene

A collection of poetry I enjoyed for the language, the range in form, and themes addressed. So, the whole thing.

Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair by Sarah Schulman

A genuinely important book that I reread probably about once a year. There’s a lot here to admire, notably including Schulman’s commentary on good and bad friend groups. In my own words, a bad friend group would be a friend group who takes your side no matter what for the sake of loyalty alone, even if you are absolutely in the wrong, whereas a good friend group would encourage you to learn and grow while continuing to love you. One goal in my life is to at some point be part of a discussion group where we talk about this book. One criticism I would share would be that I think Shulman’s background as a lesbian and in queer theory has led her to make some statements that may be downright troubling when applied to some heterosexual relationships. For example, she sets a lot of store in listening to people, in hearing people out as a way to prevent escalation. And yet I can fairly accurately say that I have experienced cases and known other women to experience instances when allowing someone back in, in order to let them speak their mind, has backfired.

Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nations by Kristin Kobes Du Mez

The subtitle says it all. Christian Nationalists being Christian Nationalists. Scary and sad.

Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong

In my opinion, Cathy Park Hong is one of the most original, interesting writers around. I’d already read her essay on the white avant-garde and her three collections of poetry (each with increasing interest) and was not disappointed by her essays.

Artful by Ali Smith

I celebrate Ali Smith’s entire oeuvre.

Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian

One of those books I never would have read if not for a book group. About a young woman accused of witchcraft in New England (but not during the Salem witch trials). A page-turner.

Tell Me I’m An Artist by Chelsea Martin

The protagonist is a low-income student in art school. There’s a lot here recognizable to anyone who has any kind of MFA whatsoever, including in writing, in my opinion. But most of all, a lot to unpack about privilege and who ‘gets’ to make art.

Shutter by Ramona Emerson

A fast read. A crime scene photographer who can commune with the ghosts of the victims (at great personal cost to herself), who point her to clues in the investigation.

Communion: The Female Search for Love by bell hooks

Hey! It’s okay to want love! A refreshing read in this age of infinite chill we find ourselves in.

The Braid by Lauren Levin

I’ve wanted to read this for years, but when I was in Germany this book was inaccessible to me. I’m not sure exactly how I would describe it. Maybe…the utter vulnerability brought on to the self by the condition of parenting (and therefore, loving) in a what is ever-more-becoming a police state.

Small Game by Blair Braverman

A good, short, quick read about a wilderness reality TV show gone horribly awry.

Self-Portraits, Warm Light, Sun Coming Up

Looking for something through the camera’s eye.

Trying to figure out what it means to be well after being ill, it’s not the same thing as always having been well. There’s going to be some kind of rupture within the smoothness, not unlike sentences begun anew halfway through.

Dress from a former life in a far-off place.

Maybe the trick is understanding I’m a bird that is strange and the colors of my feathers have to be invented without relying on any existing shades.

Makeup from here and there, plus that sore on the corner of my mouth, dry skin, how the toothpaste worries it.

Or, I’m sitting near a window in the streaming morning light, attempting to come up with a theory of what it means to dismantle then reassemble. The body, the mind guiding that body, a kind of jigsaw puzzle. In that even after I manage to fit all the pieces together, I have to live with the knowledge that fault lines exist, the shape may not hold.

Black spilling off black under gold.

Maybe now the situation, going slowly down off the meds, can be compared to these ancestors of dogs racing out of my skirts. To the part of me that’s not tame but still has the capacity to crawl close to the fire. For companionship and warmth.

Hair, always, cross of light.

Writing the history of my body as one human wishing, breaking out of every cage in the world, half-wanting, half-needing to know how long this deep middle calm can, will, hold.

I INVENT A YOU BC I NEED SOMEWHERE TO COME BACK FROM

hello new quiet soft as mauve

heather now the field

no longer a lawn or a sea     there never

was a sea at all     only ever a

placeholder

breath under a flood

long chains of your eyes peering some other way

way as in that field we sat in     that

sky-skim     wide-vast

clouds drifting thin above our heads

is it okay if I still say

meet me in this sea of grass

in the meadow’s heart

ah how hours fall through glass in your company

how I temporarily don’t notice these dirty

emerald stains on our skin     you tell me smear

isn’t a bad word     that what are

stains if not proof of existence in this sea

where we are always also at large

hello utter enveloping illuminated realm

hello I imagine us in that water

true that a great voice took over momentarily

the brain such a vaulted hall of mystery

the secret though is that you are and aren’t a person

yes a tide comes in sweeps me out undertow too

to break free I swim parallel to the shore

see I still have a few tricks up my sleeve

but what has happened to this timeline

to this glass polished into a mirror

I mean actually a loud strict voice shouting

the brain a real ocean a wild tangle of kelp

hello that’s why I invent a gentle hand

one soft imaginary palm to brush against my cheek

maybe if I tell myself this is a picnic

      all this light     in some park or

at the beach     sand sky water

grass dirt sand     sky     however my

true location is indoors sitting at this table

drinking tea again lemon ginger

delivering a little pep talk to myself

you’ve got this! jenny! you’re indefatigable!

