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The Boothby Review Vol. 4 Spring 2025

Taste

A Journal of the Faculty of Metairie Park Country Day School

The Staff Editor-in-Chief

G. Howard Hunter Copy Editor

Erin Walker Assistant Editor

Robin Heindselman Layout Design

Shay Steckler Jack-Of-All-Trades

Sean Patterson Production Assistant

Jennifer LaCorte Marsiglia

In This Issue 6 Overrated, Erin Walker, Sam Ferguson, Justin Gricus, and Mike Miley (see also pp. 7, 36, 64, 84 ) 10 All Hail the Prince of Puke, the Pope of Trash: John Waters, Our Liberator and Our Redeemer, Mike Miley 16 Sea to Sea, Linda A. Reno (see also pp. 34, 35, 54, 55, 68, 69, 82, 83, 112 ) 18 The New Frontier: Truths and Facades Found in the American West, Pam Skehan 28 A Feast for the Senses: Gourmand Writers, G. Howard Hunter 38 Romancing the Genre, or How I Stopped Judging and Learned to Love Romance, Erin Walker 44 Show Me a Rose or Leave Me Alone: My Journey Toward a Radical Acceptance of Tom Waits, Robin Heindselman 56 Excerpt from a Novel in Progress, Sam Ferguson 66 Oh No-reos!, Shay Steckler 70 Let Them Eat Cake: An Analysis by Cake Charts, Maddie Oberfoell 78 The Red Binder, Rebecca Coatney 88 Making The Monsters Breakfast: Turning Art to Kitsch in Four Easy Steps, Sean Patterson 104 Film Review: Megalopolis, G. Howard Hunter 108 Theatre Review: Sunset Blvd. is Ready for its Closeup, Shay Steckler 110 The Proust Questionnaire: Molly Mouledoux 113 The Crossword Puzzle, Sean Patterson

From the Editor’s Desk Every issue of The Boothby Review begins with an 1876 painting by Gustave Caillebotte, Young Man at His Window. Leaving aside the two carriages in the street, the painting has a contemporary feel, with a young man dressed in a dark suit, gazing down at his upscale Paris neighborhood. Since you only see his back, the work is timeless — I see generations of young men not only from my forebears’ era, but also my brothers, friends, and even myself at that age. And every time one looks at the painting, the young man sees something different, because the experience of the viewer is never the same. We are all victims of our subjective feelings and perspectives. In this issue we explore the subjective nature of reality through its most palpable lens, the notion of taste. Nowhere is our human nature more exposed than in our aesthetic, visceral, and sensual choices. We can’t help what we like. We may fool ourselves into thinking we like whatever the new thing is (kale, contemporary classical music, raw milk) or things that we are supposed to like (Citizen Kane), but sooner or later the chickens come home to roost, and we are forced to reckon with our own respective desiderata. Because taste is a personal statement, the writings in this issue reveal a certain sui generis quality among our contributors. Nevertheless, there is enough variety of forms (essays, reviews, visual art, creative pieces) and subjects (literature, music, food, aesthetics, and film) that a reader will find something that resonates. The beauty and strength of the humanities is that they remind us of who we are, and recognition is the thing. I hope you enjoy.

Young Man At His Window

G. Howard Hunter, Editor-in-Chief

Caillebotte, 1876

Overrated

by Members of the English Department Mike Miley asked his fellow English teachers to walk the walk last spring. Like thousands of students across the country, we too would write an essay on the fly, with just forty minutes to answer the following AP Language prompt:

The term “overrated” is often used to diminish concepts, places, roles, etc. that the speaker believes do not deserve the prestige they commonly enjoy; for example, many writers have argued that success is overrated, a character in a novel by Anthony Burgess famously describes Rome as a “vastly overrated city,” and Queen Rania of Jordan herself has asserted that “[b]eing queen is overrated.” Select a concept, place, role, etc. to which you believe that the term “overrated” should be applied. Then, write a well-developed essay in which you explain your judgment. Use appropriate evidence from your reading, experience or observations to support your argument. The following responses are the result of this empathy-building exercise, which itself could be considered overrated. Please enjoy.

Life’s A Beach:

An Overrated Essay

by Erin Walker

People who value something often suffer from the cognitive bias in which they assume everyone must value the same thing and with the same intensity. When I tell people that I do not like the beach, they cannot imagine I truly mean it. Don’t you want to get away from it all? To unwind, relax, play? Don’t you want to soak up some rays? What about long, romantic walks on the beach? The sand, the surf, the sun? The answer to their incredulous questions has always been no. When I was a pasty kid growing up in Chicago, the beach always seemed like the destination of choice, an escape from the dreary, dark winters. Friends came back from exotic places like Florida and California with tans and smiling faces. I couldn’t wait for my turn to build a sandcastle, frolic on white sands, and swim like a mermaid. My expectations may have been a bit high, but think about it: every commercial for a resort makes the beach seem like an edenic playground where all cares melt away. Everyone loves the beach, so I thought the beach was rated accurately, not overly. The first time I saw the ocean I was eleven. Away from the concrete jungle of my urban habitat, I knew I was going to experience Edmund Burke’s conception of the Sublime at last. Goodbye, vampiric pallor. Farewell, seasonal affective disorder. Hello, fun in the sun! Let’s just say it was an underwhelming experience that culminated in a skin-peeling sunburn and me peeing on myself because I was stung by three jellyfish. I realize you can’t judge something’s merit based on such a small sample size, but I have been to many beaches since. From Maui to Nice, from San Diego to Eilat, the best I felt at a beach was mildly inconvenienced, and at worst, miserable. Being a ginger doesn’t help. Every trip to the beach is a test of fortitude. How long can I stay out before I melt? I am forced to wear a long-sleeved, hooded bathing suit, an absurdly large hat, enormous sunglasses, and about two gallons of SPF 50. Watching sun gods and goddesses barely spray SPF 4 on themselves, flipping themselves over like pancakes on a griddle, doesn’t make me envious; it makes me concerned for 7

safety. Try an umbrella, you say. Thanks, I didn’t think of that. Umbrellas help a bit, but the sand reflects the sun. There is no protection for the pale. Also, did you know the sun moves throughout the day, necessitating the need to move said umbrella about every 45 minutes? So, let’s just say I am both annoyed and annoying to anyone who has the misfortune to sunbathe next to me.

Hell is other people on the oversized beach towel next to you, drinking White Claw and listening to Taylor Swift or Jimmy Buffet Isn’t it fun to just read a book? A beach read, if you will? No. A paperback gets wet and sandy, the pages warping from the general moisture but also from my sticky, gross, SPF-slathered hands. An e-reader would likely get ruined for the very same reasons. And how can I read with the ruckus caused by the other beachgoers? Because everyone loooves the beach, everyone is at the beach. Jean-Paul Sartre said, “Hell is other people.” I would add to that: “Hell is other people on the oversized beach towel next to you, drinking White Claw and listening to Taylor Swift or Jimmy Buffet (also overrated, but that’s another essay).” Between the mating rituals of Spring Breakers, the crying children who have definitely peed in the ocean, and the middle-aged couples trying to escape their quotidian lives only to discover that they are still the same people whether they are in Cleveland or at the beach, I couldn’t possibly concentrate on my cheap thriller or romance novel. I used to pretend to like the beach to avoid hearing all of the reasons I was wrong. I stopped doing this about a decade ago. The good thing about getting older is you become more comfortable and confident with your ratings and hopefully stop demanding others agree with yours. You like the beach; I don’t, and that’s okay. Enjoy Seaside; I’ll be at a museum or in my new castle in Transylvania.

All Hail the Prince of Puke, the Pope of Trash: John Waters, Our Liberator and Our Redeemer by Mike Miley

The website Design Sponge used to have a weekly series called Living In, in which someone would imagine living in a particular movie and then curate and design an interior space and wardrobe inspired by the film in question that would replicate the sense of “living in” the world of that movie. Not the events of the movie or the cast of the movie, mind you: this was a design site, after all. What they meant was living in the film’s aesthetic, its look, its vibe, its, well, taste. My wife loved sharing these with me, and we would often daydream about what movie’s aesthetic we would like to live in. After careful consideration of several qualified and interesting candidates and much deliberation with my trusted colleagues, I have decided that the movie that I want to live in would be any movie directed by John Waters between 1970 and 1981. Although best known for the PG-rated Hairspray and its musical adaptation, John Waters’ legacy will be as the Prince of Puke, the Pope of Trash. These titles are not honorific. He earned them for the transgressive independent films he made in the 1970s starring his muse and childhood friend, drag icon Divine — movies such as Multiple Maniacs, Female Trouble, Polyester, and, most notoriously, Pink Flamingos, which concludes its assault on polite society and its mores by having Divine eat literal dogshit on camera and smile about it. 10

Maybe it’s a copout to select a run of films to live in rather than a single movie, but since this is all hypothetical anyway, why get so bent out of shape about such technicalities? Besides, Waters’ films of this period, before he went semi-mainstream with Hairspray, are all of a piece in style, tone, and personnel. The aesthetic unity of these films comes courtesy of Waters and his regular stable of performers and crew members, whom he calls the Dreamlanders. And it is a Dreamland, at least for me. And I want to go there. Those familiar with the gross-out antics of Waters’ films may be asking, “But why? Why would a member of respectable society governed by the notions of good taste want to live in a world that features outlandish characters who kill their parents for not giving them a pair of cha-cha heels for Christmas or aspire to be the Filthiest People alive or terrorize the community as the Baltimore Foot Stomper or are actual members of the Manson Family?” me.

For a quite simple reason, actually: these films are what freedom looks like to

In their outrageous deviance from social norms, the characters in Waters’ films live lives unencumbered by the rigid dictates of the Mob of Respectability and Refinement. In fact, his films reveal Respectability and Refinement to be prisons so pernicious and pervasive that its inmates don’t even realize they’ve locked themselves up and thrown away the key. His two most mainstream films, Hairspray and Cry-Baby, present his liberatory vision in its most plain, if sanitized, form. In both films, the youth and their chosen families and mentors, marginalized by the prejudices of racism, classism, and lookism, carve out vibrant alternative communities whose existence points to a new, more liberated way of living that the ruling class attempts to stomp out by imposing authoritarian controls on human behavior, which backfires and inspires a cross-cultural and class unity that overturns the existing power structure and establishes a new one founded on the ideals of the misfits, who, as most in the straight world discover, were right all along and were also having more fun. A film such as Cry-Baby is a joyous musical celebration of a group of people living life on their own terms and guided by one simple principle: be who you are without apology or explanation, unless you’re an asshole. Who wouldn’t want to live in a world like that? 11

“But this isn’t an essay about freedom!” you declare. “It’s about taste! What does taste have to do with freedom?” Well, I don’t think taste can truly exist without the freedom to choose and pursue what one likes, to climb to the zenith of taste or descend to its nadir. Forcing taste on someone, no matter how good said taste may be, isn’t taste at all. It’s tyranny. And if Waters’ films are opposed to anything, it’s tyranny. The villains in Waters’ movies are always scheming, money-hungry cynics and/or the uptight pillars of the bourgeois community who make it their life’s mission to shut down, silence, and repress his misfit protagonists who seek to live authentic lives in the loudest of terms. Just consider Sonny Bono and Debbie Harry’s characters in Hairspray who would rather blow things up than see their theme park integrated. Or the charm school and country club set in Cry-Baby who lock up Wade Walker to keep the raucous energy of Turkey Point from horrifying the squares by showing them what a truly good time feels like.

Who wouldn’t want to live in a world like that? Scaring the squares becomes the Dreamlanders’ raison d’ être and the greatest thrill there is. By shocking someone else with their display of freedom, they validate that freedom for themselves and anyone watching them. After all, freedom isn’t worth anything if it’s not scaring someone. Without fear, there’s nothing at risk, and taste cannot exist without the risk of rejection or judgment. Now, do I personally want to participate in the Cavalcade of Perversions like in Multiple Maniacs or turn to a glamorous life of crime to become a death-row star like Dawn Davenport in Female Trouble? Not really. In fact, many of the behaviors celebrated in Waters’ films are decidedly not for little old risk-averse me, but I do get a contact high from watching these characters enjoy their freedom, and I get thrilled watching their self-expression alarm someone else. Even if I never engage in any of these activities, accepting the Dreamlanders as they are and recognizing their freedom as they practice it with abandon makes my world less limited. 12

Theatrical Release Poster, Dreamland, 1972

Of course, it should be mentioned that Waters and many of the Dreamlanders identify as LGBTQ, which colors their revolt against good taste as retaliation against a repressive society that would prefer that they remain invisible or, if invisibility is not possible, at least miserable. By embracing and flaunting the worst taste imaginable, Waters’ characters declare their independence from a homophobic America and make a mockery of that world’s fears of queer existence. The Dreamlanders are not just here and queer—they’re even worse. They’re the straight world’s most depraved nightmare, and most terrifying of all: they love it. Implicit in this dynamic is the realization that the pearl-clutching squares could enjoy the same freedom too if they’d only release themselves from their own fears and prejudices. Their horror at the misfits is the horror of what could be, a terror at the untapped potential joy and fulfillment within each of them. Even though I don’t identify as a member of this community, this stance carried real psychic weight for me in my teenage years, where Waters offered a way to perceive and move through the world that was quite different from the world presented to me by my Catholic school education. Add Waters’ maverick status as an independent filmmaker, and one has a near-utopian portrait of a creative life unbounded and unaffected by the scolds demanding that one live their life vacillating between feeling guilty about and asking permission for every impulse. And here’s where the so-called bad taste of Waters’ films comes in: when one crosses the boundaries of good taste, they discover the line that’s been drawn for them by others is either justified or, more often than not, completely arbitrary, and, if it’s arbitrary, there’s no obligation to observe it. And just like that, a person is freer than they were before. If all this is the case, then the most freeing moment in John Waters’ entire filmography also must be the moment that most violates the boundaries of good taste, and most agree that that moment is the final scene of Pink Flamingos in which Divine eats a real piece of dogshit on camera while “How Much Is That Doggy in the Window?” plays on the soundtrack. For a taboo-breaking film that includes depictions of vomiting, shrimping, cannibalism, castration, and some peculiar kink with chicken and eggs, the moment stands as the final divide, the ultimate rift attempting to alienate whoever is still in the theater, to make sure no barf bag goes unfilled. 14

If this sounds like “an exercise in poor taste,” it is. That’s literally the tagline for Pink Flamingos, and the final moment of this film represents Waters strolling up to the plate and boldly calling his shot like Babe Ruth. But it also exemplifies art at its finest. And that’s not just me talking: keep in mind the film was added to the National Film Registry in 2021. So … what makes this art exactly? How can such a disgusting moment deliver aesthetic transcendence? I think it comes in the final moment of the scene when Divine looks back to the camera and flashes a literal shit-eating grin before spitting the feces out of her mouth. It’s a repulsive provocation that’s also a warm invitation as Divine and Waters look back across the chasm of taste at us and announce their liberation from the tyranny of bourgeois repression and convention … and invite us to join them. They grin at us from across the Rubicon and gleefully declare the grass to be greener on their side (probably because of the fertilizer). Won’t we be their neighbor in a land where the worst taste and the best taste in the world are in holy communion with each other? I would like to very much indeed. Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes.

