Did the invention of cooking initiate the development of patriarchal society?

That's what Harvard University anthropologist Richard Wrangham argues, among other things concerning evolution and cuisine, in his 2009 book, Catching Fire (Basic Books). Witty, comprehensive, and highly enlightenting, Wrangham's book discusses the theory that our departure from primitive beings and speedy evolution into hairless, upright, big-brained humans is all due to the invention and diffusion of cooking. Hell yeah, people who can cook are AWESOME. But this is a bit more sophisticated than that, of course. At times Wrangham is hard to follow, but his ultimate argument is: globally speaking, the development of our physiology, our character, and even our society, is because of cooking and eating cooked food.

Now, I haven't completed the book yet (relax! I'm getting there), but I recently finished "The Married Cook", the chapter that discusses the origins of male and female bonds based solely on food: the necessity, gathering, and cooking of it. Wrangham explains the symbiotic relationship between hunter (the male) and homemaker/cook (the female) and how their codependency began. Apparently, our cartoons of cavemen dragging women around by the hair aren't that innacurate. Okay, they are, but the author argues that male dependency on the female's ability to cook and provide for him ultimately led to the socio-cultural acceptance of men as the dominant sex.

Wrangham writes:

"The idea that cooking led to our pair-bonds suggests a worldwide irony. Cooking brought huge nutritional benefits. But for women, the adoption of cooking has also led to a major increase intheir vulnerability to male authority. Men were the greater beneficiaries. Cooking freed women's time and fed their children, but it also trapped women into a newly subservient role enforced by male-dominated culture. Cooking created and perpetuated a novel system of male cultural superiority. It is not a pretty picture." -chapter 7, page 177

It was a bit unexpected, since a good deal of the discussion is centered around, well, NOT modern human history. But his connection of this theory to our social custom is fasctinating. I bet Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who the author cited often in this chapter, would have a thing or two to say about that!

Lives, distractions, cakes

Allora, mi dispiace che io non vi scriva di più. I must come clean, my friends. It wasn't a fatal case of blogophobia that's kept me from my laptop recently, but a series of interesting events ranging from summertime pastry-making, to acid indigestion (unrealted to said pastry), to a life-changing reunion.

• One of the ongoing projects in my life at the moment is finishing Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. When I told an officemate last week that I was getting near the end of it, he asked me what it was about--and that was an unexpectedly difficult question to answer.
  Here's how I would put it: Pollan takes us on a personal journey through the production of four different meals from the "ground" up: (1) a trip to McDonald's featuring a brief history of factory-farmed protein; (2) an industrial organic meal purchased entirely at Whole Foods, including asparagus grown in South America and a broiler chicken named "Rosie", raised on a certified organic farm; (3) a roasted chicken dinner (chicken is one of the main characters of the book) procured from Joel Salatin's alternative/chemical-free/non-industrial farm in Virginia; and finally (4) a feast of wild boar that Pollan personally hunts down in Sonoma, CA. The book opens with an enlightening and LENGTHY discussion on everything you might want to know about corn: it's ancestry, biology, sex, chemical breakdown, and effect on human life (corn is in everything, so corn might be God?). The book has a comfortable narrative to it, even while describing the slaughter of a factory-farmed cow. I highly recommend it.

• A couple of weeks ago, I had an iced coffee from a Dunkin' Donuts, and four hours later I felt the icy grip of death upon my abdomen. It really sucked. The next few days I felt pains in my lower chest that came in waves, that were worst during the night. It hurt to breathe, I was dizzy, and plain fucking miserable. I took off from work to go the doctor, and when I explained my symptoms to the receptionist, she told me to go to the hospital. "It's really not that bad!" I protested. She told me to go anyway, immediately, so I freaked, and called Dan.
• After an EKG, some blood work, a chest X-ray, and the obligatory preggo-test, the ER doctor (Edward Amores, or Dr. LOVE), determined that I was fine, un-pregnant, and in fact, too young and healthy to have a heart attack (though I maintain that a bloodclot could have been a possibility). At one point he told me I looked great (I didn't even have makeup on--swoon!). Dr. Love narrowed it down to acid reflux, and told me to start taking the wonder drug of our century: Pepcid AC. And since then I've been fucking fine.