ah I have lived so many lives in this skin

in my clothes for example those

brilliant white pants I allow myself to wear

only in photographs     no dirty green

patches allowed     by now the voice

has disappeared     please

don’t think I need saving just for this

performance to come to an end     

SUNDAY/DAY BOOK

A good mug.

sweet the honey

dribbles my chin

light on teeth

when I asked you: where are you going?

what I really meant was: where have you been?

and: do you know light is a record?

now what the sun swallows

I possess a new shadow

the way I slurp down this tea

my throat from a good mug

a good mug of constant pottery

the way hibiscus

stains the white tablecloth

who I you belong to we us never mind

DAGBOEK 11 November 2021

het begin

in het begin

de verdwijning,

     de verschijning

van taal

de verdwijning,

      de verschijning

van verhalen

het verhaal

lukt, een

toezegging, wat ik van je

gebruik, ook beloftes

kom met me

wij kunnen

samen door nieuwe

velden lopen,

dat oud gebouw

vinden waar het

gesprak

vliegt, open

vensters, laten

licht en lucht

binnen

DAGBOEK 2 November 2021

What’s with the blogging in Dutch? We are moving to the Netherlands in March. Here I am talking about, among other things, clothes from H&M falling apart, and my ongoing summary of the comic book I’m reading (in Dutch), an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Moord in de Bibliotheek, featuring Miss Marple.

Iedere les stellt mijn lerares me vragen.

Wat heb je in de afgelopene tijd gemaakt?

Sinds vorige donderdag heb ik veel gemaakt.

Ich heb mijn oude kleren en schoenen doorzocht. Ik denk, wij gaan verhuizen, ik moet beslissen wat ik nog wil houden, en wat ik verder niet wil houden. Ik heb hele veel kleren, die ik niet meer squaregebruik. Vroeger heb ik te vaak bij H&M eingekoopt. De kleren die van H&M verkopt worden zijn zeer goedkoopig maar soms ook uit einvuidige materiaalen gemaakt worden. Dus gaan ze snel kapot. Deze kleren moet ik wegwerpen. Maar andere kleren zijn nog goed, ik wil ze graag niet meer. Deze kleren geef ik aan een vrienden en misschien kan ze de kleren op de vlooeinmarkt verkopen. Wat ze daar niet kan verkopen, probeer ik online te verkopen.

Ik heb ook verder in Miss Marple gelezen. De man die de politie opgebelt heb, te zeggen dat de jonge danseres verdwenen is, woont in het hotel waar de danseres gewerkt heb. Hij woont met zijn schoonzoon en schoondochter. Er was op zakenreis met zijn zoon en dochter, toen er een grote ongeluk met het vliegtuig was. Nu zijn zijn zoon en dochter dood. Maar he probeert de familie bij elke te houden. Zijn schoonzoon en schoondochter bleven trouw an de nagedachtenis van hun man en vrouw. En de danseres heeft veel tijd met deze man besteed. Maar alles is in het nette gebleven, dat was genegenheid puur, ze deed hem denken an zijn dochter.

Verder heb ik nog niet gelezen.

DAGBOEK 18 Oktober 2021

Vanochtend ben ik om tien over half vijf wakker geworden en om vijf uur opgestaan. Daarna heb ik Nederlands geleerd. Grammatik. Woordenlijsten herhaalen. Ik schrijf ook mijn eigene woordenlijsten. De vocabulaire komt uit stripromans die ik lees. Later wil ik gaan joggen.

 Vandaag leer ik ook over de klok. De klok in het Nederlands werkt niet zoals de klok in het Engels. Oké. Dat is hoe het is.

 Mijn taalboek stellt vragen en ik geef antwoorden.

 De eerste vraag. Hoe laat sta jij normal op?

In de week sta ik normal voor zes uur op. Dan leer ik Nederlands en lees boeken. Romans. Poëzie. Alles. In het weekend slaap ik liever uit.