Sea to Sea: A Collection of Polar by Linda A. Reno

Summer roadtrip 2024. 5 weeks. 7k miles. 19 states. 4 reservations. 1 country. In an election year. In a hot summer, both literally and metaphorically. For better or worse, this country is an idea. It always has been. In some ways it’s a great and inspiring idea; in some ways it’s a difficult and painful idea. But always, it’s an idea. It’s an idea that was built by immigrant people on stolen, beautiful, and sacred land. And it’s an idea that real live human beings today are constantly trying to rectify and improve upon. While driving around the country in the summer of 2024, I took over 500 photos on my iPhone while ruminating on this idea. The United States of America is the only country in which its citizens regularly go in search of it. Whenever I drive across this place, I am always struck by a feeling of nostalgia for the present moment. Our past is interwoven so intensely with our present that it all feels like a memory, even while actively living it. In the current political and environmental climate, the fragility of this idea felt palpable this summer. 16

roid Lifts

In an effort to ruminate on both the fragility and timelessness of our country’s idea, I used a Polaroid Lab to develop my iPhone images into Polaroids, which I then turned into Polaroid emulsion lifts. Polaroid emulsion lifts are made by deconstructing the polaroid, submerging the remaining layers in water, very delicately removing the thin gelatinous layer that contains the image away from the plastic of the Polaroid, and floating it onto a piece of watercolor paper. The result is a one-of-a-kind, distorted, sometimes broken, fragile, translucent depiction of a moment in time. The watery nature of these lifts evokes both the vision of memories and that of dreams. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been fortunate enough to drive across our country, but I do know that every time, I’ve encountered kind, loving, interesting, and welcoming people all along the way. Despite the divisive climate of our current state of the union, I personally have never felt anything but the truly beautiful kindness of strangers and an immense awe at the physical beauty of the land. This body of work represents my own experience of attempting to realistically envision this place with the gratitude of memories and the eagerness of dreams.

L.A. Reno

Above The Fruited Plains Yellowstone National Park, WY

Polaroid Emulsion Lift on 5”x5” watercolor paper 17

The New Frontier: Truths and Facades Found in the American West by Pam Skehan

The American West has long been the subject of marvel and fantasy. Visions of a promising new land and fears of irrepressible nature are heavily documented by politicians, writers, and painters. During the 19th century, many explorers viewed the West as a destination of hope, abundance, and prosperity. They believed the land to be their divine right, Manifest Destiny. The West has long been depicted as untamed terrain, awaiting the tools of modern civilization to smooth out its rugged edges. These romantic views of the West gloss over the fact that the land was previously occupied by Native Americans and forcefully taken from them by American expansionists. Centuries after Western expansion occurred, this region of the country still holds a level of mystery, lore, and opportunity. My Midwestern college classmates and I fantasized about moving out west after graduation. During a recent summer, I drove through Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho in an exploration of the American Northwest. I visited friends who started a ranch in Idaho and are living off the land, a lifestyle I both fear and admire. Along my journey, I thought about natives, settlers, and artists who had traveled these roads and what the landscapes may have meant to each group. Through a study of two movements in art history and a series of paintings based on photographs from my travels, I pondered the truths and myths of the American dream as it is reflected in the land. The nickname “Big Sky Country” echoed in my head as I viewed extravagant skies and their volatile interactions with sprawling land. Subliminal romantics like Albert Bierstadt, a German immigrant, shifted the role of artist from a “visionary creator” to an active explorer. Estill Curtis Pennington describes this shift in his 18

Storm in the Mountains Bierstadt, 1870

essay “Romantic Expansions: Looking West from the White House.” Bierstadt drafted plein air sketches on an expedition in 1859, which later became the source for a legendary series of monumental paintings. Among them is Storm in the Mountains, painted around 1870. The circular composition is both ominous and idyllic, leading the eye in a hypnotic spiral around the canvas. A sliver of golden light slices through the plains in the foreground, beckoning the viewer to further explore untapped land. The swirling storm arches above, casting shadows on the jagged mountains, suggesting that peril lies ahead. Outside the circle, the storm shifts to billowy white pillows bathed in yellow light. Pennington describes this as the “light of opportunity,” a common theme in art inspired by the West. Bierstadt and his contemporaries frequently infused their work with beams of light that hearken back to biblical narratives. Many painters even compared early explorers to Moses, further implying that Western expansion is a divine right. 19

In my painting Big Sky Country, I experimented with proportions of sky versus land. The monumental clouds take up three-fourths of the composition, towering over a thin strip of rolling hills below. The height of the clouds is further pronounced by the vertical composition. A golden shaft of light beckons the viewer to the bottom right, though looming shadows lurk in the back left. The dynamic clouds splash across the sky, displaying a wide range of values from charcoal to bright white. The brightest highlights are nestled at the top of the clouds near the darkest parts of the sky, creating the highest point of contrast and drawing the eye upward. I hope to capture an element of tension in my work that I saw reflected in the country at that moment. In the wake of tumultuous political discourse, I observed conflicting visions of where power should lie and how to take care of the land. Climate change is at the forefront of many conversations. Immigration continues to be a heated point of discussion despite the nation being built by immigrants on stolen land. By exaggerating proportional relationships between the sky and the land, I am visually depicting the conflict that arises from political polarization. In Distant Storm, my second landscape in the series, I crank up the contrast in both value and texture. The darkest part of the sky is almost black, and it is placed next to the brightest white clouds. I built up a range of painterly textures from fluffy clouds and spiky tall grass to smooth bands of rain. Through these opposing elements and the narrative of a thunderstorm in the distance, I examine the tension between order and chaos. The viewer is situated safely at the edge of the chartreuse tall grass, bathed in warm light. The entirety of the storm can be seen in the distance, behind the ridges of mountains and plateaus. It is a spectacle to behold but also feels like it could turn at any minute and engulf the viewer. In this painting, I explore the ominous and sublime themes of Western landscapes. Though I question the idea that clouds are evidence of the divine, I continue to be mesmerized by colossal skies and am drawn to painting them. Viewing a landscape of such majesty and scale is a sobering reminder that we are very small and something is coming for us, whether it be God or nature.

Big Sky Country Skehan, 2024

Distant Storm

Skehan, 2024 23

In Big Horn Canyon, on the border of Wyoming and Montana, wild mustangs roam the dusty rolling hills. As a lesser-known national park, it was much less crowded than Yellowstone. In a lone tent in an open field, we experienced the fantasy of having the land to ourselves. The park is split clumsily by a reservation, and a series of winding back roads are required to get from one end of the park to the other without trespassing. This bizarre design highlights how Native Americans have been displaced and wedged into corners of the country. I did a gouache study of a wild mustang, noticing how his body and mane were more rugged than the domesticated horses I had seen. As I observed these animals in the land they have called home for centuries, I considered the vastness and freedom that Native Americans must have experienced here before Western expansion. On the road, another classic American archetype captured my attention, and that is the cowboy. Western outfitters painted in big letters on boot-shaped signs dot the highway exits and Main Streets, inviting visitors to take part in the theater of the frontier, for a nominal fee. I purchased an expensive embroidered equestrian blouse that I wore every day of the trip, which now sits in the back of my closet. Frederic Remington was a prolific Western painter who primarily focused on nostalgic paintings of cowboys riding horses and fighting Native Americans. Robert Hughes describes Remington’s rise to fame in his book American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America. Remington’s extensive collection of almost three thousand paintings is mostly fantasy rather 24

Skehan, 2022

than the lived experience that Bierstadt and his fellow Romantics drew from. Remington had a short stint as a rancher before settling in New York; as it turns out, a horse could barely hold him. The motifs in his work came from trips out west where he sought symbolism that reinforced his vision of masculinity. He was a close friend of Theodore Roosevelt, and they had a shared ideal of the American man rooted in agrarianism. Remington’s work was a heavy inspiration for a number of Western films in Hollywood, which feels appropriate considering how his work is largely fictional. In A Buck-jumper, painted around 1893, a mustachioed man waves his whip in the air and calmly gazes down at the steed, whose back is arched in protest. A small crowd of cowboys and horses speckle the horizon line. Remington’s vision of the west was entrenched in masculinity. On his inspirational trips, he grew disappointed in the changes he saw: “I shall never come to the West again. — It is all brick buildings — derby hats and blue overalls — it spoils my earlier illusions.” His choice of the word illusion strikes me, as if he suspected all along his vision of America was more a dream than a reality. In Manifest, I explore the fantasy of the American Western man through dueling cowboys: one neon cowboy hoisted against the sky, the other painted on a subdued mural against the building. The scene is Mint Bar, a corner bar in Sheridan, Wyoming. I was mesmerized stumbling upon this technicolor corner of an otherwise dusty brown Main Street. We had just driven into the mountains and set up camp in a shadowy forest, then A Buck-jumper

Remington, 1893

crawled into town to get a bite to eat. There was a jarring contrast between the dark, howling forest and this illuminated corner. The mural of the cowboy riding a horse into a sunset depicts a peaceful dignity, and the bucking bronco references the gallant display of manhood favored by Remington. The clouds in the background reference some of the dynamic, powerful clouds in the romantic landscapes, but there is less contrast. This illustration of the west tells a story that has endured for centuries: the cowboy conquers the beast and rides off into the sunset. The title references Manifest Destiny, as well as the idea of manifesting an ideal for America that does not already exist and maybe never did. Though nature is heavily referenced, the painting has very little authentic flora and fauna in it: the bar is manufactured to appear tree-like, and the mural landscape is a painting of a painting. There is one real tree in the distance against the row of western shops and apartments. The architectural design of this street is common in smalltown America and could easily fit a number of Main Streets I have passed through. The emphasis on facade in this design promotes a carefully constructed image. Though this scene is unique to Sheridan, the storefronts could exist in Anytown, USA. With heavy use of the color pink, I am both paying homage to and poking fun at Remington’s picture of masculinity. As I painted, I thought about my visit to the ranch outfitters and the intricate embroidery, dazzling trim, and flowy fringe. I listened to Orville Peck and Chappel Roan, musicians who have merged country music and fashion with mainstream media and LGBTQ spaces. Though historically representative of ideal masculinity, cowboy accoutrements are rife with fabulous, feminine flair. Through beautiful wildlife, breathtaking landscapes, and campy facades, I examine the fabric of our nation and the hopes, dreams, and fears upon which it was built. The lore of the great American West as a destination of self-discovery seems to persist. Americans continue to yearn for nostalgia despite generations of progress and evolution. Though I emulate artistic traditions forged centuries ago, I am inspired and encouraged by new applications and translations of antiquated themes. The promise of the West and its many interpretations continue to appeal to masses and keep people, myself included, wandering out West time and time again.

Manifest

Skehan, 2024 27

A Feast for the Senses: Gourma by G. Howard Hunter 28

and Writers 29

The late Jim Harrison once mused, “Is there an interior logic to overeating, or does gluttony, like sex, wander around in a messy void, utterly resistant to our attempts to make sense of it?”1 Harrison, novelist (Legends of the Fall) and poet, drew sustenance from the ineffable beauty of the natural world in places like northern Michigan and Montana, but the Dionysian sensuality of the gourmand also had great appeal. In a 2004 The New Yorker piece entitled “A Really Big Lunch,” Harrison described the challenges of braving a 37-course meal. The 11-hour repast for 12 diners took place at a restaurant in the Burgundy district of France. The meal was based on recipes from 17 cookbooks published between 1654 and 1823. The old-world quality of the fare reflects a time in which nothing was wasted with plant or animal. There is a good reason for this — France suffered a famine in 1693-1694 that killed over a million people and the famine of 17091710 took a half a million lives. One had to have an extensive palate to survive, and Harrison’s feast reflected a time of prodigious utility and creativity when it came to food preparation. For example, in addition to the tartines of foie gras with truffles and various soups, the hors d’oeuvre course included tart of calf ’s brains with shelled peas, an omelet with sea urchin, monkfish livers, and Baltic herring. The main courses doubled down on the ancien monde theme with servings of a suckling pig slowly cooked in a red wine sauce thickened with its own blood, beef cheeks, squab stuffed with sweetbreads, squab livers and scallions, wild duck with black olives, crawfish with slabs of goose liver, a terrine of the tips of calf ’s ears, and hare cooked in port wine inside a calf ’s bladder (which of course all sounds better in French). Dessert included a surfeit of cakes, meringues, cheeses, ice creams, and a tower of fruits. Fourteen different wines were consumed and the total number 1 Jim Harrison, “A Really Big Lunch,” The New Yorker, August 29, 2004. 30

of bottles beggars the imagination. While sipping an after-meal brandy at midnight, Harrison reflected that Chef Marc Meneau, his wife Francois, and the staff “had led us on a sombre and all-consuming journey to the past.”2 Harrison spent some time in Hollywood writing for film, an avocation he regarded as a gross betrayal of the self. Yet he befriended some fellow gourmands and what he called “food bullies” who tell you where to eat and what to eat. In Paris, he ran into food bully Francis Ford Coppola, who dragged him to dinner with Danny DeVito and Russell Crowe and ordered a platter of foie gras, a gross of snails, roast chickens, and a leg of lamb. Washed down by 11 bottles of wine (and a bucket of beer for Crowe), Harrison described the meal as a “gluttonous mud bath.”3 The other food bully in Harrison’s life was Orson Welles who would call in the morning and plan the menu like a military campaign. In one lunch, they consumed “a half pound of beluga with a bottle of Stolichnaya, salmon in sorrel sauce, sweetbreads en croute, a miniature leg of lamb (the whole thing) with five wines, desserts, cheeses, ports… in one sitting.”4 The maxim of the true gourmand is to live to eat rather than eat to live. The writer A.J. Liebling noted that “The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite.”5 Hailing from Long Island, Liebling considered an adequate meal “a dozen Gardiners Island oysters, a bowl of clam chowder, a peck of steamers, some bay scallops, three sauteed soft-shell crabs, a few ears of fresh-picked corn, a thin swordfish steak of generous area, a pair of lobsters, and a Long Island 2 Jim Harrison, “A Really Big Lunch.” 3 Jim Harrison, Off to the Side: A Memoir (New York, 2002), 289. 4 Jim Harrison, The Raw and the Cooked (New York, 2001), chapter 1. 5 A.J. Liebling, Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris (San Francisco, 1986, original 1959), 4. 31

duck.”6 Liebling wrote in the 1950s, lamenting the passing of Parisians who came of age during the Belle Epoque (1871–1914). Those people understood grand dining. Liebling’s friend Yves Mirande, an author of musical farces, in his eightieth year knocked down a lunch of Bayonne ham and figs, a hot sausage in a crust, filleted pike in a rich sauce, a leg of lamb larded with anchovies, artichokes on a pedestal of foie gras, five kinds of cheeses, a bottle of Bordeaux, a bottle of Champagne, and Armagnac at the end.7 They were made of sterner stuff in those days. Liebling wrote a series of articles on Louisiana governor Earl Long for The New Yorker in 1960 about Uncle Earl’s last bid for governor. The pieces were so well received that Simon and Schuster published the essays as a book, The Earl of Louisiana, in 1961. Whether Liebling correctly grasped Earl Long (who he thought was a Southern liberal) is still debated by historians, but he got New Orleans. It was Liebling who described New Orleans as a Mediterranean city, more like Marseilles or Beirut than Atlanta or even New York. While this may have been the theory of his guide Tom Sancton (father of historian, writer, and musician Tom Sancton Jr.), Liebling was the first writer of note to define dialects and folkways of the Crescent City as decidedly not Southern. During his New Orleans sojourn, Liebling always started his dinner at Felix’s with three dozen raw oysters and then proceeded to Arnaud’s. At one meal, he recounted that they ordered moderately with “crabmeat Arnaud, filet mignon marchand de vin, and a bottle of Smith-Haut-Lafitte ’47.”8 His favorite local delicacy 6 A.J. Liebling, Between Meals, 4. 7 A.J. Liebling, Between Meals, 6. 8 A.J. Liebling, The Earl of Louisiana: The Liberal Long (1961, New York), 23. 32

was the fried Buster Crab, a soft-shelled crab with more fat and flavor than the normal variety. In those days, newspaper and magazine writers had rather modest salaries but their expense accounts were almost unlimited, and writers on Liebling’s scale were even encouraged to take advantage. Nevertheless, old-line restaurants of New Orleans were not terribly expensive before the crippling inflation of the 1970s. When my own father, David Hunter — a noted gourmand of his day — ate lunch at the bar of Arnaud’s, the trout amandine with the Brabant potatoes and salad ran $1.75, with the concomitant two martinis at 75 cents apiece. Ours is a puritan nation going back to the pilgrim fathers. We see it in modern secular manifestations with exercise regimes, diets, lifestyle changes and self-improvement schemes. With its Catholic origins, New Orleans escaped puritan austerity, hence its proclivity for sensual gluttony. Nevertheless, New Orleans exceptionalism risks ignoring other locales where eating to excess is an acceptable practice, most notably New York and Chicago. Yet puritanism aside, the gourmand avocation is a tall order, and most of us lack the forbearance to endure the sybaritic life. But good writers who live to eat can give us great pleasure when they turn their sights on the perfect meal.

