By
“WHO SHALL I SAY IS CALLING?
If the indictment of former President Trump is the biggest American story of the century so far, why is Leonard Cohen’s gravestone the image on this edition of Butler? (See photo here.)
One obvious reason: a zillion other sites are using the image of the New York Times headline. Why be a copycat?
Another, very minor reason: With impeccable timing, Cohen died the night before the 2016 election. His final thoughts were not, say, of a desire to revise one of his final songs, “You Want It Darker.”
He wrote two songs in Israel: “Lover, Lover, Lover” (watch him perform it here) and “Who by Fire” (watch him perform it here.)
“Who by Fire” is connected to the Trump news for me. When the indictment was announced, I thought I heard the virtual cheering I didn’t hear when Mueller wimped out and when Garland dithered. I pictured people pumping fists, slapping hands, saying “Yes!” And on the other side, I heard the defense of Trump: “They’ve politicized speech! The DOJ must be abolished!”
The phrase “who by fire” comes from the prayer chanted every Yom Kippur, the Unetaneh Tokef, which asks us to consider what fate the next year may hold for each of us, who will die and who will live. “Who by Fire” lists some of the ways we can die. It then has the recently dead knocking at the holy gates, and being asked, “Who may I say is calling?” (In the Sinai, Cohen chose life; he returned to Hydra, fathered another child, wrote “Hallelujah.”)
In other words, you’re asked for nothing less than a life review.
It says here that applauding or cursing Jack Smith is not a big deal in your biography. What you do with what you know — that does matter. How you handle what’s happening to the environment is important. What you’re going to do to survive in an economy which mega-rewards winners, punishes losers, and seems to be turning everyone in the middle into gig workers — that’s an urgent question for you.
But first, your weekend homework: read the indictment. Looking for smart commentary? Read Heather Cox Richardson and Lucian Truscott IV.
BEAUTY FIELD TRIPS (READER SUGGESTIONS)
Growing Floret is a beloved documentary series that chronicles Floret, a family-run flower farm located in the Skagit River Valley of Washington State. Founders Erin and Chris Benzakein have spent the last 15 years building their business, now considered by many to be one of the most well-known flower farms in the world. (Thanks, LH. For the trailer, click here. To watch it, click here. ]
WEEKEND MUSIC
in performance, 2003. Annie Lennox takes this song beyond. To watch, click here.
ART BOOK
Murray Dewart: Hammer and Tongs: Journal of an Artist and Sculptor: I have a problem reviewing Murray Dewart’s book. He’s been my brother’s best friend for 60 years. It’s possible I facilitated his marriage. I’ve spent a night in his guest room. I’ve reviewed his son’s media. But I want to tell you about the book. Solution: describe it, using no adjectives. A first. Here goes. Murray Dewart makes large public sculpture. His work is tinged with spirituality — his father was an Episcopal priest — and he has a religious commitment to art:
We pour all our energy and time and use up our stamina and wear out our eyes and our hands and our backs on the chance that the forms will come to life, that some sparking fire will keep burning in the stone cold form long after we are gone.
At the same time, he has an instinct for knowing what people who may not like sculpture respond to:
On New Year’s Eve, my bell installation on the Boston Common is finished and the response is astonishing, with a crowd of half a million people. At any one time, hundreds are waiting in line to ring the bells. In the heart of the city, I have set in place a simple bell ritual. Hour after hour there’s a palpable hunger and yearning in the upturned faces.
As a memoirist, he doesn’t spare himself:
At fifteen, in the library at Milton Academy, I had tried to talk James Taylor out of his plan for leaving school. What would happen to him as a high school dropout? About five years later, he was on the cover of Time Magazine. So much for my gift of prophecy.
There are many color photos. And practical advice, learned in China: “If you are being electrocuted, put your arms straight up so the electric current misses your heart.” There. No incriminating adjectives. To buy the book from Amazon, click here.