 De tweede vraag. Wat eet en drink je’s morgens?

s’ Morgens drink ik koffie met havermelk. Normal gesproken eet ik een milkshake voor het ontbijt. Vruchten, yoghurt, amandelmelk, snijbiet, lijnzaad. Dat smaakt lekker.

De derde vraag. Wanneer vertrekt je naar school of naar je werk?

Dat verschilt van dag tot dag. Elke vrijtag, bijvoorbeeld, verlaat ik m’n huis om vijf voor half tien. De bus naar het station vertrekt om half tien. De reis duurt tien minuten. De trein vertrekt om kwart voor tien. De kans dat ik hem mis, is dus klein. De reis duurt tien minuten. Ik kom om tien uur in de de school an, altijd op tijd. Ik kom liever niet te laat, omdat ik niet wil dat mijn leerling moet wachten.

De vierde vraag. Tot hoe laat ben je op school of op je werk?

Dat verschilt ook van dag tot dag. Op vrijtag, bijvoorbeeld, werk ik normal gesproken tot half vier. Maar soms houd ik wat eerder op.

 Maar ik heb nog niet veel over de klok gesproken.

Laten we de klok nu eens bekijken.

Bijvoorbeeld.

Om vijf uur wakker geworden.

Om zes uur opgestaan.

De tijd tussen—

5:05 vijf over vijf

5:10 tien over vijf

5:15 kwart over vijf

5:20 tien voor half zes

5:25 vijf voor half zes

5:30 half zes

5:35 vijf over half zes

5:40 tien over half zes

5:45 kwart voor zes

5:50 tien voor zes

5:55 vijf voor zes

6:00—Ik kan het niet meer. Hier eindigt mijn dagboek voor vandaag.

DAGBOEK 17 Oktober 2021

het huis

de sleutel van het huis

om het huis in te gaan

met de sleutel in de hand

maar de duur blijft half gesloten

s’ Ochtends ben ik om vier uur wakker geworden, en daarna heb ik één uur Nederlands geleerd. Grammatik. En daarna ben ik weer in slaap gevallen tot seven uur. Dan heb ik verder Nederlands geleerdt. Ik schrijf mijn eigene woordenlijsten, die woorden komen uit stripromans die ik lees. Daarna heb ik yoga gedaan. Ik heb een niewe yogamat gekopt. Niet vandaag, in Duitsland zijn alle winkel op zondag gesloten, maar gisteren. s’ ochtends heb ik één uur yoga gedaan om te ontspannen. Dat was helemaal goed.

 Een nieuwe taal leren vergt geduld en een beetie moed.

Wat ik leer? Ik moet over kleine onbelangrijke dingen praten voor mijn tong kan lopen. Hier zijn vijf onbelangrijke dingen.

Vandaag is zondag.

Ik begon om twee uur in mijn dagboek te schrijven.

Ik ben al gaan joggen.

Ik heb soep gegeten als lunch.

Ik wil dat mijn tong kan rennen, ik hab veel moed maar wenig geduld.

nog een ding

de duur half dicht maar

maar altijd deze sleutel in mijn hand

Lotte

(Lotte is the love interest of Werther in Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther. Sadly, for Werther, she’s engaged to Albert, and Werther, despondent, kills himself. The book caused a stir when it was published and even inspired copycat suicides. I wrote this poem in Lotte’s voice, thinking about who gets left behind….I also wrote about my own relationship to Goethe’s novella and Sturm und Drang more generally in my chapbook The New Sorrow Is Less Than the Old Sorrow, which you can check out here.)

Lotte

 eine stimme sagt mir heiser

steh wach in deiner neuen welt

aber so einfach ist das nicht

mittlerwiele trage ich

die glieder mit denen er

hitze und kälte spürte innerhalb

meiner eigenen zurück-

gelassenen glieder

bald gibt’s abendessen

unterhaltung mit albert

ich bin die frau der zwei häute

was ist ein leib

ein lächeln      fleischige

ohrläppchen      eine bestimmte

art den ellenbogen zu halten

meere von blut

sonst nichts

And here’s a rough translation, but rough mind you…

a voice tells me hoarsly / wake up to your new world / but it’s not that simple // meanwhile I wear / the limbs with which he felt / hot and cold within my own, left- / behind limbs // soon it will be time for dinner / conversation with Albert // I am the woman of two skins // what is a body // a smile fleshy / ear lobes a particular / way of holding an elbow / seas of blood / nothing more than that

Anyways, I find it difficult to translate line-breaks and I don’t think I’m very good at it.