Illustration by George Cruikshank in Sketches by Boz by Dickens, 1836 Illustration by George Cruikshank in The Comic Almanack for 1839: An Ephemeris in Jest and Earnest,” Published by Charles Tilt, London, 1838. A Swallow at Christmas by George Cruikshank in The Comic Almanack, 1841 33

L.A. Reno

Above The Fruited Plains II The Supreme Court - Washington, D.C.

Polaroid Emulsion Lift on 5”x5” watercolor paper 34

L.A. Reno The Pursuit of Happiness

New York, NY

Polaroid Emulsion Lift on 5”x5” watercolor paper

What Are They Reviving, Anyw

An Overrated Essay by Sam Ferguson

They’ve filled the fairgrounds for Jazz Fest. They’ve sold out whole weekends at Red Rocks. They’ve warmed arena stages for none other than the Stones. And yet the Revivalists remain, by a long shot, the most overrated, under-talented band in all of New Orleans. But what is it about this terrible band that has duped the unwitting masses, both locally and abroad? Is it their ridiculous front man, a shirtless hooligan with the vocal chops of a rutting chimpanzee? Is it the actual songs, which combine the most superficial hallmarks of New Orleans music and culture with the inoffensive cliches of early-aughts radio rock? Or is it, finally, their catering to the lowest common denominator, their creation of music for people who don’t care about music? In any case, the Revivalists are vastly overrated — the worst, and most successful, contemporary rock band in New Orleans. It’s distasteful to launch an artistic critique with an ad hominem attack, but to ignore the clownish, cringeworthy antics of Revivalists front man David Shaw would be dishonest, unethical, and perhaps even dangerous—like allowing a rabid dog to run rampant through Maycomb without, well… putting it down. The first point against Shaw is that the man cannot sing. In countless Revivalist songs—yowling pseudo-anthems which one hesitates to name—Shaw resorts, again and again, to the only real weapon in his musical arsenal: the red-faced, throat-shredding yell. On stage and in the studio, Shaw has only one volume, an intensely unpleasant, affectedly “gritty,” entirely inauthentic rock-and-roll growl that assaults the inner ear while desecrating the nobler precedents of Jagger and Daltrey and Bono and Plant. In the band’s live performances, which command huge audiences and beggar belief, Shaw’s shirtless peacocking and literal rafter-climbing constitute little more than a ridiculous distraction, a watered-down parody of arena rock showmanship. It’s possible, of course, that he knows what he’s doing. The audience, he must realize, needs distracting from the music. If a band is only as good as its front man, it’s also only as good as its songs.And the Revivalists, despite their slick proficiency as instrumentalists, write terrible tunes. 36

way?

This would be fine if they hadn’t, a decade ago, become self-ordained ambassadors for the world’s greatest music city. Because here’s the rub: if a band is going to represent New Orleans, they should put out something unique, something genuinely funky, something that honors the history of this city while also moving it forward. The Revivalists, however, play music so insipid that it belongs not on the Acura Stage, blasted into the ears of thousands and thousands of well-meaning fans, but in the waiting room of a dentist’s office, piped in with the ditties of 21 Pilots, Maroon 5, Matchbox 20, and other forgettable, numerically named pop groups. The Revivalists, for all their “repping” of New Orleans, are essentially a placeless band. Their music, it’s true, includes horns and two drummers and a vaguely funky backbeat, but its actual basis lies somewhere in the ether of American commercialism — a bubblegum sleaze that knows no ideals but the dollar, the sellout, the millionth stream. In this sense, Shaw is New Orleans’ answer to Adam Levine: a muscled, preening crooner whose only attractions are physical, and thus, in the context of music, grotesque. But if they’re so bad, why are the Revivalists so popular? The simple answer, the cynical one, is that the populace is stupid, both in New Orleans and America at large. But the actual answer is probably more complicated. The band knows what they’re doing. By invoking the most obvious and superficial elements of New Orleans music (the horns, the rhythms, the gumbo-ya-ya lyrics), they’re able to disguise their flavorless mall-rock as spicy, as authentic and unique. In this way, the Revivalists appeal to middle America’s (and suburban New Orleans’) desperate desire to inhabit the dream of New Orleans without any of its pitfalls or risks—without, one might argue, any of its complicated racial realities. It would behoove one to ask what, after all, the band is trying to revive, and to what ungodly ends? The Revivalists are, to put it more bluntly, the musical embodiment of white flight—an inoffensive band making inoffensive music that obscures, all the same, a dark, offensive truth. They have co-opted New Orleans and its primarily Black musical history for their own astronomical gain. They’re not, as a result, merely clowns. They are, instead, the ugliest of culture vultures. 37

Romancing the Genre, or How I Stopped Judging and Learned to Love Romance by Erin Walker

Most people think of the covers. The books you saw at your aunt’s or grandmother’s house. The ones with the bare-chested Fabio, cosplaying Regency pirate, holding a fair maiden with an ample bosom and bedroom eyes. The titles on said covers could be ridiculous: Lord of Scoundrels, Gentle Rogue (pictured), Darius, Lord of Pleasures, etc. Some titles let you know the authors don’t take themselves too seriously. For reference, here are just a few of the Scottish historical romance titles that are incredibly punny: A Scot Mess, X Marks the Scot, A Scot in the Dark, Hit Me with Your Best Scot, and my favorite, It’s Getting Scot in Here. You’re welcome. You can buy romance novels everywhere: the bookstore, the airport, the drugstore. They sell like hot (beef) cakes. They’re ubiquitous. And that’s why, a few years ago, I made the mercenary decision to write a romance novel. Romance novels make over a billion dollars a year, propping up the literary fiction I usually imbibe with its copious sales. I, like many millennials with multiple English degrees, have student debt, so I thought to myself: This Colleen Hoover person is on the New York Times bestseller list; why not me? Had I read a lot of romance? Not really, but come on. I should be able to crank one of these bad boys out in no time. Oh, the hubris. Here’s what I learned: 1. Romance, as a genre, is intentionally formulaic, but that doesn’t mean it’s garbage. By definition, romance centers a love story, usually in a three-act structure. 38

The happily-ever-after is guaranteed, so there’s no wondering how to stick the landing (the bane of many writers). Within romance, you have your pick of subgenres: contemporary, historical, maybe paranormal or fantasy, then pepper that with a few popular tropes (enemies to lovers, second-chance romance, secret baby!), then bada-bing bada-boom…a romance novel! The thing is, romance isn’t the only genre to follow a formula. When you pick up a mystery, you know you will encounter a red herring or two. There’ll be suspense, but the gumshoe/inspector/detective will figure it out in the end. It’s the journey you sign up for. How will the mystery be solved? In classical drama, people in the Theatre of Dionysus understood the conventions of a tragedy. A person with heroic qualities, but a tragic flaw, will experience a reversal of fortune (catastrophe), and learn his/her lesson, after the requisite pile of bodies litter the stage. Cue the lamentations of the chorus! No one walking into the Globe Theatre to see The Tragedy of Hamlet was like, “You know, maybe this time Shakespeare will let the main characters live.” No. They knew a bloodbath was coming, but they went anyway to experience the story and the language and the catharsis. In romance, it isn’t about what will happen at the end; it’s about how the author gets us there. 2. I’m a lemming. I spent years being inculcated that genre literature was trash because it was, wait for it, entertaining. 39

Give the plebes bread and roses; those dum-dums eat it up! Why read

heartwarming stories when you can read (or pretend to read) Gravity’s Rainbow? Why read about women’s desire when you can read about John Updike’s bourgeois hangups? Who wants to read a book where it works out in the end when you can read the excruciatingly bleak Jude the Obscure? Please note that I understand I’m creating a false dichotomy here. I actually like Hardy (as well as some Updike and Pynchon). The point is, I conflated Literature, with a capital L, with misery. There’s a great line in Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” that I think gets to the heart of why I, like many other snoots, rejected romance. In this short story, the speaker tells us to imagine the people of Omelas, a utopia, as happy but not insipid: “The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.” Le Guin, your aim is true. A happy ending doesn’t indicate an intellectual deficit. For every marriage that ends, there’s a marriage that lasts a lifetime. For every Anna and Vronksy, there’s Levin and Kitty. For every Martha and George, there’s that couple from Up. And yes, I know the lady dies in that, but isn’t being with the one you love for a buttload of years a happy ending? Also, we’re all going to die. If you’re super sad about it, hit me up for some romance recommendations. How could I think this romantic quest would be a walk in the park (sans chaperone, 40

which would cause a scandal, forcing me to enter a fake betrothal with my brother’s rakish best friend, the Duke of Peckingwood)? Note: There are only eleven Dukes in the English peerage, but in romanceland, there are roughly 2.7 million. How did I discover what a dolt I had been? By actually reading romance. For about a year, I read two, sometimes three books a week. (Imagine the Rocky training montage, but instead of running up marble stairs and punching meat, I’m sitting on a couch, in soft pants, the blue screen of my laptop casting a surreal glow on my face and absolutely wrecking my circadian rhythm.) At first I stuck to the bestsellers and classics of the genre. Then I joined Kindle Unlimited. That’s when I discovered that women’s amorous preferences were more varied and plentiful than I originally supposed. On KU, the majority of the novels are downloaded as e-books, thus giving the reader the ability to purchase books incognito, hiding titles like Ice Planet Barbarians and Unhinged: An Erotic Door Romance. (Yes, these are real). If you have very specific tastes, there’s a book, or seven, for you on KU. While a lot of it isn’t for me, I’ve learned to never yuck someone’s yum. I’ve also learned that I better have a specific audience in mind (not just “lady who likes to read romance”). Along the way, I also discovered my own preferences. For example, I do not like “cozy” romances. These are quiet love stories with stupidly low stakes. Usually the couple fall in love immediately, and the only obstacle preventing them from being together is internal and contrived (“can I date this handsome lumberjack and still run my pumpkin spice cafe?”). What’s a girl to do? 41

I found authors I like. Emily Henry and Lisa Kleypa follow the formula in their books but often subvert expectations, playing with the tropes. Their heroes and heroines are flawed. There are stakes, external conflicts. These romances aren’t just about finding a partner; they follow the Jane Austen model: Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy must become better people, losing their pride and prejudice, if you will, before they can find romance. Characters learn about the world and themselves. Most great stories, regardless of genre, do the same. As of writing this in 2025, I have written most of a historical romance set in Nova Scotia that may just be historical fiction, as the hero and heroine have yet to bang, and I am at 60,000 words. I abandoned half of a contemporary rom-com because I struggled to make the characters’ motivations believable in the second-act climax (get your heads out the gutters; I’m talking about story structure). I started and stopped a few other projects before finally completing a contemporary romance last summer. What was meant to take a few weeks over the summer has taken me years to execute. All of this to say that I’ve been duly humbled as a writer and a reader, and I’ve read some damn good books in the process. That’s a happily-ever-after if I’ve ever read one. And trust me, I’ve read a few.

Image Credits: amazon.com 42

The Vege-men’s Revenge, children’s book illustration, Florence K Upton, 1890s

Show Me a Rose or Leave Me Alone: My Journey Toward a Radical Acceptance of Tom Waits by Robin Heindselman

Not long ago I read a book called Let’s Talk About Love: Why Other People Have Such Bad Taste by the music critic Carl Wilson, who embarks on an unusual project: to try to understand why Celine Dion is one of the best-selling artists of all time. Wilson establishes up front that Dion’s music runs counter to his tastes by every conceivable metric, and he wants to figure out why that is. Maybe by tracking his responses to her songs, by excavating and analyzing his own biases, he can broaden his musical sensibilities enough to find his “inner Celine Dion fan.” To that end, he gives one of her best-selling albums — Let’s Talk About Love — a painstakingly close and open-minded listen. It’s a hero’s journey. I won’t give away whether Carl Wilson succeeds in liking Celine Dion, but it gave me an idea: maybe I could use this same methodology to overcome my strong distaste for Tom Waits. Waits has always been, to put it charitably, not my thing. Yet the critics always slathered him with praise. Most of my friends who have what I consider good taste in music genuinely like his stuff. Everyone on Reddit calls him a “genius.” Obviously I’m the problem. Having never listened to any single album of his all the way through, I would say my Tom Waits exposure has been spotty but impactful. His voice, which has always inspired an unpleasantly visceral response in me, seemed to have two main 44

settings: belchy bark and tobacco-ravaged purr. Basically I thought of Tom Waits’ voice as the sound of halitosis. There was also the small matter of his lyrics, which always struck me as a little try-hard. Take “The Piano Has Been Drinking,” one of his famous songs from the ’70s. The title might have been a decent throwaway line, but repeated over and over I started to notice how dumb and obvious it is. The man is drunk and depressed. He is in denial and can only express his sadness through the piano. Ergo, the piano is drunk and depressed. For good measure, his “necktie is asleep,” “the jukebox has to take a leak,” and lots of other inanimate objects are similarly engaged. It’s personification smashed in your face like a cream pie.

But maybe this is unfair. Maybe I haven’t peeled back enough layers to understand why this is great art. Maybe if I deep-dive one of Waits’ albums and interrogate my responses using my highest critical faculties, I can work my way toward a true appreciation of Waits’ formidable talents. There is a lot riding on this. If Waits wins me over, I can join the prevailing critical consensus and earn a seat at the cool kids’ table. If he doesn’t win me over, I continue to be the same common-denominator midwit who doesn’t get great art. On the principle that we should judge an artist by their best work, I select his most famous and widely acclaimed album, Rain Dogs (the one I always passed over in the record bins when I was searching for Wire or Ween or Paul Williams). 45

Queuing up the full playlist on YouTube, I see a potential problem with this album choice: It has nineteen songs. Asking me to give a close listen to a nineteensong Tom Waits album is a little like asking a seventh-grade English class to read Ulysees — it’s going to be a lot for them. But I decide to give it my best shot. The album opens with “Singapore.” The production is aces — nice and warmsounding, with quirky arrangements of oddly tuned guitars blipping and blooping, and amusingly pingy marimbas. Musically it’s very cool, and puts me in what I imagine to be a rundown-carnival-in-Southeast-Asia headspace.

Then Waits, in full-throated belch mode, barges in spewing couplets and LARPing as a punch-drunk seaman. Already he is challenging my good faith, daring me to say, You are so full of shit. But I refuse to say it. After all, gutter cosplay is famously his thing. If I can accept Mick Jagger as a down-and-out Southern bluesman and Bob Dylan as a frontier prophet (and I’ve cheerfully accepted both), then there’s no defensible reason for me not to accept Waits’ shtick. So Waits is a sailor docked somewhere abroad, a nutter surrounded by other nutters (“We’re all as mad as hatters here”), soon to set out for Singapore. This guy has seen it all. He’s gotten drunk “with all the Chinamen” (all of them) and “walked the sewers of Paris” and “fallen for a tawny Moor.” His captain is a one-armed dwarf! But he’s also done some poetic things — he’s “danced along a colored wind” and 46

“dangled from a rope of sand.” He even has a motto: “In the land of the blind / The one-eyed man is king.” (Waits seems to have a thing for unpaired body parts.) The lyrics are a little too “Charles Bukowski Goes on Shore Leave” for my taste, but there are some nifty turns of phrase and an arresting image or two. Still, I couldn’t help but bristle at the voice, which is so “IT’S ME, TOM WAITS!” But maybe exposure therapy is the answer; just keep listening and the neck hairs will eventually go back down. Having dialed himself to 11 with the opener, Waits has no choice but to ease up a bit on track 2. He slides into his Marlboro purr on “Clap Hands,” another marimba-driven tune that’s less carnivalesque musically if not lyrically. Once again, madness and disability abound (“they’re all insane / fireman’s blind, conductor’s lame”), and there’s an assortment of criminals and desperados. Waits gives us a quick-cut montage of society’s most colorful rejects, pointing and making you look but never lingering for very long. I feel like I’m on a Contiki bus tour of Skid Row.