WEEKEND RECIPE
Grated Tomato Pasta
Summer tomatoes should be minimally cooked. This recipe gently warms the fruit, so they keep their acidity and succulence. Since the tomato hasn’t had the liquid cooked out, this keeps the dish light and bright, and makes it ideal for a hot summer day. Be sure to serve with plenty of bread to sop up the cheesy sauce that is left behind at the bottom of the bowl. If juicy, ripe tomatoes aren’t around, swap out for cherry tomatoes and blend them instead of grating to get a similar effect.
4 servings
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 large garlic cloves, lightly crushed and peeled
3 pounds ripe tomatoes (any mix of plum, grape, cherry and Campari), coarsely chopped
Salt
1 pound thin spaghetti
TO PREPARE:
Add the olive oil and garlic to a large Dutch oven or high-sided skillet. Turn the heat to medium-high and cook the garlic, stirring occasionally, until fragrant and lightly golden, and small bubbles form around the cloves, 1 to 3 minutes. Remove the garlic from the pot and discard (or eat).
Carefully and gently lower the chopped tomatoes into the hot oil and cook, stirring constantly, until the tomatoes let off some liquid and the sauce starts to bubble steadily. Season generously with salt. Lower the heat to medium and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes break down and the sauce reduces significantly, about 40 minutes.
Set a metal sieve, strainer or food mill over a medium bowl. Carefully pour in the tomato sauce. If using a sieve or strainer, push the sauce through with a spoon or flexible spatula, until all that remains are seeds and skins. Be sure to repeatedly scrape off the valuable pulp collecting on the bottom of the sieve (by holding the sieve down against the edge of the bowl and pulling it back). You should have about 2 cups of sauce in the bowl. Taste and add more salt, if needed, then return the sauce to the Dutch oven.
Meanwhile, cook the spaghetti in a large pot of salted boiling water until al dente. Drain the pasta and add to the sauce.
Turn the heat to high and cook, stirring constantly, until the sauce reduces slightly and the pasta is well coated but not drowned in the sauce, about 2 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat and let it sit so the pasta can absorb the sauce further, about 5 more minutes. Serve immediately.
WEEKEND POEM
“Problems 3,” by Greg Pardlo, from “Digest”
The Fulton St. Foodtown is playing Motown and I’m surprised
at how quickly my daughter picks up the tune. And soon
the two of us, plowing rows of goods steeped in fructose
under light thick as corn oil, are singing Baby,
I need your lovin, unconscious of the lyrics’ foreboding.
My happy child riding high in the shopping cart as if she’s
cruising the polished aisles on a tractor laden with imperishable
foodstuffs. Her cornball father enthusiastically prompting
with spins and flourishes and the double-barrel fingers
of the gunslinger’s pose. But we hear it as we round the rice
and Goya aisle, that other music, the familiar exchange of anger,
the war drums of parent and child. The boy wants, what, to be
carried? to eat the snacks right from his mother’s basket?
What does it matter, he is making a scene. With no self-interest
beyond the pleasure of replacing wonder with wonder, my daughter
asks me to name the boy’s offense. I offer to buy her ice cream.
How can I admit recognizing the portrait of fear the mother’s face
performs, the inherited terror of non-conformity frosted with the fear
of being thought disrespected by, or lacking the will to discipline
one’s child? How can I account for both the cultural and the inter-
cultural? The boy’s cries rising like hosannas as the mother’s purse
falls from her shoulder. Her missed step from the ledge
of one of her stilted heels, passion loosed with each displaced
hairpin. His little jacket bunched at the collar where she has worked
the marionette. Later, when I’m placing groceries on the conveyor
belt and it is clear I’ve forgotten the ice cream, my daughter
tries her hand at this new algorithm of love, each word
punctuated by her little fist: boy, she commands, didn’t I tell you?
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This post was previously published on headbutler.com.
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Photo credit: iStockPhoto.com