Thanks for reading!

UNHEIMLICHE LUFT

(It’s been a hard year, all the more so because I thought 2021 would magically turn out to be a much better year than 2020, but we’re already at the beginning of August and whatever magic I was expecting hasn’t happened yet. Haven’t done much cooking or taken many photographs lately, but I have occasionally been writing little prose pieces in German. A while back we had bona fide tornado watch conditions here in Dortmund, which thoroughly freaked me out, and this piece—the title translates approximately to '“Eerie Air”—was inspired by that.)

Unheimliche Luft

 Blau. Blaues Licht. Ich will mich hinlegen, eine Zeitschrift durchblättern, aber die Wolken — der Himmel droht.

 Grau. Graues Licht. Alles still. Zu still. Die Kindheit in Illinois, kommt ein Wirbelsturm? Müssen wir alle in den Keller? Hier gibt es keinen Keller, nur eine Tiefgarage. Ob sie ausreicht.

 Jetzt, hier, in der Mitte von Deutschland, inmitten blauen, grauen Lichts. Der alten Angst weit entfernt, aber dieses neue Kribbeln im Bauch. Augen weit geöffnet, ich darf die Wolken nicht außer Acht lassen. Ob Augen den Himmel in Schach halten können.

 Leises Flüstern unter meiner Haut, wo soll man hin, was kann man machen, wo steckt die Katze, sie muss auch in Sicherheit gebracht werden, ein kalter Fluss durch den Leib.

Grau-grün. Grau-grünes Licht der Kindheit, bleib weg. Keine Himmelsfarbe ist gefährlicher als grün. Bevor es grün wird, lass den Regen kommen, um dieser Stille ein Ende zu geben.

and a rough translation, but rough mind you….

Eerie Air

Blue. Blue light. I want to lie down, page through a magazine, but the clouds—the threatening sky.

Gray. Gray light. Everything still. Too still. My childhood in Illinois, is a tornado coming? Do we need to go to the cellar? There’s no cellar here, only an underground parking garage. If that’s good enough.

Now, here, in the middle of Germany, in the midst of blue, gray light. Far away from the old fear, but these new tingles in my stomach. Eyes wide open, I can’t let the clouds out of sight. If eyes can contain the sky.

Quiet whispers under my skin, where should one go, what can one do, where is the cat, he also has to be brought to safety, a cold river through my body.

Gray-green. Gray-green light from my childhood, stay away. No other sky-color is more dangerous than green. Before it turns green, let the rain come and bring this stillness to an end.

CLASSIC GERMAN BAKING by Luisa Weiss

A bit on the brown side, but all the same, a real Kaesekuchen.

Languages are ghosts, I think. They get under our skin and haunt us, even when we forget them, to this or that degree. It would be overly dramatic and highly inaccurate to say that I am forgetting German, but it’s also true that I have never, despite living in the country for the past six years, obtained the degree of fluency I had in my early twenties when German was my dominant language. For over two years, most of what I spoke, read, dreamt, and heard was German. To the point that English sometimes felt rusty in my mouth and it became difficult to write poetry. Fiction, impossible. That being said, to be fair to myself, my German is quite good. I have achieved level C1, which is considered one level below native speaker. And though it’s true that there are certain emotional situations in which I have trouble expressing myself, for example if the person I am communicating with is a native speaker who is displaying impatience or disapproval, I am articulate and often even grammatically correct when I speak. That being said, German is a gendered language with a case system, so I am always going to make mistakes. The mistakes do not trouble me. What does trouble me is that I might be chasing ghosts.

º

I am four or five, staring at myself in the bathroom mirror, enamored of my new ability to say guten Morgen, Mutti, fascinated by my growing comprehension that there exist in other places entire systems of communication that are separate from my own. For everything I can say, there is another way to say it. A way that is strange to me, but could, theoretically, be learned. There are even people like my mother and her parents who can communicate in more than one language. My mind is blowing up with this thought. My mind is overcome. One person is like two people saying this word guten and this word good. For the next ten years, my knowledge of German remains hopelessly rudimentary, but then I start high school and choose German as my foreign language, and my level of ability transforms into rudimentary with the promise of more. More turns into true fluency gained during a college semester abroad and then a lifeline in a several year stay in the country after college during which I work a variety of jobs, but, importantly, have a German boyfriend. Pillow talk is the best teacher.