Surely, track 3 will take us somewhere a little different? Alas, no. “Cemetery Polka” is another song overpopulated with unsavory characters rendered in thumbnail sketches. A herky-jerky laundry list of relatives the speaker is thinking of hitting up for cash, this track has most of Waits’ now-familiar elements: the mentally afflicted (“Auntie Mame has gone insane / She lives in the doorway of an old hotel”), the physically disabled (“And I heard she has a wooden leg”), the skeezy (“Now he runs a tiny little bookie joint / They say he never keeps it 47

in his pants”), the sick and the sightless (Uncle Phil “has emphysema and he’s almost blind”) — all set to a crazy, dissonant guitar doing battle with a crazy, dissonant organ. This is my least favorite song so far. Even Waits’ literary tricks seem off here. One of the uncles is “independent as a hog on ice,” a simile I puzzled over for way too long before deciding it was just bad.

Less than one-sixth of the way through this album, I fear I may be in trouble. I’m struggling with the inflexibility of my response patterns, and the hoped-for breakthrough is nowhere in sight. I decide to deep-dive one more song and then reassess. “Jockey Full of Bourbon” is not bad musically, a nice loungy rhumba with a sultry tremolo guitar prowling around under Tom Waits’ cigarette breath. But the narrative is another whirlwind tour of vice and squalor, featuring a bar brawl, a Cuban jail, a Hong Kong prostitute, a falling-down drunk, a man who owns two pairs of pants, some adultery, a bit of Bowery Boys slang, and a literal or metaphorical carnival. Once again, I don’t understand how I’m supposed to feel about all this hurly-burly, or if I’m meant to feel anything at all. It’s clear that a close listen of fifteen more Tom Waits songs is only going to 48

further entrench my animus. Tracking my responses has brought me no closer to understanding them, and Waits is toying with my confirmation bias like a hog on ice. I decide to abandon the close-listen approach and assume an attitude of radical acceptance: I will simply let the songs “wash over me” (as a friend instructed me to do at a screening of 2001: A Space Odyssey), meet Tom Waits where he is, and apply a method I will call “light noticing.” I take three deep breaths. I reset. This seems to be the right move. I find I’m able to sway my head to the tipsy rhythms of the next few tracks and admire the studied looseness of Waits’ piano work. I note how the horns lurch in and out of the songs like his own dejected characters. In this mode, I can assess his drunks and drifters not as lazy caricatures but as archetypes (so universal that to describe them would do them a disservice). I can benevolently classify the images he obsessively recycles not as a bag of tricks but as signature tropes. Rather than knocking his vocal style as derivative, I can applaud the homage he’s paying to Louis Armstrong. Rather than identifying the melody of “Diamonds and Gold” as a blind ripoff of “Chim Chim Cheree,” I can praise it as a bold evocation of “Chim Chim Cheree.” (And so what if it is a blind ripoff? Remember that Picasso quote about great artists stealing not borrowing?) I’m pleased with my progress as I make my way through the next couple songs with mostly positive (or at least radically accepting) vibes. The only problem is the 49

light noticing; I’m having trouble with the “light” part. Strictly of its own volition, my right hand picks up my pen and starts a tally. I go along with it because it has the feel of a game, and as the tracks trip along, I find that I’m enjoying the album for reasons that have nothing to do with liking the album. Before I know it, I’ve made it through the final track. I go back and replay the songs I listened to before starting the tally. When the tally is done, I look over the results. Here is a sample: Booze. Bourbon, rum, wine, “roadhouse corn,” “festival brandy,” “whiskey in church.” Broken things. A “broken cup,” a “broken clock,” “broken glass,” “broken umbrellas.” Dogs. A “bull-whipped dog,” people “behaving like dogs,” hounds that “will start to roar,” “rain dogs,” dogs that “get tired,” dogs that are just “barking.” Blindness. The aforementioned “one-eyed man” and “almost blind” Uncle Phil, “an old blind tiger,” a “blind man’s cane,” another, unrelated “blind man’s cane,” “blind love,” a “blind pig,” “Blind Jack Dawes.” Trains. “The Southern Pacific,” “the Burlington Northern,” “the evening train,” “Dutch Pink on a downtown train,” another, unrelated “downtown train,” “a shipwreck train,” “a train now,” memory that’s “like a train,” “I’m at the station and I can’t get on the train,” Rain. A “bottle full of rain,” “pouring rain,” “the rain now” (rhymes with “a train now”), “thunder that the rain makes,” dreams that “fall like rain,” rain that sounds like “a round of applause,” rain that sounds like “gravel on an old tin roof,” “it’s raining hammers, it’s raining nails,” “the dish outside the window fills with rain.” My tally may seem like nothing but a lark — an idle amusement to avoid the real work of radical acceptance, a useless template for the world’s most ill-advised drinking game. But I think it may have had a constructive purpose. Looking over it, I have to marvel at how committed Waits is to his vision, how unapologetically attached he is to his very specific world and the very specific things in it. How much he genuinely loves his toolbox. Obviously, he named the album Rain Dogs for a 50

reason. I just didn’t think there’d be this much rain. I didn’t think there’d be this many dogs. I’m actually kind of impressed. I play the album through again, a background listen to collect stray afterthoughts. And this time something interesting happens. I start to picture Waits as a shaggy, floppy-eared dog. A shaggy, floppy-eared dog sitting at a piano. A dog not unlike … Rowlf? way.

It occurs to me that Waits reminds me of a Muppet. I don’t mean this in a bad

Turns out, I’m far from the first to make the Muppet/Waits connection. A quick internet search reveals endless comparisons of Waits to Cookie Monster, and it’s true that the Cookie Monster croak is uncannily like Waits at his croakiest. (There’s even a YouTube mashup of Cookie Monster “lip syncing” Waits’ “God’s Away on Business” that currently has 2.8 million views.) But while Waits shows occasional flashes of Cookie Monster-style mania, the two personae otherwise do not merit a close comparison. Oscar the Grouch comes a little closer to the mark. His voice has a Waitsstyle gruffness, and the two share an obsession with the defective and unwashed. The lyrics of Oscar’s signature tune “I Love Trash” (from season 1 of Sesame Street) could have been scrawled by Waits on a cocktail napkin and thrown away: “I’ve a clock that won’t work and an old telephone / A broken umbrella, a rusty trombone / And I am delighted to call them my own / I love ’em because they’re trash.” (Quick reminder that there’s both a broken clock and a broken umbrella in Rain Dogs.) But I think Waits’ true Muppet counterpart is Rowlf, and if the ivorytickling mutt had only swiped Fozzie Bear’s pork pie hat, the resemblance would be inarguable. Consider Rowlf ’s rendition of the Groucho Marx tune “Show Me a Rose,” which he infuses with a blend of sentimentality and wry detachment, an aura of shrugged-off loss that is pure Waits: “Show me a rose and I’ll show you a girl who cares / Show me a rose or leave me alone.” 51

Rowlf has the same old-timey musical sensibility, the barfly insouciance, the weakness for schmaltz, the affinity for misfits (his musical collaborations having included the zoologically unclassifiable Gonzo, the perpetually zonked Zoot, the incoherently meeping Beeker, and John Denver). I’m making no claim that one influenced the other. It’s true that Rowlf became famous on The Jimmy Dean Show a full decade before Waits’ first album. But he didn’t sit down at a piano until The Muppet Show debuted in 1976. Who knows what forces shaped Rowlf ’s artistic evolution? Or Tom Waits’ for that matter? The point is, I believe I’ve figured out how to listen to Tom Waits. If I can think of him as a Muppet rendered human — a Jim Henson creation made flesh and handed a battered copy of On the Road — the songs make sense. The voice makes sense. The lyrics make sense. I don’t have to search for meaning because it’s all about mood. And the mood is silly, mawkish, absurd, anarchic, most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, Muppetational…. I do a YouTube search, close my eyes, and think of Rowlf. Yes, my method checks out — even “The Piano Has Been Drinking” doesn’t sound half bad.

L.A. Reno

“Till paths be wrought through wilds of thought” Dubois, WY

Polaroid Emulsion Lift on 5”x5” watercolor paper 54

L.A. Reno

Blackhills White Moon

Custer State Park - Rapid City, SD Polaroid Emulsion Lift on 5”x5” watercolor paper 55

Excerpt from a Novel in Progress By Sam Ferguson

In this excerpt from a novel-in-progress, the eighteen-year-old protagonist, Elias Fitch, returns home after an unprintable romantic conquest. His brother and his father (a swim coach who’s recently been injured in a car crash and has begun to self-medicate with alcohol), are watching a Rolling Stones DVD. Elias joins them on the couch, then remembers a long-ago visit to his grandfather, a retired architect. Note: “Morfar” is Danish for maternal grandfather.

Morfar in Florida I got home around ten, sweating from the ride and still suffused with what I’d done, with the boundless inner light of my achievement. My mom had gone to bed, but Soren and my dad were on the couch there in the den, absorbed in an old Rolling Stones DVD. They sat on either end and had their feet up on the table. My dad held a great metal mug in one hand. I came around and plopped between them, in the order of our ages. We stared up at the screen, at the human iconography of Jagger’s cocky strut, and were drawn into the timelessness of something very old. “The vanquishing hero,” my dad said. “Back from the field to regale us with his exploits.” When I only smiled and waved, he understood and didn’t push it, and I was flattered by the knowledge that they knew, that we were sitting in—indulging in— the masculine fact of my conquest. My dad, I also noticed, seemed sharper than he had been since the crash. I couldn’t see the contents of his mug, but didn’t care. The satiating peace of my achievement was upon us. 56

I’d seen this particular show several times — a night in Texas on the Exile tour, in 1973 — but never with the eyesight of the grand romantic hero, and now their swagger, their absurdist sexuality, made sense. It was, all at once, both performative and factual, not a mark of real maturity so much as adolescence: the man-child’s celebration of his potency. The names of their women — “Brown Sugar,” “Sweet Black Angel,” “Little Queenie,” even “Angie” — were just a backdrop for this airing of machismo. It was giddy, kind of stupid. I could feel it in myself. But when “Sweet Virginia” started, something different came upon them. It was a song of heavy yearning, not without humor or a sneering, smutty haughtiness, but vulnerable and desperate all the same. Mick was in the spotlight with his spangled sleeveless T-shirt. Keith was right behind him, strumming on a dreadnought and delivering the harmonies. The tempo and the lyrics and the melody and rhythm all combined into the sound of pure desire — a desire way past the flesh that somehow clashed with my achievement. Come on, come on down, Sweet Virginia. The begging of the melody implied its own frustration. But I’d won the girl I’d pined for, so why did I feel, as Mick strutted and swayed, the sadness of this longing? Something to do with my parents, I realized, the lingering threat of a rupture, great pain. The melody went soaring up but fell away unsatisfied. The sax solo started — Bobby Keys on the tenor — while Mick wandered off and came back, brought it home. The three Fitch men sat in silence on the couch, staring, rapt by the flickering screen. Above us, unseen, my mother might have slept or stewed away in bitter solitude. I wished that she were there, that we were all there on the couch, enjoying something harmless and remote and entertaining. Then, as if to mock me, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” started up. I recalled a long road trip from five years before, stopping for an evening at my uncle’s house in Jacksonville. There — in the beachfront subdivision which embodied, with its golf course, the Larsen vision of success — my dad had tramped the private dunes, strumming his guitar in therapeutic self-reflection. Soren and I had gone straggling after him — to look out at the ocean, but also just to listen. You get what you need, he had sung, which seemed, in the excess of the beauty of that moment, a strange, almost meaningless understatement. The ocean churned and whispered like a massive, rolling drum. I remembered our days in Fort Lauderdale, too. It was one of the last times we visited Morfar, a journey made more out of weary obligation than any real desire to see the patriarch himself. These men, in my memory, contrasted dramatically: my 57

dad at the apex of family-man health, attached to his guitar but always quick to offer aid; Morfar shrunken down behind a shield of secret drunkenness, furtive and exhausted and resentful of all help. He lived, like my uncle, on a golf course, in a subdivision stocked with modern homes of his design: stark rectilinear faces and sides, with pokerfaced windows and huge steely doors. There were seven or eight variations of these homes, alternating randomly in modernist profusion down the zoned and coded lanes, alive with hanging gardens and the slickness of palmettos, jacarandas, knotted oaks. As cookie-cutter subdivisions go, the place was cool. He’d designed several others, but I gathered from his living here that this one was the best, the only one fit for a Nordic artiste who remained, though he’d blasted the land with whole swaths of uniformity, capable of calling forth a cold and sweeping beauty. He was in his eighties then, a widower my mother felt ashamed of having ditched. Our visits were a yearly compensation: she’d feed him and escort him to the toilet, arrange his pillows on his chair, and narrate — as one does with an infant, in a condescending coo — every loving action that she took on his behalf. All this he endured with a pitiful silence, a kind of slumping forfeit to the onslaught of the years. His hair was swept back from a high, spotted forehead, and his nose was long and straight and weirdly beautiful. The light in his eyes burned from somewhere within him, like a flame encased in layers of a thick and grimy glass. His docs had decreed that he wasn’t to drink, and my mother had disposed of all the liquor in the house. What could he do in such circumstances? What in the world could he possibly say? He sat and simply nodded as his daughter fluffed and cooed. He cast his sooty gaze upon his grandsons, looked away. One person he actually liked was my dad. If my mom took a break, then my dad would take over. He would herd him like an orderly from living room to kitchen, or plant him on the patio in full view of the sun, where he’d read to him from ancient, piss-hued thrillers by Dean Koontz. They didn’t talk much. It was clear they didn’t have to. Morfar was content to be the patient — or the audience. My dad would sometimes break out his acoustic, and in that teeming garden of petunia and hibiscus, he would softly serenade him with his repertoire of folk songs. There were Beatles tunes as well — gentle ones like “Julia,” a lightly plucked “Blackbird” — and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” a clear favorite. Morfar would sit in his patio chair, his blanketed legs the true sign of the invalid, a look of mild absorption on his narrow, craggy face. 58

Image © Sotheby's / The Splash © David Hockney 1966

They would ignore me at such moments. They’d ignore Soren too. And I began to detect in my grandfather’s character an essential and unyielding form of selfishness. He wanted only to be tended to, and since we, as mere kids, could offer little but our love, he found us woefully uninteresting. I began to sense as well that he was playing up his weaknesses, the better to provoke my parents’ service. I remember, for example, when Morfar, moved on a whim to go trudging upstairs, enlisted my dad to escort him. He wanted to show him some quirk of the house, the dull and grimy fire behind his eyes now growing bright, whole sentences emerging from a mouth long used to terseness. “The sashes are unique,” I remember him saying. The two of them were poised along the bottom of the stairs — my dad supporting Morfar like a servant. “Most unique,” he emphasized. He’d come to the States in his globetrotting twenties, though his accent, thick and stately, hadn’t faded with the years. “I designed them myself, as I did each smallest detail. And the view from this window. It’s undoubtedly the centerpiece, both its appearance and its vantage. The idea is to look out on something most beautiful while looking, oneself, just as lovely as the view.” “Beauty meeting beauty,” said my dad. My mom and I were sitting in the living room, observing from a vantage of our own. “Sounds like a marriage. The good kind, I mean.” “No,” he said. “No. It’s not a sentimental business. I’m speaking strictly of aesthetics.” “Of course,” my dad said. He was still holding Morfar, stooped to his height and preparing to climb. “If there’s one guiding principle that runs through my work, it’s this simple reciprocity, this interchange of beauty between artifice and nature. Of course, it’s all artifice. It’s all devising and obscuring and maintaining an illusion.” “I see,” my dad said, shifting his weight from one foot the other. “Let’s go!” Morfar said. “Take me up, man. Let’s go!”