• I've come upon several farmer's market temptations such as Jersey peaches and blueberries (Jersey being an ambiguous term), that I bring home, decide I don't particularly enjoy eating fresh, and bake in a cake. I based my blueberry peach crumb cake off this Peach Cake recipe from southernfood.about.com. Delicious, please! Make sure you have 2-3 ripe peaches and about a cup of blueberries (Jersey or not). Despite the heat, a girl must bake, so I proudly crank the A/C, KitchenAid mixer, and oven, in that order!

• And finally, Dan and dad are back together. Charlie and Dan hadn't seen each other in twenty-some years, until their nailbitingly long-awaited reunion last weekend. Dan also got to see his sisters, the gorgeous Stephanie and Laura, and Carolyn, Charlie's gracious wife. It might have been the most beautiful thing I've seen, ever. And I've seen a thing or two. Father and son are both thrilled to finally know each other again, and we inititated the reunion with, of course, a barbeque (the theme was chicken wings!), where we also got to meet Frank and Mike, the girls' adorable boyfriends. I look forward to more family gatherings with our new awesome family! An aside: to my chagrin, Dan is still not Italian. Instead, he's just more Irish and Scottish than we'd thought. Congrats.
  
  

Meeting the Man

On Tuesday, my friend (and trusty co-worker) Maegan and I walked into the Barnes and Noble in Union Square, and right behind us was Tony himself. As I squealed and ran to a safe spot, poor Maegan got to see why you really can't take me anywhere. I FREAKED, and we spent the next two hours musing over what clever, provocative, utterly amazing words to spout at him during the precious seconds we had in his presence. What are you expected to say to a magnanimous personality of his almost cultish fame, who's traveled to every country, met every person, and eaten every kind of delicacy I don't even have the ability to dream of?

Maegan and I stood with bated breath in the standing-room-only section (yes, amongst the bookcases), while Anthony read a few pages from his new book, and then took on an obligatory Q&A session. We darted to the "Line forms here" sign, only to discover we were in the secondary line. We were not discouraged by a hair. Instead, we took advantage of the extra time to brainstorm a few lines. Maegan settled on mentioning her boyfriend's aspirations (he's a professional chef), while I thought it would be nice to say something like, "So when are you coming back to Jersey?" (Bourdain was born and raised in Leonia). By the time we were ushered toward the stage, I looked around: those remaining were swooning, twenty-something females, just like us. How could we possible stand out?

Short answer: we didn't. I said, "Hi Tony." The music (Rolling Stones) was loud. His publicist (certainly a female Asian kickboxer) was intimidating. He scribbled our names in our spanking-new hardcovers, and I told him I might throw up. Then we said thanks and walked away. "Mission accomplished!" Maegan chirped. "I hate myself", I groaned.

In retrospect, I'm over it. I doubt he even heard my vomitacious threat, and you know how he is about hum drum book signings--who fucking cares? ...my God I love him.

From Medium Raw (Ecco, 2010):
There is no debating that it's "better" to cook at home whenever--and as often as--possible.

It's cheaper, for sure. It's almost always healthier than what you might otherwise be ordering as takeout--or eating at a restaurant. And it is probably better for society.

We know, for instance, that there is a direct, inverse relationship between frequency of family meals and social problems. Bluntly stated, members of families who eat together regularly are statistically less likely to stick up liquor stores, blow up meth labs, give birth to crack babies, commit suicide, or make donkey porn. If Little Timmy had just had more meatloaf, he might not have grown up to fill chest freezers with Cub Scout parts.

Can't. Eat. Cute Animals.

“I’ve been a vegetarian for twenty years”, John, our tattoo artist, said as he buzzed away at Dan’s ribcage Sunday afternoon. The only thing he won’t eat, he said, was tofurky. I’m pretty sure I’d be happy to avoid that the rest of my life, too.

My brother rolled his eyes as I folded my arms and talked about the frighteningly rapid growth of factory farming in the past two decades, which has not only contributed to global warming and the demise of our planet, but has simultaneously pumped us full of the flesh of unhealthy, antibiotic-treated animals. “Don’t worry, we’re still eating meat,” my brother assured me, making a “stop-that-bullshit” hand gesture in my direction.

I’ve been ready to go meatless for about a year or two, but it’s been necessary to premeditate more than I anticipated. Plus, I love chicken.