º

The ghost I am chasing is the emotional life I once lived, but I don’t know why I’m chasing that, because what I feel about this or that, that or this, has changed an awful lot since I was in my early twenties. Then I was full of wonder, but that wonder somehow got baked into the German I spoke, and I suppose I assumed I would live here forever, but the boyfriend situation blew up in my face and I fled. Now I am married to an American who, though conversationally fluent in German at this point, mostly relates to the language of our adapted homeland with a sense of frustration, and so the ghost of wonder, and related to that, the ghost of life starting out, full of possibilities, are feelings that live in my blood alone. That’s lonely sometimes, to be the subject of a solitary haunting, so one night I convince him to watch Tatort with me, and it feels good, to be existing in German with him, but then it turns out that he hates watching TV in German, because he’s sick and tired of German from his work week, so I’m back where I started. I have an entire emotional life and identity in German, one I’m not really sharing with anyone right now, my social interactions having shrank so much in the past year due to pandemic-related lockdowns, that sometimes I think I might also always be a secret person. I don’t want to be a secret person, though, which is why I end up looking around online for a German cookbook to order, preferably one that is mostly desserts. Traditional German cooking is nothing to write home about, especially if you enjoy flavorful food, but on the other hand, Germany has a strong baking tradition and my spouse and I are both of the opinion that German desserts can be downright extraordinary. This, I decide, is something German we can share. I settle on Classic German Baking by Luisa Weiss because it includes a few savory items, for example the German version of a leek quiche, which actually is pretty good, and recipes for different types of Brötchen, which may come in handy if we ever move back to the US and they aren’t so readily available.

º

The first thing I make is a traditional bottomless cheese cake, Käsekuchen, which in Germany is made with neither Philadelphia nor ricotta, but with quark. Quark, at least the kind that is forty percent fat, is wonderfully thick and tastes and looks a lot like sour cream. I have never so much as tasted a real German Käsekuchen before, so maybe it’s strange that this exact thing would be what I start with, but I choose the recipe because it, being bottomless, does not involve in any way shape or form what I often refer to as dough sports and more generally, looks pretty easy to make. (My dough game has actually gotten a lot better since I started mucking around with flour, in that I make great tortillas and pita, and once even naan, but the ability to produce a passable desert crust eludes me. Batter, on the other hand, is not something I’ve ever had a problem with.) As it turns out, the cheesecake is easy to make, and fun, and doesn’t create any kind of volcanic explosions in the kitchen, making clean-up a complete non-headache. One disaster comes close to occurring nonetheless, in that I almost forget to mix the semolina-baking powder mixture into the wet ingredients, but in the end I remember. I taste the results and am pleased. Light, sweet, lemony as the result of both zest and juice, and the batter also includes raisins, which I learn from the recipe, are controversial in terms of what the average German thinks belongs in a cheesecake. I like raisins though. I put the raisins in. As it happens, my first Käsekuchen ends up being delicious. In terms of where it fits on the international cheesecake scale, it is probably not too far away from a traditional Sicilian ricotta cheesecake. One thing it is for sure is blessedly nothing like a New York cheesecake. I do not like New York cheesecakes, but agree that the first bite is always absolutely decadent and delicious. The problem comes more in finishing the piece, something I never fail to regret because of how awfully over-full I usually feel afterwards.

º

The food we eat, like the languages we speak, also takes on an emotional life, though because of the term ‘emotional eating’ or the phrase ‘eat my emotions’ this can bear negative connotations. But of course it need not. This will naturally come as no surprise to anyone who has ever straddled multiple cultures. The way I look at is is: If I am to be a secret person, I will be the kind of person who bakes cakes that are not secret. In that in every bite of finished cake, or before that, in the thick fluidity of the batter I mix in the bowl, I will let a little bit of my secret out. To share. I am always, also, this other person. Fork, digging in. I exist in always two strata at once. Crumbs picked from the plate. When it comes down to it, cake itself, the act of eating it, is quite a German thing. Just think of Kaffee und Kuchen, or of those recurring vintage Mike Myers SNL Kaffeeklatsch skits. Before the pandemic, when we used to go outside and visit cafes on weekend afternoons, coffee and a shared piece of cake or tort were something that my spouse and I would occasionally indulge in. The pandemic has changed so much. I almost never speak German anymore, though I read as much as I ever have, and sometimes write creatively in it, and listen to podcasts. I wonder if a language, once in our blood, can ever become a curse, in that it consigns us to always be looking for home. It is just this morning when I am mulling this all over that I learn that I have been mixing up two very similar sounding words for years. What strikes me as a result is that perhaps, at the very least, a language, like a home, is a project that can not always be finished.