They began their ascent, their hips touching lightly, their heads bowed in focus on each labored step. My father all but carried him, delivered him aloft so Morfar

could point at things and boast. I decided right then that my dad was a saint. What followed, hours later, is a secret even now. I kept it from my parents and from Soren, who was innocent then, not yet the asshole he would become. Not even Morfar had known what I’d seen. We went out to the pool that afternoon. The old man was stationed in his lawn chair on the patio, and the rest of us swam or stretched out on his loungers. Morfar, as I’ve mentioned, was a wretched alcoholic, though it was silently agreed that he’d been sober for some years. I had never seen him drunk—or if I had, I hadn’t known it. But when I ran inside to pee that day, still dripping in my towel, I came upon Morfar alone in the kitchen, rummaging around in the cabinets by the sink. He didn’t see me in the doorway. He had thought he was alone. I watched as he pulled out a small plastic bottle. It was filled with clear liquid, its label obscured. It looked like something practical — a cleaning spray or soap — but then he coughed and brought it up and took a long audacious gulp, not even thinking to check his surroundings. I scurried from the doorway to the bathroom down the hall. When I came out again, he was back in his chair. His cheeks were dolloped pink, and his long, straight nose now seemed enflamed with youthful blood. Strangest of all were his eyes, their soot-begrimed layers of glass tossed away. He was beaming at this scene as if admiring his own handiwork. My mother asleep in the sun. Soren afloat on his back, in the shallows. My dad swimming laps with his usual fervor. “The boy’s back,” Morfar said. He turned on me his weirdly shining eyes. I looked away. “Yep. Here I am.” I didn’t know what else to say. “Look at this father of yours. He’s more a dolphin than a man. This fellow’s otherworldly. Just observe him. Just observe!” “No doubt,” I replied, then joined my brother on the steps. I sat there next to Soren and we did exactly that: watched him swim, watched 61

Image © Tate / A Bigger Splash © David Hockney 1967

the rippling mechanics of his arms, his kicking legs, the clockwork of his breathing as he crossed and crossed again. It almost seemed ridiculous, his straining while we rested, though I recognized within it a reflection of our lives. It was through my father’s work — that curious concoction of the selfless and the selfish, the dual drive to provide and to achieve more sporting glory — that we were able to enjoy our cushy world. This must have been what inspired Morfar’s smile: the architect’s sense of the blended, driven self, of the need to build for others from the parts found in the mirror. When I turned to look at Morfar, he had slumped down in his chair. His head was at an angle. He was snoring loud and low. We drove home the next day. A couple weeks later, the mailman found Morfar collapsed in the foyer. He’d fallen and shattered his ankle and wrist. The bottle had capsized and spilled on the tiles. My mom flew out at once, then moved him to a senior-living center, a place — fate is strange — of his own stark design. I saw him just once after that. The light behind his eyes had been extinguished. He was gone. Now the Stones, on our TV, were revving up yet slowing down. They’d arrived at the encore of “Street Fighting Man,” and Jagger charged about as if in protest to the end, to the thought of ever giving up the stage, its adulations. He twirled and tossed his scarf. He spun with dervish daring in the roundels of his ecstasy. He showered Charlie Watts and then the audience with roses. Everything and everyone reflected him, his genius. I looked at my dad just to see what he thought. But his head was at an angle, like the drooping of a flower, and I heard, beneath the Stones, the subtle grinding of his snores.

Not Falling for the Fanfare

An Overrated Essay By Justin Gricus

In August of 2022, the line from Flour Moon Bagels snaked across the outside patio and spilled onto the adjacent sidewalk, a line filled with people of all ages enthusiastically waiting to sample the goods of this new breakfast spot on the Lafitte Greenway. New Orleans takes its food seriously and rarely falters when it offers its traditional such as gumbo and red beans, etouffee and jambalaya. However, there are instances where New Orleans falls short and fails to deliver. For instance, it’s only been in the last ten to fifteen years that one can find a decent slice of pizza in this town, and good luck trying to locate a satisfactory bagel. Finding a worthy bagel has remained an elusive endeavor here, so upon seeing this line of people braving the sticky August morning conditions to sample the offerings at this recently opened eatery, I was both excited and anxious. Could this be the one establishment that finally serves a world-class bagel? Could the void in the New Orleans culinary menu finally be filled? One can hope, but sadly, Flour Moon’s bagels are overrated. Overpriced, lacking the necessary characteristics that define a quality bagel, Flour Moon joins a long list of establishments where style and hype prevail over quality and substance where the buzz overshadows an obviously inferior product. A perfect bagel combines a crisp and crusty exterior with a chewy and dense interior, a firm crust with a fine crumb. Flour Moon offers an airy, soggy middle with an outside texture closer to a puffy dinner roll at an Applebee’s buffet than a world class bagel from a New York deli. It is a bland piece of bread shaped like a bagel with a hole in the center — the center representing the emptiness and disappointment I felt on my first taste after waiting in line for close to an hour. The temperature approached 85 degrees with the dew point around 80, and I had wasted an hour of my invaluable time wading in a swamp for this overpriced, prosaic product that novice foodies on Yelp called “New Orleans’ best bagel.” The sorrows of an August summer were embodied in the discouraging item that sat on the plate before me. 64

As an amateur baker and someone who has made bagels in my own kitchen, I’m constantly amazed and dumbfounded when I sample the bland and underwhelming bagels throughout my hometown. After doing a little research, reading a few recipes, and browsing a few cookbooks, I discovered that making bagels at home is time-consuming, yes, but does not require an abundance of skill or technique. After experimenting a few times, I was able to produce a quality and notable bagel. It’s not perfect, but I’m also not looking to open a business. It surprises me that someone would have the hubris to open a breakfast place around such a bland and unremarkable product. It’s like a beer-league softball player who hits a few home runs one game thinking he should try out for the Yankees. It’s comparable to your neighbor down the street who lives for karaoke thinking he should take his act on America’s Got Talent. So I can knead dough, could someone please direct me to the next Top Chef audition? The lackluster bagels produced by Flour Moon and the lines that form outside each weekend morning are just another example of people succumbing to the hype. Long lines in the background of the selfie you post to your social media site must mean you’re hip, trendy, and in the know, right? You are an ambassador for all things cool, progressive, and fashionable. If fifty people are behind you while you raise your phone at just the right angle to capture the swarms of follows, it must mean those tacos are tremendous, the cocktails provide the perfect mix of sweet and savory, those gourmet sandwiches contain the perfect processed meat from some Italian villa you’re not sure how to pronounce. And those bagels? Well, we waited over an hour to get a taste of New York down here in the Gulf. All these Yelpers can’t possibly be wrong. Perhaps it’s not Flour Moon that should be questioned. Perhaps the real criticism should be reserved for the countless throngs who fall for the fanfare and listen to the opinions of amateurs, posers, and blowhards. In today’s social media world, it is thinking for oneself that remains severely underrated. 65

Oh No-reo!

by Shay Steckler It’s too much. Have you ventured to the Oreo section of a grocery store recently? And I don’t mean the small, neighborhood grocery. I mean the expansive stores where the carts are wide, the aisles are endless, and the array of products come at you like a processed food explosion. At any one of these establishments, the Oreo section is pronounced. I remember the days when this was not the case, but somehow, slowly yet surely, that plucky little chocolate cookie has been expanding into a world full of flavors, and I don’t know that we’ll ever be able to get it back into the jar. Shay?! Are you saying you’re not a fan of Oreos?! Of course not, dearest, gentle reader. I am, however, not a fan of unnecessary excess. [See also: Why Shay doesn’t go to Costco.] It feels like this Oreo mania has come out of nowhere, and I need to know what happened. Oreo cookies were produced by Nabisco and came on the market in 1912. They are currently the #1 selling cookie in the United States and have been for over a decade. For a century, they pretty much stayed the same, classic cookie: two thin chocolate cookies with a layer of white cream in the middle. In 1974, the “Double Stuf ”Oreo cookie was introduced, and in 2004, the world met the Golden Oreo, using vanilla cookies instead of chocolate ones. Honestly, I think we could’ve stopped there. In 2012, Oreo was bought by Mondelez International, an American food company. It appears that there is a correlation between the acquisition of Oreo by this new parent company and the rise in adventurous, random flavors of Oreo. Is this a causation? Perhaps. This company is ranked 108th on the 2021 Forbes 500 List. They are a multibillion-dollar conglomerate, and perhaps they set out to make even more money with even more flavors. Over the next decade, the following flavors hit the Oreo market: chocolate creme, mint, lemon, birthday cake, Reese’s, strawberries ‘n cream, cookie dough, 66

fruit punch, key lime, pumpkin spice, red velvet, cinnamon bun, s’mores, blueberry, Peeps, waffle and syrup, chocolate hazelnut, firework, salted caramel, churro, Lady Gaga, and Coca-Cola. The international market, especially Asia, saw additional flavors such as green tea and hot chicken wing. It reminds me of a quote from the 1998 movie You’ve Got Mail when Tom Hanks’ character says, “The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc.” Now, Oreo isn’t making anyone make six decisions for a cookie, but they are asking you to peruse a sizable grocery store shelf full of various options. There are twenty-six flavors of Oreos currently available on their website, including thin options, mini options, gluten-free options, and “for a limited time only” options. There are websites and social media posts dedicated to ranking the myriad flavor offerings. Instead of being turned off by this amount of abundance, many consumers are flocking to it. Gotta try them all! Tom Hanks’ Joe continues that Starbucks rant with, “So people who don’t know what the hell they’re doing, or who on Earth they are, can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino.” Is that what this is all about? Is the Oreo craze just another way we can assert our unique self? Our personality? Like the enneagram, the zodiac, or the Myers-Brigg, does the Oreo create an accessible means of defining ourselves? We are a society that loves labels. Single! White! Female! Chocolate Creme! All these Oreo options allow us to experiment, to develop an identity, and to play to our gluttonous desires. Sure, we didn’t ask for them, but when they showed up, we welcomed them. We can softshoe through life with an Oreo Thin. We can retreat to the cozy comfort of a “Double Stuf,” or we can branch out into the scary world of a Cokeflavored cookie. And if we can do that, what can’t we do?

L.A. Reno

“Dignity of Earth and Sky” (Sculpture honoring the Lakota and Dakota people) Chamberlin, SD Polaroid Emulsion Lift on 5”x5” watercolor paper 68

L.A. Reno Proof Through The Night II

Mt Rushmore, SD

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Let Them Eat Cake: An Analysis by Cake Charts by Maddie Oberfoell 70

I love to bake. This love does not stem from a love of food. Actually, I am quite a picky eater and always have been — hold the onions, please. My love for baking is most likely rooted in my desire to please and impress others. What better way to do so than by tackling some of the most highly rated cakes in the world (that I won’t be consuming). Inspired by The Great British Baking Show alum Ruby Bhogal’s online series where she makes and rates the top 80 cakes in the world, I decided to do something similar but with a mathematical twist. Math is my other love and another way I try to impress people. The Process First, I needed to find out what the top-rated cakes in the world were. Luckily, no door-to-door survey or any cold-calling was necessary. That research had already been done. TasteAtlas describes itself as “an encyclopedia of flavors, a world atlas of traditional dishes, local ingredients, and authentic restaurants.” It boasts having “cataloged over 10,000 foods and drinks.” Within this vast encyclopedia of information, there was a curated list of the top 100 cakes. I focused on the top 80. With the list in hand, I had a threefold goal: • Identify where the cakes came from. • Calculate their production cost. • See if people agree with their rankings. TasteAtlas provided information on each cake’s country of origin and even context for highly contested recipes, such as the Pavlova, a meringue-based dessert from New Zealand named after ballerina Anna Pavlova, or Tres Leches, a Nicaraguan milk-based dessert partly inspired by FDR’s love of Wisconsin. I then calculated the cost of each individual recipe. Every ingredient was broken down and priced to the final gram, ounce, teaspoon, etc., with prices sourced from Walmart unless a specialty ingredient required an alternative. Every single cent was accounted for. Only the cost of ingredients was included; equipment was excluded. To test these findings, I made 3 cakes of differing price ranges: one cheap, one moderate, and one expensive. I had people taste and rate the cakes to determine whether price influenced perceived taste. Here are my results. 72

The Data

By Continent Among the 80 cakes listed, 31 different countries were represented — at least one from every continent except Antarctica. Europe led the way with 55 cakes, spanning both Eastern and Western regions. Asia and North America followed with 10 cakes each. Australia/Oceania and South America had two cakes each, and Africa had just one cake represented. In all honesty, Africa is lucky to have made it at all because Mbsesses is more of a bread than a cake, but I don’t have the energy to have that fight with TasteAtlas.

By Country The country with the most cakes on the list was Poland, with a total of eight. Interestingly, almost all of Poland’s eight cakes are vastly different from one another. Among them are a cheesecake, an apple cake, a poppy seed cake, and a horizontal spit cake. The list goes on. The United States and Germany closely follow with seven cakes each. Italy, France, Hungary, Russia, and Austria rounded out the top eight. Almost all the top countries are European, so Marie Antoinette would be pleased — they’re eating plenty of good cake. Some countries had very similar cakes, such as the Polish Karpatka, the Austrian Cremeschnitte, the Hungarian Kremes, the Slovenian Kremna rezina, and the Polish Kremowka. There was also an array of cheesecakes, all with slight variations reflecting their countries of origin.

By Price The cost of making one of the top 80 cakes in the world ranges from approximately $3.05 to $48.00 (not including tax). As seen in the scatter plot, there is no consistent trend or linear relationship between ranking and price. It is continuously rising and falling. The math supports this as well. The correlation coefficient between cake rankings and their prices is approximately 0.083, which indicates a very weak positive correlation. The p-value is 0.465, suggesting that the correlation is not statistically significant. Simply put, there’s no strong evidence linking price and ranking. The cheapest cake is actually ranked at #18, while the most expensive is ranked at #40 — halfway down the list. The most expensive cakes typically had one or more of the following ingredients: nuts, chocolate, liquor, a local specialty ingredient, and/ or expensive fruit. Meanwhile, the cheapest cakes relied on very few ingredients, focusing more on structure and highlighting a single flavor. The mean price of these top-rated cakes is approximately $14.83 (represented by the dashed line).

By Taste When selecting the cakes I was going to bake, I wanted them to be of similar rankings so all three came from the top third of the list. • The cheap cake I chose was the Swedish Kladdkaka, ranked at #2 for taste and #4 for price. • The moderate cake was the Nicaraguan Tres Leches, ranked at #13 for taste and #34 for price. • The expensive cake was the Brazilian Bolo de Brigadeiro, ranked at #27 for taste and #77 for price. The Bolo de Brigadeiro was a pain to make, and I don’t think it was worth it. I definitely had trouble with the brigadeiro frosting, which did not thicken all of the way, making it more of a glaze than a true brigadeiro. While the overall taste was good, I thought the cake was too dense and had a very tight crumb structure. I also thought serving it with cream would have helped to cut through all the chocolate and make it less intense. Overall, the Bolo de Brigadeiro scored an average of 7.37. I have made Tres Leches before, and it is quite a straightforward process: whip the egg whites, fold in the dry ingredients, bake, and cover with a bunch of milks. I also have a strange addiction to whipping cream by hand. I find it incredibly satisfying, and it makes me an ultimate arm wrestler. I found this cake fun to make and received the most in-person compliments on this one. Overall, the Tres Leches scored an average of 8.01. The Kladdkaka was by far the easiest to make. I actually made the whole thing in less than 30 minutes before driving to school. The only obstacle I encountered was the recipe called for a spring-form pan, which I do not have. Instead, I used a regular 9-inch cake pan and had no trouble turning it out. The texture of this cake was similar to a molten lava cake or an under-baked brownie and was therefore heavenly! This cake lived up to its TasteAtlas ranking. It was the easiest, cheapest, and highest-rated cake I made. Overall, the Kladdkaka scored an average of 8.82.