A couple of weeks ago, the DVD of Food, Inc. (2009) arrived at our apartment via Netflix, and Dan sighed as he opened the envelope. It won’t be that bad, I told him. A coworker told me it would just make me more “conscious” about what we eat. But I had my motives. We had just finished scarfing beef tacos and steak sandwiches at Blue Moon when we sat down to watch it.

Food, Inc. begins with the fundamental problems with our local grocery stores, where there are no seasons, all items are always available, and at a low price. Grocery stores are completely out of sync with nature, and since we are a part of nature, we’re not meant to eat what they offer. Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Penguin Press, 2006) and Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation (Harper Perennial, 2002), walk us through the different subjects of the film, which include the millions of uses for corn (high-fructose, anyone?), genetically modified organisms (GMO) in the soybean industry, and, of course, the terrible reality of factory farming. They charge the rise of McDonalds with the conception of factory farming (rightfully so), which ultimately enabled the creation and growth of other fast-food chains, and the high-demand, fast-food style of eating in the US.

Then came the footage that everyone (especially me) wants to avoid: hundreds of chickens packed into dark houses with no ventilation and bird shit everywhere. The pink, sausage-shaped bodies of pigs pushed up against each other, heads in each other’s asses, squealing like crying children. Cows wading through feet of feces, and eating corn, a food that’s cheap but increases the amount of e-coli in its system.

At this point of the movie, I turned to Dan. “You know this means I’m never buying meat at a grocery store ever again. Like, ever.” We saw one meat company spray conveyor belts of whitish, pasty ground beef with antibiotics, to kill the e-coli. I can’t support a system that treats animals like garbage, and then feeds the garbage to the people, and the people get sick and die. That’s fucking scary.

Last week, my lovely friend Shakira Croce, media coordinator at the NYC headquarters of PETA, held an interview with Dr. Molly Barrow on Progressive Radio Network. Shakira and Dr. Molly Barrow cover the essentials in animal cruelty issues: fur, captive animals (including the incident at SeaWorld), puppy mills, and, of course the problems of meat. Shakira has been a veg since age 12, and after meeting her family, I can tell it was a difficult thing for her to pull off. Once, during a family trip to Italy, her brothers placed cooked rabbit heads on her plate. Years later, sitting with her father over drinks and deciding where to have lunch, he asks me, “Do you eat everything? Good, you’re normal.” I loved her dad, regardless, but I admire her persistence and strength despite the familial taunting.

I moved out of my parents’ house last year, leaving my mother (a devoted burgerista) and my stepfather (likely the highest consumer of meatballs in the US), alone to their carnivorous shenanigans. Meanwhile, my father still relies on the (now mythological) Atkins diet as a effective route to weight loss. It’s a serious challenge to go veg amongst the hungry and obnoxious meat-lovers, especially when you’re related to them. And as for my hotdog-adoring boyfriend? Let’s put it this way: I cook dinner. He’s slowly converting, as long as what I make is filling and tasty.

The health benefits of a good vegetarian lifestyle are plenty. The ADA claims it can reduce your chances of getting those ugly American epidemics like heart disease, diabetes and even cancer.

More importantly, ANIMALS ARE FUCKING CUTE. ALL OF THEM. Skinned animals hanging from hooks cause uncontrollable weeping for days (maybe that’s just me). I’ve been raised to love dogs, probably more than I ought to, but to also love chicken parmesan. The pink meat in the package never made me sad, it made me excited for dinner. This is the problem: our culture has separated the meat from the animal. From the life the meat once had. From what it looked like alive. Seeing the packaged meat, we’re trained to think: Won’t that be tasty! Instead of: I wonder how much that poor thing suffered. If it’s cute, I’m not fucking eating it.

And that’s final.

To Be Born With It

I will not deny my recent and unexpected blog hiatus (no offense, bloggy dear). Not only have I been busier than usual—with love and family and dirty dishes and thoughts—but the outside has a sudden, new appeal that grows more glorious, yet sneaky, every year. I’m distracted by the cherry blossoms outside the apartment, the purple sky at dusk, and the thin clouds moving over skyscrapers while having lunch in Bryant Park. And, oh yes, the benevolent Treats Truck on Fifth Ave.

These are not good excuses, I’m well aware. But it’s my blog, so I make the rules. A vacation was necessary, and may be again.

