4 posts tagged “book”
First of all for those of you that I don't exchange email or a little Instant Messaging with, I have officially re-entered the restaurant world and with it the life. I have been away from it for somewhere close to five years, and after a craigslist post, a few emails exchanged with the Chef I am enthusiastically jumping back into that world.
I can't stress enough that before anything else you do in your life you must pick up a copy of Kitchen Confidential by one amazing man who goes by the name Chef Tony Bourdain. I will tell you one thing very honestly after reading this book roughly eight years ago, and that is that I felt that I was reading my own life and that this was the person I wanted to grow up to be. His intelligence and ability are unrivaled in my mind. His honesty about the world that all restaurant workers sink their teeth into it without parallel.
That being said, I have joined back up into the union of the alcoholic, sex addicted, cuss every other word new pirates of this world. I can't wait to be burned, cut, bruised and have this world not know what I did to make their meal. I understand that it's uncomfortable for some to think about the people hidden away behind those swinging doors, I personally am amazed by them and have missed everyone of them dearly since my departure.
There is a comfort in a kitchen for me, there is a sense of being home. I become reborn there, I become what anyone whom has ever loved me has ever known, and somehow still can not tolerate.
I see the world in a different black and white.
These are your tools.
These are mine
Even through the simple events of watching this new restaurant come to life, I am watching parts of myself dormant for so long come back to the surface as well. I leered at the wait staff with lust, I figured out who in the kitchen I am better than, and who is better than me. I calculate what I have to do to procure the skills I need and the interest of things that interest me.
No restaurant is different, everyone is always the same. I am the same again, and have given everyone I work with a different name. It interests me that my best friend in this world, someone whom I admire a great deal, when she heard me talking about my day and pouring over the details reached out and hugged me as if I had just been born. It interests me that I have been so stubborn to stay away from my passion for so long.
I awoke today thinking about time again... more specifically where time has gone. I lost quite a few moments and memories by sacrificing them for no good reason other than to get high.
"I am un-sticking myself from time today.", I talk to myself in the shower, "Today is the spring of 1996, and the lilacs are in bloom along Moe Road."
TODAY IS LILAC DAY!
In the spring of 1996 I was approaching my graduation from High School and despite all my best efforts to liquefy my brain with pot, acid and alcohol I no worries about graduation. My G.P.A. was something Timothy Leary would have been proud of since it proved a number of theories about mind altering substances. I learned while high and was tested while high. I did well as long as those were not interrupted. I you tested me while sober I am sure I would have failed.
That spring in 1996 was when I fell in love with Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I had already been reading the stoners approved reading list (Huxley, Hemingway, Leary and Wolfe), but Slaughterhouse Five showed me something new, and validated all of my attempts at writing.
It reassured and comforted me.
It held me in it's paper arms and told me that everything was going to be okay.
What struck me most about this book at the time was the first few pages. It was all at the same time very funny, brave and glib. Mr. Vonnegut came outright and told you the story in but a few paragraphs. He told you what was going to happen and still made it so appealing that you were forced to read on. I had never read anything by Mr. Vonnegut at that point in my life and had no idea that was the essence of his tremendous style and the framework of his very personality. I would learn eventually in reading "Timequake", "Cats Cradle", and best of all "Breakfast of Champions" that this man was a mad genius.
I also learned that this is what I wanted to be. A mad genius traveling through time just by closing my eyes.
So in the shower, I close my eyes...
... and sail across time.
Spring of 1996, and the lilacs are all in bloom along Moe Road.
Listen:
Lucas has come unstuck in time.
Yes I know, I skipped a day of writing ( i say to ) my one loyal reader. In appearance it would also seem that I skipped two since I deleted my most recent entry for the purpose of maintaining the appearance of someone with something interesting to say.
... and yet today's entry does not seem to offer much more in the way interest...
Two things I have immersed myself into over the last couple of days are consuming me.
One is a book, and the other is an ungodly waste of time.
Let's start with the book.
"STIFF" The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
Upon first impression, having only cracked the cover and begun to read without making any judgments by the cover I would have assumed this book to be written by a man. That of course is not to be viewed with any sort of sexist tone, and in case any of that type of thinking lingers despite my objection please allow me to explain why I thought (however unconsciously at first) that a man would have written such a book. This book in short is at first impression quite disgusting. The author investigates, follows and becomes quite intimate with the different things that a human cadaver may or may not go through after the passing of life. Men by their very nature are much more apt to become involved with things that are gross, unclean or otherwise thought of as unacceptable in daily polite society. Women (the majority that is) are apt to deal with things of beauty, fragrant and pleasant. Example: Dirty Diapers which women see as natural, a man might find the experience amusing or funny... or at least find something funny to do with said dirty diaper whereas a women would promptly place the item in the garbage and move on about her day.
That all being said a book about cadavers and the various scientific, social and altruistic roles as it's main topic seemed to me to be written by a man. It is not. The author Mary Roach is a woman. I checked her photo on the book jacket several times and she is a woman.
Let's however turn toward the book... and away from my thoughts and how I have arrived at those thoughts. By the title alone, this book tackles a peculiar subject and within it several peculiar subjects such as gross anatomy classes and the students therein spending weeks cutting up and dissecting what was formerly a human. The chapter itself doesn't spend much time talking about what they find in these classes having to do with the human body and what these students learn as much as it talks about how these students learn to distance themselves from the life that the body once was.
There is also the chapters about human crash test dummies, practicing methods and techniques for plastic surgery on disembodied heads and so on and so forth, the things that I did not know keep coming.
I am someone who has filled out the organ donor portion of my drivers license, with the clear notation that there is nothing to be done with my eyes, my eyes are to stay right where they belong until the time of my cremation (that is my personal hang up and you need not question why).
The interesting thing about this book isn't the body farms where the forensics of human decay are studied or the countless cadavers the U.S. Army has shot at to test body armor but more the Bioethics and how the author while shining light on a dark subject has leveraged it with a tint of humor and humanity
I know that if I am going to write about a book it should probably be something more palpable to my readers, but I can't stress enough how enlightening and entertaining "Stiff" has been for me. I am not a morbid person by any stretch but this book is a page turner for anyone who finds pleasure in learning about things that they could have been comfortable not knowing.
I don't think this book has encouraged me to donate my body to science... an act which has a distinction from organ donation, but it may have gotten me over my fear of (open casket) funerals, however not of weddings. Those are scary as hell.
as for my other distraction these past few days...
I beg you not to ask what I was doing on this website in the first place, I myself am not completely sure but this is what I have been doing. I beg you not to laugh at me.
Have a wonderful day, night and the morning to follow.
I have been twisting a few things over in my head during the last few days, the least of which is a weekly feature I am going to add to my daily blog which is a review. I will be reviewing whatever it is that I please, once a week a feature on music, movies, books... whatever pleases me. This is not only reflective of my constant desire to have people that I know imbibe and savor those things that I enjoy, but also an effort to streamline my scattered writing style. I believe that writing on an assortment of topics, beyond that of what ever fish bone I have stuck in my throat that day, will bring to me a new understanding of writing and of myself. I at this point in my life having no particular musical talent, or any rock solid skill for that matter consider myself to be a professional appreciator.
So in short, beginning tomorrow or maybe tonight depending on how much of this new band I have been listening to I have the opportunity to absorb I will be adding a weekly review, so loyal readers (ok 1 loyal reader) be on the look out.
Until then I hope that you have a wonderful day, and cross your fingers, it might be the only way to luck into joy.
Lucas