Conclusion While there is a big difference between the cheapest and most expensive cake, the data shows that there is no significant correlation between price and ranking. This is supported by my mini experiment where the cheapest cake actually received the highest score. Ultimately, taste is subjective, and the ranking of cakes does not necessarily align with their complexity, price, or the effort required to make them. Sometimes the simplest desserts bring the most joy. While extravagant cakes with premium ingredients may seem more impressive, they don’t always guarantee a better experience. What matters most is personal preference, cultural influence, and the nostalgia or comfort a particular cake provides. Even though I may never crave cake, I will always appreciate the artistry behind it. Baking is more than just a science—it’s a way to connect with others, celebrate traditions, and, for people like me, have a little fun with numbers along the way.

The Red Binder by Rebecca Coatney

“You are what you eat.” This old adage is typically interpreted in the context of food and health. Eat well, live well. But to me, “you are what you eat” is more history than health. I am what I eat…and what we eat…and ate…I am who made it…and I am where it comes from. A few years ago I began printing favorite recipes from the web, pestering relatives to transcribe and share favorites that previously lived exclusively in their memories, and typing out my own versions of meals I’d been tweaking for years. The red recipe binder is like a walk through my heritage, each page revealing a slice of my history like the rings of an old tree. The oldest is a recipe for Spritz Cookies, passed down through a line of women beginning with my mother’s great-aunt Pauline, born in 1897. At the top of the page is a list of relatives who lovingly prepared these for their families each year. The smell of these buttery morsels baking, and the slight hint of almond as they melt in my mouth, bring me back to my earliest childhood memories. Atop a butcher block in a warm winter kitchen, we used my German great-grandmother’s hand-crank cookie press to form shapes that eagerly awaited the shimmer of festive sprinkles. We flippantly cast aside the discs for pumpkins and butterflies, opting only for the wreath and pine tree. Spritz Cookies are exclusively for Christmas. As the last cookie crumbs are brushed into the trash, we clear the counter for a new year and a newer food tradition — perhaps the only one I can truly call my own, as the only member of my family born and raised in Pennsylvania Dutch country. While our family holiday meals typically featured some cultural tradition of my parents (or theirs) — a Christmas goose, German Saurbraten, Czech halupki, or a proper English prime rib — my mother shared recently that she simply decided on a whim to try making pork and sauerkraut for New Year’s “sometime in the 90’s.” She figured since she was raising a native daughter of Pennsylvania, she ought to give me a taste of my culinary birthright. While I think everyone in my immediate family would have been happy with a one-and-done approach, I loved this beige meal so much I insisted it become our annual tradition. Slow-cooked pork shoulder, fat 78

perfectly rendered and falling off the bone, on a bed of sauerkraut, apples, onions and caraway seeds, shredded and served over mashed potatoes: what’s not to love? Beige, perhaps, but certainly not bland. Having long since moved out of my childhood home, I now foist this “gross” and “mushy” one-pot wonder to my own family every January 1. While my children may not have the same sentimental attachment to pork and sauerkraut as I do, they are beginning to develop favorites of their own. My husband’s family jambalaya — the recipe originally from a thick plastic spiralbound church cookbook circa 1989 — adorned our wedding buffet, impressed my college friends on their first visit to New Orleans, and now fills my children with joy whenever it makes the weeknight rotation. Like our parents before us, my husband and I merged our respective family traditions. Thanksgiving features turkey, sage sausage and apple stuffing (mine), and pecan pie (his). Leftover turkey and homemade stock (mine) are the base for the delicious day-after gumbo (his). Egg casserole (his) and homemade cinnamon rolls (mine) now join forces to build a Christmas breakfast greater than the sum of its parts. Each of these edible artifacts are the foundation of my own children’s core culinary memories. Their beignets are my fastnachts. Their gumbo is my chicken corn soup. Their crawfish pasta is my Dutch pot pie. The rings of my red recipe binder may be overflowing and the pockets full, but I hope when I pass it down they will continue to stuff it with their own new pages, reflecting the people and places they encounter. We are what we eat…and the story behind it...and who we eat it with. Maybe if I’m lucky, they’ll cook for me someday, too.

The Red Binder

Spritz Cookies Passed down from Pauline Eckersly, Caryl Walther, and Ann Sopchak to Rebecca Coatney Ingredients

1 cup butter, softened ¾ cup sugar 1 egg 2 ¼ cups flour ½ tsp baking powder dash salt ¾ tsp vanilla extract ¼ tsp almond extract Directions 1. Preheat oven to 375°F. 2. Sift dry ingredients together. Set aside. 3. In a large bowl beat butter and sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy (or use stand mixer with paddle attachment). 4. Add egg and vanilla. Beat to combine. 5. Add sifted dry ingredients gradually. Mix to combine. 6. Fit cookie press with desired shape and fill with dough. 7. Form cookies onto ungreased baking sheets. Add sprinkles if desired. 8. Bake cookies 10-12 minutes or until the edges are just golden brown. 9. Let cool on sheet very briefly (1 minute), then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Rebecca and her daugher enjoying their Spritz Cookies. 81

L.A. Reno

Halls of Justice Supreme Court - Washington, D.C.

Polaroid Emulsion Lift on 5”x5” watercolor paper 82

L.A. Reno

Amber waves Yellowstone National Park, WY

Polaroid Emulsion Lift on 5”x5” watercolor paper

Dissolving the Confederacy by Mike Miley

It has all the markings of quality. A glowing endorsement from Walker Percy. A Pulitzer Prize. There’s even a statue of its protagonist on Canal Street. Most books are enormously lucky if they get even one of those. All signs point toward a significant work of tremendous importance to both the city in which it is set and literature itself. There’s just one problem: John Kennedy Toole’s novel A Confederacy of Dunces isn’t all that good. That is not to say that it is wholly without merit, but that its merits have been greatly exaggerated. When people choose to praise Dunces, the first thing they point to is the novel’s humor. “That’s the funniest book,” they’ll say. Irreverent, outlandish, and often gross, the book sure does have its humorous moments. It would have to: its protagonist, Iganatius J. Reilly, is a walking punchline. Overweight, overeducated, and overconfident in his own abilities as a leader and political theorist, Reilly is always good for a laugh. His constant belches, farts, and enraged rants at scantily clad cinematic women appeal to the uptight juvenile in all of us. And then there’s the excellent physical comedy. Slapstick can be incredibly hard to pull off in a nonvisual medium, but Toole perfectly times Ignatius’s pratfalls to appear at the most comedic moments, such as the time when he falls off a table while attempting to lead a workers’ revolt. Better still are the gluttonous gross-out gags such as the way he eats his weight (and salary) in hot dogs or the nauseating detail that he sucked all the jelly out of the donuts and left their doughy carcasses in the box. That jelly donut perfectly encapsulates the disgustingly funny flavor of the book’s humor, as well as that humor’s staying power over the novel’s 400 pages. Frankly it lasts about as long as Ignatius lasts at any remotely physical task. The humor is amusing for about 100 pages, 200 if I’m feeling generous, but after 400 pages, the book is just like that jelly donut: all the good stuff got sucked out of it long ago. Toole’s supporters will also point to the book’s portrayal of New Orleans in the 1960s as being praiseworthy. Although it’s nice to see the book attempt to depict the various ethnic groups fighting for a foothold in a changing city, the final result falls 84

short of capturing the city’s identity, at least not in any positive light worth valorizing. Instead of elevating the city’s image, it may even tarnish it. People defending the book often single out its satirical portrayal of prejudice in a city dominated by ethnic groups jockeying for positions of power as a marker of its superior quality. Toole’s most common targets are employers and police officers, which misleads readers into thinking that the book may be politically progressive. Those who champion the book choose to overemphasize those leanings so much so that they miss the reactionary final results. The truth is that Toole treats his marginalized characters exactly the way that his oppressive antagonists do: he demeans them with humor and the broadest caricature possible. Burma Jones may lead a protest and subvert the powers that be in his own small, clandestine way, but his station in life does not change in the slightest at the end, nor does anyone’s attitude toward him. Instead, Toole uses the comic setup of his novel to indulge in every racist joke he wants to make, all while pretending that he is on Jones’s side. He may appear to decry Jones’ treatment at the hands of police, but by the novel’s end he has dressed Jones up in the clothes of a field hand, returning him to the plantation for nothing more than a cheap gag. The fact that he delves no deeper into Jones’s interior life anywhere in the novel’s 400 pages shows just how shallow his vision of the life of the marginalized is. By the novel’s end, the only thing we know about Jones is that he smokes, wears glasses, and is Black, all of which effectively obscure his humanity from the reader. The truth is that it’s not only Jones who is obscured by a cloud of smoke and large sunglasses: it’s Toole himself. As with any conversation about this novel, all roads lead back to Toole. Toole is arguably the real protagonist of Dunces’ celebration. The literary world loves a good underdog story, and Toole’s unfortunate life fits that all too perfectly. The novel’s posthumous publication and acclaim make it easier to celebrate Toole as a genius who was grossly misunderstood in his time because a confederacy of dunces in the literary establishment were aligned against him. “Those people in the big city just don’t get the book,” its admirers would say, “They don’t understand what makes it 85

and the city it depicts so special. But we do.” This is a seductive narrative, for sure, and it’s the narrative that has caught on because it’s far superior to the one on offer in the book itself. Where the book may be overflowing with gross-out humor, it’s lacking in craft. It’s no exaggeration to say that this book is a first draft: it is. Literally. LSU Press chose to jettison all revisions Toole made under the guidance of Robert Gottlieb and publish Toole’s first complete draft as-is. Like many first drafts of first novels, it’s not ready for prime time. It’s uneven, repetitive, has little forward motion, and ends without real change or resolution. In its present form, it does not meet any of the criteria for fiction laid out in even the most amateur of writing workshops. Perhaps it could have had Toole lived, but we’ll never know — and it’s foolish to venerate the tragedy of unrealized potential, especially when it comes to identifying a novel so thoroughly with a city the way that fans of A Confederacy of Dunces identify it with New Orleans. And this is where I do have to concede another point where the book’s champions are correct, though it will likely not please them to hear it. What I’ve discussed so far in some respects argues that Ignatius is a grotesque representation of New Orleans itself: lazy, indulgent, racist, obsessed with taking things back to the way they were, and only interested in expending effort when it comes time to complain about change. This is hardly a vision of the city to celebrate, and certainly not one to commemorate in the form of a statue on Canal Street. Rather, it is one to condemn in the fight for change, and it is sad to see so many New Orleanians willingly accept such a terrible vision of themselves as their most authentic. As appealing as the prevailing narrative about this book may be, it’s time that we recognize A Confederacy of Dunces for what it is: a sometimes funny, frequently disturbing book about a writer and city in crisis, not something to base an identity on.

MAKING THE MONSTERS BREAKFAST

Turning Art to Kitsch in Four Easy Steps by Sean Patterson

Whether a creative work is actually art is often a matter of taste. Humorist Gelett Burgess parodied this subjectivity in his 1906 book Are You a Bromide?, in which he identifies a “bromide” as a dull, boring person who makes dull, boring observations, such as “I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.” Burgess also coined the term “blurb” in Are You a Bromide? in a fictitious dustjacket testimonial he attributed to a “Mrs. Melinda Blurb” engaged “in the Act of Blurbing,” but I digress. Art does not lend itself to easy definition. Edgar Degas said that art is not what you see, but what you make others see. Pablo Picasso called art a lie that makes us see truth. Gustav Klimt: “Art is a line around our thoughts.” Elbert Hubbard: “Art is not a thing, it is a way.” Theodore Dreiser: “Art is the stored honey of the human soul.” Stella Adler: “Life beats down and crushes the soul, and art reminds you that you have one.” Ai Weiwei: “Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it.” Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of a work of art — that is to say, the characteristic that most distinguishes a work of art from a work of non-art — is its singularity. It is an individual expression of some aspect of our humanity. There’s only one Mona Lisa, only one David, only one Starry Night, and so on. A true work of art is unique, sui generis, one of a kind. At the other end of the spectrum, then, there must be the opposite. Instead of one ineffably wrought creation, there are mass-produced multitudes. This, my 88

friends, is kitsch, from the German for “gaudy trash.” If art is unique, kitsch is the lowest common denominator. Kitsch not only makes art easily digestible, it makes sure there’s plenty enough for everyone. Kitsch repackages art’s rarefied high culture as ubiquitous pop culture. The Mona Lisa smiles enigmatically at us from T-shirts and coffee mugs. David becomes a refrigerator magnet, his alabaster nakedness obscured in endless combinations of a silly, stick-on wardrobe. The Starry Night becomes a LEGO set, endorsed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and featuring a Vincent Van Gogh minifigure. It is too much of a generalization to say that all art eventually becomes kitsch. Sometimes, art is consumed, digested, and released back into the world as new art. The 1984 Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine musical Sunday in the Park with George, for example, takes its inspiration from Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884-1886) and is considered a brilliant artistic achievement in its own right, with no less than the Pulitzer Prize for Drama to show for it. But it is undeniably the fate of much art to become kitsch: consumed and digested, yes, but then regurgitated over and over again in increasingly incongruous ways for an unsophisticated public. The transformation is not always as instantaneous or as quaint as slapping Toulouse-Lautrec on a tote bag and selling it for twenty bucks. There can be quite a slippery slope from artistic zenith to populist nadir. To explore how art becomes kitsch, let’s take two monumental works and trace their artistic degradation assimilation into popular culture: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Cover detail from Are You a Bromide? (1906) by Gelett Burgess [Image source: Library of Congress, Printed Ephemera Collection.]