I mentioned in an earlier post about the biography I’ve been reading and have become completely engrossed in—Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor by Brad Gooch. For those interested, this is the fully-loaded guide to everything and ANYTHING you may want to know about the 20th-century southern fiction writer. Gooch covers it all: her sheltered childhood under the regime of her overbearing mother, Regina (also my mother’s name), her struggles with her voice in writing at Georgia College and State University, her steadfast commitment to Catholicism, which lasted her whole life, and the slow and devastating destruction of her young body by a mysterious disease—lupus. His detail is meticulous, and sometimes frustrating, but completely necessary to understanding the making of the writer and the woman simultaneously. You are literally watching the rise and fall of a precious being who leaves a few jewels of literature—and then ceases to create. Having died so young with such a limited amount of work, her writing is that much more potent and important to the realm of American literature.

I’m getting ahead of myself (plus a little misty, dammit). To be honest, I (haha) am actually not done with the book. I’m a little more than halfway through, and kind of hoping it will last forever. But as Flannery has taught us, this is never the case.

I’m currently working through what you could call the Golden Age of her career: it’s 1955 and she’s published her novel, Wise Blood (1952), settling into her disease and its crippling effects, and creating some of the most important short fiction of our time. Her southern-based stories of human connection (“A Good Man Is Hard To Find”), isolation, deceit (“Good Country People”), race (“The Artificial Nigger”) and violence (“Greenleaf”) are electrifying. She’s publishing in literary magazines and enduring the lashings of narrow-minded book reviewers that refer to her work as “un-ladylike” and “intense, erratic, and strange”. You could also say they just weren’t ready for it.

The most important discovery I found, while reading Flannery’s life, is her organic ability to put words on paper and tell a story. With such calm and decisiveness, she had decided to be a writer, and she wrote, and became an author, and then a literary figure. Before now, I’ve always been a firm believer in turmoil as the fruit of good writing (or art for that matter). I started my college career reading the poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva and believing in her message: only pain and destruction breed creation (she had it a lot tougher than Flannery, living through the Bolshevik revolution and whatnot). Long before the onset of her disease, Flannery was writing the grotesque, because she was born with it.

When I was a senior in high-school I once wrote a short story for my English class that my teacher read aloud to the other classes (not mine). It was about a teenage girl anticipating the results of a pregnancy test. She cried, punched herself in the stomach, and mused about breaking the news to her mother. She regretted ever letting her boyfriend put his un-condomed penis in her. She estimated the costs for an abortion based on locker room hearsay. The story ends without revealing the results (if I remember correctly, if so, nice ending!). That was the last time I felt right about my writing. I needed that experience to write that story (though I don’t know how I would find a copy of it now). And although I wish no real turmoil upon myself, if it will get me to write something that good again, bring it on.

Little library hostages

Maybe I'm just being self-conscious, but I have this strange feeling that all librarians think I'm greedy. Or maybe it's that look they give you when you check out books three days in a row, and wait outside on Sunday afternoons for them to open, and you ask all sorts of questions like, "How long can I keep renewing this?". You know what? I like getting things for free. Reading is my life. There's a WHOLE government system dedicated to these two elements of my personal fulfilment. So c'mon, librarian, I'm going to take out as many books as I can carry! And yes I will come to that free concert series featuring local jazz muscians. Now we're even!

Here are my most recent picks and choices:

Since I just learned about an Anthony Bourdain author event in Union Square this coming June, I was like, huh, I should read one of his books. A good friend (who's dating a chef), confessed her love of the feisty/loveable Bourdain and told me she (and her boyfriend) loved Kitchen Confidential (Bloomsbury, 2000). I actually only knew "Tony" from his Travel Channel series, No Reservations, and didn't even realize his writing kicks so much more ass than his show. He's a spectacular writer: the type that writes the way he speaks, but does it like a pro. I squealed when I saw that it was available at our library, picked it up yesterday and haven't put it down. It's a speedy yet savory read that's part autobiography and part how-to guide to cooking, eating, and enjoying a meal at a restaurant, particularly in Manhattan. He touches on all the essentials: why risk is important in eating, why food should be about pleasure, and why we should never abuse garlic with a terrifying contraption known as a garlic press. I'm about 100 pages through and loving it. I can't wait to read his other books, like The Nasty Bits (Bloomsbury, 2007).

I had been meaning to get my hands on Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor (Little, Brown & Co.) since it came out last February. The author, Brad Gooch, is an English professor at my father's alma mater, William Patterson University in nearby Wayne, NJ. I'm about 40 pages into it, and it looks very serious and involved, and I will love finishing it in several months from now. It's a thick book (at 464 pp), and a slow read (for me), but I want to do it, and I already love the history of Irish-Catholic Georgia and the evidence of its influence on her stories. I've also skipped right to the glossy black and white inserts that reveal photos of dear Flannery, from her school portrait to her posing with crutches on each arm. WILL READ! Promise.

A literary buddy of mine at work suggested Delillo's White Noise (Penguin Classics, 2009), after I told him about my attempt at Mao II (a different recommendation from another literary buddy) that featured amazing prose, but the subject matter was a little too sci-fi for me. I haven't cracked it open yet, but I will. My friend told me it was the best start to reading Delillo. Will do!

A short story of Jennifer Egan's was published in last week's New Yorker, which got me nostalgic about a paperback I happened to pick up at The Strand once when I was 15 or 16: Look At Me (Anchor, 2002). Especially for a teenage girl (surveying different sorts of femininity), it was a provocative, epic read about a supermodel who messes up her face. Kind of desperately, I looked up what other books she'd done, and found that our library had a copy of The Keep, which Anchor released back in 2007. I did spend a few days with it (while waiting for other library orders to arrive), and I almost decided to finish based on one element: her style. The plot, however, was stupid: a guy from New York goes to a castle in Germany to spend time with his long-lost cousin who used to be a loser but is now a millionaire who's fixing up the castle, and there's a magic lady at the castle who has sex with the guy, and that's as far as I got. The thing that got me was the second story that seems to be simultaneous with the front-story: a man, a relative of the main character and his cousin, is in prisoner, taking a creative writing class. Egan jumps from front to back story in a particular way that leads you to believe the prisoner is actually creating this story about his cousins. The prison chapters were most authentic. And I LOVE Egan's dialogue - she's one of the better contemporary dialogue-ers. Unfortunately, this was a case where I was questioning why I care. There wasn't much reason, so I gave it a go, and decided against it halfway through.

How I learned Philosophy

Don't tell my boss: until last month, I didn't know a thing about Philosophy.

Well, that's not entirely true. I know how many university students enroll in Introduction to Philosophy courses annually. I'm fluent in the pricing of Introduction to Ethics readers (anthology textbooks). I'm familiar with Philosophers, classic to contemporary, and how to spell their names correctly in a Table of Contents.

That counts, right? Not when I'm on the phone with an author, who eagerly pursues a conversation about Epistemology or Metaphysics with an Editorial Assistant who just wants to get back to her Google Reader. (Dude, not at work...)

Anyway, while I was at the American Philosophical Association conference in Chicago last month, this was the same conversation I had with another Editorial Assistant who was manning the Wiley/Blackwell booth. "Yeah, I didn't study Philosophy in college or anything," was the mutual confession. Though not very guilt-inducing, we still felt that it made our job hard sometimes, especially if we were expected to talk (eek!) about Philosophy: its topics, its significance, what the philosophers are actually saying.

As we chatted, I surveyed the various books she had displayed, and (miraculously) came upon something I would read: The Office and Philosophy (Blackwell, 2008). I know, I'm a little late with the whole The Office fad. You can really tell, since the book pubbed back in 2007. This means the authors wrote it one or two year prior. (Like I said, I'm slow to fads.) Dan and I have been bona fide Office addicts for a few months now - recording it on DVR whenever it's on, and then devoting a good portion of the week to sporadic marathons. Dan's even downloaded the whole series illegally on the internets (don't tell NBC!).

I bought the book without a whim - I had to have it. Not just because it's about The Office, but because I would finally, FINALLY, learn something about my profession (besides page counts and sales forecasts).

Edited by J. Jeremy Wisnewski, this funny and accessible book features a compilation of essays by (real) contemporary philosophers on the various philosophical subtopics that relate to characters, themes, and events in The Office (both the UK and US series. I, um, skipped the essays about the UK Office. I've heard it's good, so I'll probably Netflix it).