STEP ONE: Creation, or Making the Monsters Mary Shelley wrote what would become her best-known work, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, as part of a friendly competition. The year 1816 was known as “The Year Without a Summer” due to a volcanic winter caused by the eruption of Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies. Stuck at the Villa Diodati in Switzerland with unseasonably cold and rainy weather, eighteen-year-old Mary and her traveling companions — her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron, Claire Clairmont, and John Polidori — passed the time reading from Fantasmagoriana, a collection of French translations of German ghost stories, until Byron challenged the others to write their own. Mary Shelley’s entry in the contest was the beginning of Frankenstein, and she eventually developed the story into a full-length novel published in 1818. Although it was initially published anonymously, rumors swirled about its authorship, if not to name Shelley specifically, then at least to call out that the author was — oh, horror! — female. It was not until an 1821 French translation that Shelley would be credited fully as the author. Subtitled The Modern Prometheus in acknowledgement of the mythological Prometheus, who shaped mankind from clay, Frankenstein gives us the prototypical “mad scientist” in Victor Frankenstein, who sets out through unexplained means to breathe life into inanimate biomatter. The resulting Creature is an eight-foot-tall grotesque who eventually develops both intellect and empathy, but who also is forced to live in a world that will never accept him. As the Creature wrestles with the resentment and anger he feels, he seeks revenge by killing people closest to his creator. The story is told in layers of narration; a framing device of letters 90

Miniature portrait of Mary Shelley by Reginald Easton (c. 1820) [Image source: Wikimedia Commons]

by explorer Robert Walton to his sister recounts the story told to him by Victor Frankenstein, who in turn relates the Creature’s story from the Creature’s perspective before wrapping up his own. Upon its release, Frankenstein met with mixed critical reviews — the British Critic dismissed it entirely because it was apparently the work of a young woman and thus inherently inferior — but it caught on immediately with the public. Critical assessment of the work in the twentieth century was considerably more favorable, and Frankenstein is now considered a classic of Gothic literature, a landmark of the horror genre, and possibly the first science fiction novel. Nearly eighty years after Frankenstein’s initial release, Irish author Bram Stoker made his own contribution to the Gothic canon in 1897 with Dracula. Like Frankenstein, the writing of Dracula has its own legendary origin story, although it may be more fiction than truth. Stoker scholar David J. Skal describes it this way in his 2016 book, Something in the Blood: The Untold Story of Bram Stoker, the Man Who Wrote Dracula: According to his son, Stoker always claimed the inspiration for the book came from a nightmare induced by “a too-generous helping of dressed crab at supper”— a dab of blarney the writer enjoyed dishing out when asked, but no one took seriously (it may sound too much like Ebenezer Scrooge, famously dismissing Marley’s ghost as “an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese”). But that hasn’t stopped the midnight snack of dressed crab from being served up as a matter of fact by countless people on countless occasions. (Excerpted in The Paris Review, October 27, 2016) What is actual fact is that Stoker wrote the novel over a seven-year period, Bram Stoker in 1906 by unidentified photograper 91 [Image source: Wikimedia Commons]

and he amassed over a hundred pages of handwritten and typewritten notes on Eastern European folklore and history. Oh, and vampires. Stoker likely also took some inspiration from John Polidori’s The Vampyre, which resulted from the same competition that gave us Frankenstein, and Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 novel Carmilla. Both these influences feature enigmatic, refined, and sensual vampire antagonists — Polidori’s Lord Ruthven and Le Fanu’s titular Carmilla — and provide prototypes for Stoker’s Count Dracula. Stoker also drew on his background as a newspaper writer to craft the narrative, giving us an epistolary novel that feels more like an investigative dossier, filled with an array of “primary source” materials of the characters. The various letters, telegrams, journal entries, newspaper articles, and other memoranda that form the narrative constantly shift the point of view and force us to piece the story together along with the characters. The cumulative effect of all this evidence is that the whole affair feels believable and startlingly real, and that’s likely why Dracula takes pride of place at the top of the hierarchy of vampire fiction.

Dracula also received a somewhat mixed critical reaction on its release,

although much of the negative criticism was due to the extremity of the horror in the novel, which is a little like dinging Stoker for doing the job too well. Like Frankenstein, Dracula proved a runaway hit, igniting a craze for vampire fiction that continues today. In fact, our collective obsession with both these literary monsters has never really subsided, and neither book has been out of print since its initial publication.

STEP TWO: Adaptation, or Making the Monsters Move Both Frankenstein and Dracula were adapted quickly into another medium, namely the theatre. Frankenstein was the first to make the leap from the page to the stage. Playwright Richard Brinsley Peake cranked out Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein in 1821, a mere four years after the novel’s debut. It ran only about 40 performances in its original run, but Mary Shelley actually attended one of them. In a letter to Leigh Hunt, who had been a friend of Percy Shelley, she wrote that she found the story poorly served; but she did have praise for both the theatrical revelation of the monster and T. P. Cooke’s performance in the role. (Cooke would go on to play the monster over 350 times in various productions.) 92

In addition to simplifying the story for maximum thrills and chills, Peake makes three major contributions to the Frankenstein mythos that become vital elements of its lore. First, he gives Victor Frankenstein an assistant. Second, he renders the monster (or rather, the Hobgoblin, as he’s called in the play) mute, a departure from Shelley’s surprisingly articulate Creature. Finally, at the moment that life is given to the inanimate matter that makes up the monster, Victor bursts from his laboratory in a frenzy and screams, “It lives!” Mary Shelley, in her letter to Leigh Hunt, specifically cited this moment as a highlight of the production.

Illustrations of T. P. Cooke in performance as the monster: in a menacing pose (left) and in a strangely coy affect (right) in the cover of a royalty-free publication of Peake’s script. Left image credit: Thomas Wakeman, artist; Nathaniel Whittock, lithographer, ca. 1832-34 Right image credit: Cover of Dicks’ Standard Plays, date and artist unknown [Image source: Wikimedia Commons] 93

As for Dracula, while there were attempts at stage adaptations during Stoker’s lifetime — occasionally with textual contributions from him — significant adaptations did not appear until 12 years after his death and nearly 30 years after the novel was first published. These significant adaptations were also the indirect result of a copyright dispute. In 1922, German filmmaker F. W. Murnau premiered the silent film Nosferatu, in which he stole liberally from Dracula, made changes to its narrative, and replaced all the character names with German analogues. Stoker’s widow Florence successfully challenged Murnau’s copyright infringement in court, and the resulting ruling ordered all copies of Nosferatu to be destroyed. Fortunately, a few copies did escape destruction, and Murnau’s film is now considered a seminal masterpiece of film horror. It is important to note, though, that despite Nosferatu’s appropriation of Stoker’s concept, it serves up a depiction of the vampire that is distinct in its own right rather than a definitive interpretation. Count Orlok is Count Orlok, not Count Dracula. In 1923, amidst all this legal wrangling, playwright Hamilton Deane got permission from Stoker’s widow to develop a new stage adaptation. Ironically, she granted the permission in order to earn royalty payments to fund her court battle against Murnau and Nosferatu. Deane’s authorized adaptation streamlined Stoker’s plot considerably, consolidating locations and characters. It premiered to great success in 1924, moving at least twice into larger theatres to accommodate audience demand. For a transfer to New York, producers commissioned John Balderston to revise Deane’s script further; and he got the cast down to eight. Balderston’s script premiered on Broadway just before Halloween in 1927, and the production featured Bela Lugosi in the role that would define his career, that of the bloodthirsty, aristocratic Count Dracula. Lugosi would repeat his portrayal of the Count in the 1931 Tod Browning film Dracula, with a screenplay based on Deane and Balderston’s script. Produced by Universal Pictures, the film became one of the most successful that year, and it cemented in the public consciousness the look and mannerisms of the titular vampire. Regardless of Stoker’s specific descriptions in the original text, a mention of Dracula conjures up images of a suave, tuxedoed nobleman, with a medallion on a sash around his neck and a long satin cape. His black hair is slicked back, dark eyebrows accentuated against his pale skin. Even his voice echoes through the decades, frequently imitated in an ersatz Eastern European accent as “I vant to suck your bluhd!” (Fun fact: Lugosi never actually uttered that line on screen.) Dracula is the single most depicted literary character in film and television, with over 500 94

Bela Lugosi as Dracula Anonymous photograph, Universal Studios [Image source: Wikimedia Commons]

different portrayals; but when most of us hear “Dracula,” we envision Lugosi.

Dracula premiered in February 1931, and its immediate success meant

another literature-inspired monster film got fast-tracked for release later in the year. Frankenstein, like its predecessor, was based on a theatrical adaptation, but not the aforementioned Presumption by Richard Brinsley Peake. A British playwright named Peggy Webling had written a new version of Frankenstein, which she managed to get to Hamilton Deane, the playwright who adapted Dracula. Deane produced a tour and eventually a West End run. Webling’s play was not great, but it was good enough to get noticed. (Like Peake, Webling did make a crucial contribution: She was the first to apply the name Frankenstein to the monster as well as the scientist.) Deane again turned to John Balderston to revise the play for American audiences; and while Balderston didn’t make it to Broadway this time, he did make it back to Hollywood. Balderston’s script formed the basis for the 1931 film Frankenstein. Produced by Universal Pictures and directed by James Whale, the film premiered in November 1931 and immediately claimed its place beside Dracula as a masterpiece of horror cinema. Bela Lugosi had hoped to play Henry (formerly Victor) Frankenstein but was offered the role of the Monster instead, which he resentfully turned down. Whale instead cast Boris Karloff, who became as iconic in the role as Lugosi had as Count Dracula. Karloff and makeup designer Jack Pierce give us a definitive visual representation of the Monster: a huge rectangular head with scars and stitches, protruding brow, heavy-lidded eyes, electrodes jutting out of the neck. In order to give the Monster a distinctive pallor on screen, Pierce developed a grayish-green base tone for the skin that almost reads as color even in black-and-white. Karloff complemented the look with a lumbering gait and stiff, jerky movements that lent a real unpredictability to the Monster’s behavior. He inhabits the makeup and costume so completely and convincingly that you almost forget there’s an actor in there; he just is the Monster. It’s a justifiably iconic performance that stands solidly beside Lugosi’s and perhaps even surpasses it. Both Frankenstein and Dracula were added to the Library of Congress National Film Registry due to their cultural significance, and they continue to be popular with audiences around the world. The characters, once dreaded, are now much beloved. Shelley and Stoker may have created these monsters; but after Hollywood, they take on a life of their own. 96

Boris Karloff as the Monster Universal Studios/NBCUniversal [Image source: Wikimedia Commons]

STEP THREE: Deviation, or Making the Monsters Mutate A funny thing happens on the way to formulation of kitsch. Now that Frankenstein and Dracula have distinct physical manifestations in our world, they find themselves in most unusual places. Like sequels. And mash-ups. And cartoons. Both Dracula and Frankenstein appear in a number of sequels to their establishing films. Perhaps the greatest and most sincere of these is The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), which continues the events of Frankenstein and even hearkens back to elements of Shelley’s novel. Also like Frankenstein, it was directed by James Whale and is considered by many to be his masterpiece. The character of the Bride, played by a fiercely committed Elsa Lanchester, is as visually iconic as the Monster; and every other element of the production seems to raise the stakes from the previous film. It’s a strong sequel, and it, too, has been added to the National Film Registry for its quality and cultural significance. Dracula doesn’t appear in Dracula’s Daughter, the 1936 direct sequel to Dracula; but he does appear in Son of Dracula (1943), which is based on a completely original story. Here we have the character existing independently of the source material. From this point forward, we see both Dracula and Frankenstein in situations that are increasingly removed from Shelley and Stoker. Universal released five other films in the series through the 1940s, and the titles alone suggest scenarios that are absurd, ridiculous, and even deliberately comic: • Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) • Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943) • House of Frankenstein (1944) • House of Dracula (1945) • Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) In House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula, the characters begin to appear together, occupying the same space and time, which is a radical departure from their literary origins. Regardless of whether they’re played by Karloff or Lugosi (and by this point, they are often played by other actors), the characters maintain the looks that distinguish them as Universal properties, even as their stories diverge from Shelley and Stoker. In the 1950s, British studio Hammer Film Production, Ltd., struck copyright deals with Universal to create new series featuring the characters. While the looks 98

are updated for these color films, they still maintain certain visual connections to the established Universal iconography. The series begins with The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and Dracula (1958), both fairly faithful to the novels, and proceeds through nearly twenty years of variations, ending in 1974 with Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell and The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires, both of which seem as far from the novels as one can imagine. The 1960s see further intertwining of the characters in bizarre ways. In the 1962 song “Monster Mash” by Bobby “Boris” Pickett and the Crypt Kickers, Dr. Frankenstein sings of the creation of his Monster, who immediately starts a dance craze. A house party ensues with a variety of creepy guests, including “Wolfman, Dracula, and his son.” Dracula expresses distress that Frankenstein’s Monster Mash dance is replacing his own classic routine:

Out from his coffin, Drac’s voice did ring Seems he was troubled by just one thing Opened the lid and shook his fist And said, “Whatever happened to my Transylvania twist?”

Of course, Drac’s voice at this point is a callback to Lugosi. All ends happily, though, when Drac joins the band and embraces the Monster Mash. The band motif would return in the animated series Groovie Goolies (1970-1972), which was sort of a cartoon Laugh-In with monsters and featured Drac, Frankie, and Wolfie as The Monster Trio performing a new song every episode.

Frankie and Drac in Groovie Goolies, 1970-1972 [Image Source: imdb.com]

In 1964, Universal co-produced a television series for CBS called The Munsters, which gives us the Frankenstein-esque Herman Munster, played by Fred Gwynne, married to the daughter of Count Sam Dracula, known affectionately as Grandpa, played by vaudeville comedian Al Lewis. The series was a satire of conventional domestic sitcoms, with the twist being that this monster family thinks they’re perfectly normal while the rest of the world is strange and unusual. The Munsters was initially a hit for CBS, but its viewership waned in its second season when it was scheduled against Batman. The series was cancelled after 70 episodes.

The cast of The Munsters featuring Al Lewis as Grandpa (top) and Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster (right) [Image source: Wikimedia Commons]

The characters intermingle again in the Hotel Transylvania animated franchise (2012-present), which sees Dracula (Adam Sandler) running a hotel in Transylvania with his friends Frankenstein (Kevin James) and Frankenstein’s bride Eunice (Fran Drescher) among the guests. To date, the franchise boasts four films and a television series that ran from 2017-2020. A second series, Motel Transylvania, is expected on Netflix this year. 100

STEP FOUR: Bastardization, or Making the Monsters Breakfast As these characters become more deeply assimilated into popular culture, they become increasingly disconnected from their original representations. They also shift from art — literature, theatre, film — to stuff, physical things to be bought and either consumed or treasured. In 1971, General Mills introduced two new products in its breakfast-cereal lineup: Count Chocula and Franken Berry. Each cereal featured a cartoon avatar that evoked a Universal character combined with a food item. Count Chocula, a chocolate-flavored cereal, is represented by Count Alfred Chocula, a Bela Lugosi derivative who seems to be made of chocolate. Franken Berry is a strawberry-flavored cereal represented by a pink monster in the Frankenstein vein, complete with electrodes and a vaguely strawberry-shaped head. Designed to be a part of well-balanced breakfasts across America, the cereals were promoted with a series of commercials that saw Chocula and Franken Berry bickering in situations of comic one-upmanship. The cereals have been discontinued and relaunched quite a few times over the years, but now they’re typically available during the Halloween season, along with other delicious variants like Boo Berry, Yummy Mummy, and Frute Brute, who are characterized respectively as a ghost, a mummy, and a werewolf.

Monster cereals ad from 1971 [Image source: Reddit.com] 101

The collectibles manufacturer Funko featured an elaborate line of products based on the Universal characters, including clothing, bags, keychains, and the like. Offered for a limited time to create the illusion of rarity and scarcity, the pieces are quickly discontinued to drive up demand among collectors. Funko’s overall product lineup is anchored by its Funko Pops, vinyl dolls that take familiar characters and redesign them in a consistent image, with oversized heads, undersized bodies, and huge black eyes. The monster Funko Pops are especially popular, and have gone through a number of iterations, including “exclusive” designs available only at Target, Walmart, and Walgreens. LEGO also got in on the action in 2012 with LEGO Monster Fighters, a series of sets inspired by the Universal Monsters. The Vampyre Castle (set 9468) featured a Dracula-type minifigure that evoked the Lugosi styling of the character. The Crazy Scientist & His Monster (set 9466) featured a laboratory with Frankenstein-themed minifigures of a mad scientist and his monster. The short-run series is now highly collectible, but the characters were immortalized in a sticker book that allows the reader to stick the monsters literally anywhere. These are just three examples of the commodification of these great literary characters, but a simple Google search will reveal countless toys, games, comic books, T-shirts, coffee mugs, tchotchkes, and other miscellany. In the original novels, those works of art, the characters inhabit and haunt our minds; but as kitsch, they haunt and clutter our physical world, mass-produced, ubiquitous, and inescapable. How scary is that?