The Office and Philosophy was truly an entertaining and educational read. The book discusses morality, by examining Michael Scott's complete moral blindness. It touches on self and self-deception by examining Dwight's power struggle in the hierarchy of the office, and his life as a Schrute (some kind of superpowerful, pseudo-Amish family) which he takes very, very seriously. It examines Affirmative Action in the context of Michael's "special" (racist) treatment of Stanley. Sexual Harassment is discussed in relation to Jim and Pam, Kelly and Ryan, Michael and Ryan. Not to mention, a lot of discussion on business ethics (remember the XXX-rated Mickey Mouse/Donald Duck watermark?).

One of the more interesting essays (Chapter 3), covered the idea of "feeling by proxy", which is the term that defines how we, the audience, are sometimes unable to physically keep watching as Michael Scott endures (more like provokes) a humiliating scenario.

For example, how can we ever forget Michael's noble kiss he lands on poor Oscar in "Gay Witch Hunt"? The scene was hard for me to watch; I wanted to turn away, because I really couldn't endure Michael's eager self-humiliation. He was completely blind to the embarrassment the kiss (in front of the rest of the staff in the conference room) would bring upon Oscar AND himself. He's going past the limits to prove to his staff that he's not a homosexual, when simultaneously he looks more like a fool than before. The reason it's hard for people to watch the scene is because they're feeling Michael's humiliation for him. Since Michael has absolutely no qualms about kissing Oscar, despite any repercussions (Toby knows) or awkwardness, the audience feels everything for him and can't actually go through with what he's about to do. We take on his position and try to change his behavior, but, we're just the audience...

For an Office fan and an EA in the Philosophy discipline, I found it completely satisfactory.

New Yorker brings the Ramapough Indian situation to light. Hopefully.

My jaw dropped this week on the train as I was flipping through the March 1 issue of The New Yorker. I came upon a lengthy feature by local correspondent Ben McGrath, which discusses the Ramapough Mountain Indians, an infamous and socially isolated group that resides in my old town (where my parents still live), Ringwood, and also in the woods of Mahwah, NJ.

"Strangers on the Mountain" begins with a brief look at illegal riding of A.T.V.s in the mountains (Stag Hill) of Mahwah, and transitions into the story of Emil Mann, a resident of the area who was shot and killed by a New Jersey forest ranger back in 2006 apparently out of self-defense.

McGrath explores the history and questionable origins of the people, known as the Ramapough Mountain Indians, or the Ramapo Lenape Nation. He writes, "The Ramapoughs number a few thousand, marry largely among themselves, and are concentrated in three primary settlements: on and around Stag Hill, in Mahwah; in the village of Hillburn, New York... in Ringwood, New Jersey, in the remains of an old, iron-mining complex." He tries to simplify their genetic make-up: Lenape and Tuscarora Native Americans, Afro-Dutch slaves, and possibly Italian and Irish immigrants in the early 20th-century.

McGrath gets the point across rather quickly that this is a marginalized group, often subject to avid racisim of the mostly white, middle-class surrounding communities. For example, where I grew up (nearby Oakland, NJ), they were known as "mountain people", or the "Jackson Whites" - a term which carries heavy racist sentiments.

I first heard about them from my father. I was very young (maybe 10?) and my brother and I were hiking with him in some type of woods. We were on a road, and he told us we had to turn around, because he was afraid to run into the "Jackson Whites". We asked him what he was talking about. I remember he said he had a mountain biker friend who went to far up this road, and he saw a man with a shotgun who told him to get off his property. Something like that. I think he also said it was a black man, with blue eyes. For some reason I picture overalls. (Of course, we all probably picture overalls).


When my family moved to Ringwood several years ago, the hostility became more evident. I attended high school with students with names like Van Dunk, Mann, De Groat. I always thought they were African American from their complexions, but some kids referred to them as "mineys", which I never really got. They usually kept to themselves, were not the best students, and got into trouble a lot with administration. Many of them were cousins. You could tell they didn't have a lot of money. The other problem was the concentration of white students who somewhat considered themselves "rednecks" (not kidding), so there was a generally understood (and even accepted) racism amongst them.

A couple of years ago, the Bergen Record printed an investigative series on the Ford superfund site in upper-Ringwood, and it's toxic impact on the Ramapough Indians. This was, at least for me, the first time I ever saw an attempt at full understanding of the people, their impoverished lifestyle, their situation. McGrath brings this to light in the article: tons of paint sludge from a Ford plant in the 1960's was dumped in the vicinity of the Ramapoughs, and has since then plagued the area with various types of cancers and serious illnesses (very much ala Erin Brockovich). Their legal struggle with Ford, the E.P.A., and the cleanup of the site still continues today, but is slow, sometimes forgotten, virtually put on the back-burner.

The situation is unfortunate, and in my opinion, undoubtedly the product of social marginalization. McGrath presents the facts and history as they stand. After reading the article, you can see there is no doubt local racism is the culprit for these people's plight.

Interestingly, though not suprisingly, McGrath's article contained no images of the upper-Ringwood area and its people who he describes so vividly. Even in our local newspapers, the photos seem abstract, distant, and non-descript. This mirrors the mysetry and thus isolation of these people, who are very much real and, I believe, should be more accessible, instead of being considered an element of "Weird New Jersey".

Here's a few links for further reading:
A blurb about the article on The New Yorker website (this just happens to be one that you need a subscription to see, so maybe go buy a copy?):
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/03/01/100301fa_fact_mcgrath
"Toxic Legacy", the 5-part series on the Ringwood superfund site by the Bergen Record:
http://www.northjersey.com/specialreports/toxiclegacy.html
The trusy Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramapough_Mountain_Indians
The Ramapough Lenape Nation website: http://www.ramapoughlenapenation.org/

All hail Eggers!

I mean it now: Dave Eggers is infallible. He is part God. I love his books.

I remember meeting some guy at a creative writing conference at William Patterson University last year, and we chatted about our unconditional love of Eggers, and he said, “Dude, have you read You Shall Know Our Velocity!?” So I have been meaning to pick it up for a while now, but I needed to first finish What is the What (2007) and then his latest, Zeitoun (2009). I also saw (and wept childishly at) Where the Wild Things Are (2009), although I still haven’t read the book (it’s expensive!). So, I’ve not neglected my Eggers these past few years.

You Shall Know Our Velocity! (Vintage, 2003) starts with an appropriately Egger-ish announcement on the first page:
“EVERYTHING WITHIN TAKES PLACE AFTER JACK DIED AND BEFORE MY MOM AND I DROWNED IN A BURNING FERRY IN THE COOL TANNIN-TINTED GUAVIARE RIVER, IN EAST-CENTRAL COLOMBIA, WITH FORTY-TWO LOCALS WE HADN’T YET MET. IT WAS A CLEAR AND EYEBLUE DAY, THAT DAY, AS WAS THE FIRST DAY OF THIS STORY, A FEW YEARS AGO IN JANUARY, ON CHICAGO’S NORTH SIDE, IN THE OPULENT SHADOW OF WRIGLEY AND WITH THE WIND COMING LOW AND SEARCHING OFF THE JAGGED HALF-FROZEN LAKE. I WAS INSIDE, VERY WARM, WALKING FROM DOOR TO DOOR.”

Will and Hand are best friends from Milwaukee and have $32,000 that they must give away to those “most deserving” around the world in seven days. Emotionally unstable and disorganized, the two plan trips to several countries that they believe to be impoverished. Jack, their third and closest friend, has recently died in a car crash. Hand and Will are still mourning his death, and can’t shake memories of their childhood together, as well as the brutality of the accident. In addition to all this, Will has been recently beat-up by some people (not sure), and his face and body are visibly bruised.

The pair travel to Dakar, where they dance in trippy nightclubs, speak bad French, and are in constant fear of being kidnapped and murdered by the Senegalese. They try to tape money to donkeys for the locals to find.

They travel to Morocco, where people spit on them (thinking them French), and they practice jumping from their rental car window into merchants’ street carts.

They travel to Estonia, where they bury money in the ground and make a treasure map for a child to find it. They spend one night jumping around on tree limbs twenty feet off the ground.

They wanted to end up in Cairo and watch the sunrise from the top of a pyramid, but didn’t have time.

In many ways, Will and Hand are still boys (popular archetypes of Eggers’) who carry a chivalrous, romanticized idea of life and achievement. But they have no clue what they’re doing (at least most of the time). They take on a task wholly larger than themselves, and are completely unaware of it. But Eggers turns their unadulterated determination into beauty in this complex, but moving, narrative.

This book is about too many things: a once-in-a-lifetime trip, memory and pain, letting life come and go, and how the F-word makes dialogue hilarious. READ IT, because my review doesn't do it justice for shit.