LEGO sticker book [Image source: Amazon.com] Universal Monsters Funko Pops [Image source: Target.com] 102

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Megalopolis

A Film Review by G. Howard Hunter Francis Ford Coppola’s latest film, Megalopolis, has drawn the obloquy of critiques for being self-indulgent, campy, overearnest, and nonsensical. It is a retro-futuristic vision of New York City, using ancient Rome as a trope. After the success of The Godfather and The Godfather II (which serves as a prequel and sequel to the first film) in the1970s, Coppola became fascinated with the Catiline Conspiracy of 63 BCE, one of the more serious threats to the Roman Republic. But the studios did not think this a worthy subject for a movie, so forty years later Coppola funded Megalopolis from his wine sales. But in order to make sense of this either noble or Quixotic effort, some Roman history is in order. Rome was founded in 753 BCE and ruled by kings who were tossed out in 509 BCE and replaced by a republic. The executive branch comprised two consuls elected yearly by tribal assemblies, along with magistrates such as praetors and quaestors who oversaw tax collection and public works. Former officeholders could serve in the Roman Senate, a body of 600 that debated pressing matters and issued decrees. The end of the Republic in 27 BCE, after years of civil war, ushered in the age of the emperors. While this transition led to the 200-year Pax Romana, there is a sense that Rome lost its soul in the bargain. Lucius Sergius Catilina (Catiline in English) was an aristocrat descended from one of Rome’s founding families also known as patricians. He lost two elections for Consul in 64 and 63 BCE, and the elections, hardly honest affairs, left him bankrupt. Claiming stolen election, Catiline hatched a plot with other aggrieved aristocrats to assassinate the elected officials and take over Rome. Part of the plot was to gain the support of the common people (plebeians) by cancelling all debts, a proposition that horrified patricians and the wealthy plebeians called equestrians. Marcus Tullius Cicero did not have Catiline’s pedigree as he was from the provinces. But he had made a name for himself as an advocate in the Roman courts as well as an orator and wit. After his election to the consulship in 63 BCE he caught 104

wind of the conspiracy and denounced Catiline in the Senate, no doubt Cicero’s finest hour. Catiline fled the city and took his last stand with the legion of disgruntled veterans he had raised. An army led by the other consul, Antonius Hybrida (Marc Antony’s uncle), defeated Catiline who fell fighting with his men. Coppola turns the Catiline Conspiracy on its head in Megalopolis. The main character, Caesar Catilina (Adam Driver), is a Nobel Prize-winning architect with the desideratum to create a new city, Megalopolis, built with a magical material of his own invention, Megalon. It would be a city “where questions are more important than answers,” where people of differing views can converse, and where the intellect and a spirit of openness can prevail. In contrast, the existing city of New Rome is defined by its poor, struggling masses and crumbling infrastructure. The mayor, Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), is more traditional machine politician than mayor of the future — he is slightly corrupt and a bully but cares deeply about the exigent needs of the citizens of New Rome. It’s a battle between the utilitarian and utopian. In a public smackdown debate, Catilina speaks of the truth and beauty that will define his ideal urban space, while Cicero talks about the need for a casino to save New Rome from financial disaster. One critic remarked that New Rome is essentially Gotham City — its Art Deco pastiche also recalls Superman — but the aesthetic is a retro version of the future, a leitmotif of the 1930s. Like Gotham, there is a sense of hopelessness. The rich are decadent with no sense of civic obligation, tastelessly flaunting their wealth in front of the hoi polloi, who are addicted to celebrity worship. The wealthiest of them, Crassus — Jon Voight’s character is aptly named after the richest man of ancient Rome — stages a lavish circus to celebrate his marriage to Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), media star and Catilina’s former love interest. Yet events bring Catilina and Cicero together. In a 9/11 type of attack, a Soviet satellite named Carthage (referencing to the Punic Wars between Rome and 105

Carthage) crashes down to Earth and destroys part of New Rome. Catilina uses his family fortune to build Megalopolis in the burnt-out space. He also has fallen in love with Cicero’s daughter, Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), initially to Cicero’s horror. But Crassus’ nephew, Clodius Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf), poses a threat to both men. Gaining the support of the urban mob by railing up resentment against Megalopolis and the politics of Cicero, Pulcher attempts a fascist coup. Catilina talks the crowd down, and they turn on Pulcher, hanging him upside down (a nod to Mussolini’s demise in 1945). Catilina and Cicero become allies. Megalopolis is completed. The film appears to this novice as grandiose and overwrought. Catilina has the superpower to stop time, and in one scene, breaks into a Hamlet-style soliloquy apropos of nothing. The city of New Rome is dark and bleak, yet at times becomes a phantasmagoria of shifting colors and shapes, the most interesting being ancient statues coming to life. But it’s a film without irony, with characters more archetypal than real. The corrupt pol, the scheming gold-digger blonde, the misunderstood genius, the populist fascist — they are all there. When critics claim the film is camp, they are drawing from the 1964 Susan Sontag essay “Notes on Camp.” As she posits, “Camp is art that proposes itself seriously, but cannot be taken altogether seriously, because it is too much.” Yet even with the over-the-topness of all that, Megalopolis is a remarkable work for our time. Currently, out of 55 democracies around the globe, 41 elected right-wing authoritarian regimes or autocrat wannabes. The complexity of modern life is too much for many, and the gross utilitarianism fostered by technology has taken its toll. Francis Ford Coppola has delivered a conceit that is essential for any civilization — idealism. Without it, and without our ability to dream big thoughts that transcend material gain, we are no longer collectively whole. The Western Roman Empire crashed in 476 because that idea of Rome, far more important than the actual place, was long gone. Cynicism and ultimately nihilism are enemies of civilization because they dash all hope. While Megalopolis may be a bridge too far in its length and non linear plot lines, it is a film that inspires hope. And if the West is to survive what I hope is a blip rather than a long-term trend, hope is the antidote that we need more of.

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Sunset Blvd. Is Ready For Its C A Theatre Review by Shay Steckler

I saw Sunset Blvd. in late December at the St. James Theater in New York City. The next few paragraphs will contain spoilers, not on the plot, but on the production and design of this show. If you are considering seeing it, I would stop reading now because it will be better if you go in blindly. That’s what I did, and I was blown away. If you are still with me because you’ve already seen the show or you never plan to because you are inexplicably not into musical theatre, Sunset Blvd. is an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical based on the 1950 film of the same name starring Gloria Swanson as the fictional movie actress Norma Desmond. Norma has aged out of the spotlight and, as a former silent film star, is no longer relevant; however, she suffers under the delusion that she is. Cue the iconic line: “I AM big. It’s the pictures that got small.” At the top of the show, Joe Gellis, a down-on-his-luck Hollywood writer, crashes his car outside of Norma’s palatial home. She ends up hiring him as her livein editor for a screenplay she has written in hopes of relaunching her career. Drama and intrigue ensue. The West End revival opened in September of 2023. Nicole Sherzinger, of The Pussycat Dolls fame, plays Norma Desmond, and during the production I saw, received a standing ovation halfway through the second act. Each of the four principal actors won the Olivier Award, the London equivalent of the Tony Award, and all four hopped over the pond to open the show on Broadway in the fall of 2024. The original early 1990s West End and Broadway productions were elaborately mounted and even included a hydraulic element. Norma Demond was costumed in beautiful kaftans and turbans. Everything was over-the-top: this is Lord Lloyd Webber, after all. In this 2023 reimagining, director Jamie Lloyd scales it all back to a bare bones set. There is rarely anything on stage. The only props are some cabaret chairs. Everything else is pantomimed. The costumes are also minimalist: Norma wears a simple black slip and is barefoot for the entirety of the show; Joe wears a white T-shirt and black pants. The entire company is only ever in black and white. If 108

Closeup that homage to the film weren’t enough, the real coup comes into play with the use of video throughout the production. A screen the height of the stage descends periodically, and the chorus members become videographers, engaging in precise choreography to film their fellow actors so that one sees them not only on stage but on screen. This allows some of the action to take place backstage and even outside of the theater. Plus the actors can have more nuanced facial expressions, asides to the audience, and dramatic glances when their faces are projected on a massive screen. It’s used periodically to capture larger-than-life expressions when they are necessary to the plotline, always in close-up and in black and white, just like the old movies of Norma Desmond herself. Not only is one watching Norma Desmond in her element, she’s pulled everyone else into her world as well. I could go on and on about the ingenious choreography that allows an actor to appear in two places simultaneously. I could also go on and on about the opening of the second act, when Joe takes to West 44th Street singing the titular song. What I really want is to go back and see the show again — as if we never said goodbye.

Photo taken by Shay, completely stunned by the performance on December 27, 2024.

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The Proust Questionnaire with

Molly Mouledoux

This now-legendary questionnaire was inspired by French writer Marcel Proust, and for our fourth volume of The Boothby Review, we sat down with Molly Mouledoux. Molly is a Lower School teacher extraordinaire. When she is not nerding out over progressive education, she loves seeing live music, supporting the arts in general, exploring new places, being outside, thrifting, and spending time with friends and family. What is your idea of perfect happiness? That time after a dinner party with close friends when everyone lingers around the table talking What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? I have been known to hold a grudge. What is the trait you most deplore in others? Hypocrisy Which living person do you most admire? My mom What do you consider the most overrated virtue? Orderliness/Organization On what occasion do you lie? During negotiations with my 5-year-old What is the quality you most like in a man? Handiness — as in ability to fix/ make things What is the quality you most like in a woman? Unruliness Which talent would you most like to have? To sing like a diva What do you consider your greatest achievement? My wonderful children. I know they are their own people, but I must take credit because parenting is the most difficult and beautiful thing I have ever done. 110

Where would you most like to live? A penthouse in Manhattan What is your most marked characteristic? Probably my red hair What do you most value in your friends? A sharp sense of humor Who are your favorite writers? Barbara Kingsolver and Donna Tartt Who is your hero of fiction? Currently, Demon Copperhead What is it that you most dislike? Patriarchy What is your favorite occupation? A cobbler. I love the fairy tale vibes, and also a good cobbler is quite handy. If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be? A very old tree seems like an interesting perspective.

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L.A. Reno

Proof Through The Night Manistee, MI

Polaroid Emulsion Lift on 5”x5” watercolor paper 112

The Crossword Puzzle Click anywhere on the crossword to print. Enjoy over a favorite beverage or dessert. Solution (should you need it) on p. 115. COMMON SENSE ACROSS 1 Tasteless 6 Woeful cry 10 Forensic detectives, for short 14 Impressionists 19 Caramel-filled chocolates 20 Zest source 21 Recipe smidgen 22 Skeletor's nemesis 23 Rack up 24 WWII journalist 26 Gladiatorial milieu 27 German river 28 Topping for baked knots 30 Stumble 31 Oceanic 33 Studio Ghibli's Miyazaki 34 Jean-Baptiste _______ de Bienville 36 At the drop of ____ 37 Internet subculturists 38 Kind of splint 39 One-sided 43 Before, in verse 44 Fr. holy women 45 Craze 48 Period 49 Noël Coward operetta 52 Poetic tribute 53 "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of ___" 54 God of Islam 55 Greek portico 56 The Phantom's rival 58 Edible coastal plant 60 A Peter or a piper 62 Biblical craft 63 Kitchen additions? 64 Unless, in Latin 65 Having teeth 67 Actor Lukas 68 "Duck Dynasty" network 70 Celtic personification of the sea 71 Regal initials 72 Becomes sodden 75 Nobelist and novelist Mario Vargas _____

Sean Patterson 76 Björk's homeland: Abbr. 78 Accumulated 80 La., once 81 Small batteries 82 Hubig's mascot 85 Oscar winner Davis 86 Linguistic suffix 87 Belgian river 88 Gun 89 Rocket-shaped candy 91 "Pretty please?" 92 Staff addition 94 Soft ball? 95 Goes "down the road," as in song 98 Litmus reddeners 99 Result of a hasty decision 103 Actor Alda 104 Mushrooms, soy sauce, and MSG have it 107 Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan 108 Three-toed sinner? 110 Weaponry transactions 111 Drum 112 Pitches 113 Longest-running male actor on a TV series 114 Vision opening 115 Approvals 116 Dutch Golden Age painter 117 British bombshell Diana 118 Means justifiers 119 Oper. procedures DOWN 1 Wailed 2 Schnitzler play "La _____" 3 Noted New Orleanian Fortier 4 Popular gummy candy 5 Ukr. or Lat., once 6 Usable or functional 7 It's not there 8 French mint 9 Shakespeare's era 10 Once-popular audio devices 11 Official OKs

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12 Ibiza, por ejemplo 13 Bone-in cut of beef 14 "Eureka!" 15 How steel or coal may be priced 16 Nail board coating 17 Burst through the door 18 Rickman role 25 Pooh pal 28 Pod veggies 29 Little laugh 32 ___ Tzu 35 Abuse 39 Authors 40 "Four and twenty blackbirds baked in ___" 41 Aquiline feature 42 It's nothing 44 Cursed 45 Karate takedown maneuver 46 For two, in music 47 Singers Shannon and Reeves 50 Ceremonial candlebearer 51 Action star Jason 54 The Greatest

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57 1958 Shelagh Delaney play, or 1961 British New Wave film 59 Comparative lead-in to pie, 123, or ABC 61 Ultimate degree 65 Furnishings 66 Showed up fashionably? 67 Cool, like a cat 68 Zoological wings 69 Woeful cry 70 Alice on "The Brady Bunch," for one 72 They had an "Appetite for Destruction" 73 "Cubist" Rubik 74 Piehole 77 Oscar Hammerstein and Tim Rice, among others 79 When doubled, a Gauguin travelogue 83 Shakespeare's "Like It" lead-in

84 What Helvetica and Arial lack 85 Canine warnings 90 Eye drop? 91 Protégé 92 Thor's Mjolnir 93 Big Sur home of the Human Potential Movement 95 Bridge positions 96 Divvy up 97 French river 100 Accumulate 101 ^ 102 Lock 105 With the bow 106 African grassland 109 QVC rival 111 Hair Club for Men's Sperling, and others

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Contributors and Staff Rebecca Coatney has basically been sixty since age six. Hobbies include baking, crochet, and puzzles. Type-A perfectionist who never met a rule she wouldn’t follow...at least publicly. Can and will put anything in a spreadsheet. Makes a mean chocolate chip cookie, if the dough ever makes it to the oven. 5.1 stars (because she did the extra credit.) Sam Ferguson has the palate of a twelve-year-old. If left to his own devices, he would eat pizza every night. Justin Gricus prefers July over January, the beach over mountains, and hurricanes over tornadoes. He considers eating pork cracklins from a paper bag at Jazzfest one of the more underrated culinary experiences in New Orleans. Aged in oak barrels, Robin Heindselman is an earthy little vintage with sneaky notes of black pepper and boysenberry. Best enjoyed with spaghetti carbonara or a good steak (your treat). G. Howard Hunter misses the days when people sang on the porch. He finds the musical Cats impenetrable. Despite Jennifer LaCorte Marsiglia’s affinity for all things red and blue and her being cold constantly, she consistently sports the effortlessly chic black-on-black aesthetic and actually prefers snoballs to crawfish. Mike Miley is salty and sweet. Maddie Oberfoell’s wit is a 7.5 on the Richter scale — a.k.a. devastating. Sean Patterson prefers savory to sweet, spicy to mild, gloomy to sunny, and cold to hot; but he refuses to choose between Dracula and Frankenstein. He has a healthy appreciation for both camp and kitsch.

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Linda A. Reno can often be seen holding a can of sparkling water in a koozie — not because she prefers her beverages to stay cold, but because she cannot stand the feeling of a wet hand. Pam Skehan’s favorite painters are Mickalene Thomas and whoever makes Velvet Elvises. She believes art belongs in libraries, but she would accept an invitation to The Met. Shay Steckler loves a buttery pastry. Rather than make the difficult choice between a croissant and a pain au chocolat, she will just get both. Erin Walker has a four-star personality, but 4 out of 5 doctors have suggested she has delusions of grandeur.

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