Category Archives: commentary

Bring It To The Table.

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He probably had no idea.

But, many women crushed on Anthony Bourdain, myself included.

Given what we have now been told about his life, his worth, and the scope of his experience, this fact may have come to bear no importance to him. Like everything he’d touched, women were likely a “been there/done that” episode in an otherwise keenly focused and ultimately vital social intention.

Because, Anthony Bourdain wasn’t just a fantastic chef. He was an explorer, a journalist, and a visionary. He may also have been, in spite of his rugged earthiness, rather an idealist – receiving, with private reflection and no small frustration, the socio-political realities he encountered.

And, he found them all.

From the rapid fire race of the planet’s cosmopolitae to the cramped corners of primal civilization, Bourdain covered the story – by boat, rickshaw, taxi, mule and the boots on his own feet. And, he reached the very heart of it all, at table.

There is something about the art of not just preparing good food, but in the eating of it. When this man sat down to share a meal, be it finger fried or stew pan steamed, he brought his open mind. And, as his interviews sat with him, they ceased being subjects and became friends. And, so many of them had, until he came along, never been seen or heard by anyone outside of their tiny place in the sun.

In many cases, neither had the culture they represented. And, this was Bourdain’s fascination. He didn’t just bring his appetite. Anthony Bourdain was hungry. He really, genuinely, wanted to know them all, and everything about their lives.

And, they told him.

They told him, both through their food and the act of sharing it. By coming to the table, the story itself unfolded – unprovoked, and unrestrained. It spoke candidly, about the political upheavals of the day and the ancient history in a single pot of oil. It openly expressed the views of its people – their ideas, their needs, their hopes for survival and preservation.

I don’t know what happened in that hotel room in Paris. We are long past the proving of any of it. And, maybe that is just what Anthony Bourdain wanted. Beyond marketing and media ratings, release to our eyes and ears his legacy. Let the story tell itself.

But, do pass the mushy peas.

Please.

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©9/16/18  Ruth Ann Scanzillo    All right those of the author, who wonders just how many private islands there are. Really.   Thank you for respecting original material.

littlebarefeetblog.com

 

 

 

The Numbers.

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“Forty six, forty seven, forty eight, forty nine, fifty…”

The FitBit wasn’t worth its price tag of $350. I could count. Out loud. Extra maxillofacial muscle exercise never hurt a girl, anyway; Lord knows, our ability to use our voices had always been our truest arrow. Best to keep that one sharp.

On the way home after the walk, behind the wheel of my 10 year old Pontiac, I heard Fareed Zakaria using his to expose two far more alarming numbers.

The first came from an author named Jonathan Haidt, whom he was interviewing. Did we know that the suicide rate among American girls was up 70 per cent since 2011?

Instantly, innumerable faces came into my frame. Sixth, seventh, eighth grade teens, at the school where I’d spent the final 12 of my 25 years in public education. The ones whose eyes were half shut, bodies immobilized by heroin, sitting like mannequins in the middle of music class.

Fareed had already moved on. Did we know that 90 per cent of all Venezuelans lived in poverty?

No. I was sure that we did not.

There was much that we Americans did not know. We persisted, however, in crowing on about what we thought we did. The less about which we were sure, the more plentiful our public pronouncements.

In fact, the media was rife with these. We’d managed to elect many, with skills well honed in the craft of selling the official statistics on any number of issues over which our vote should apparently have some control. And, they were eager to tell us all about it.

I was almost home. The idea for this piece already taking shape, I knew I’d probably gather the 26 pairs of drip dried underwear into their drawers and then set my seat down in front of the screen to write it.

Rain was pretty much scheduled for the rest of this Sunday. Would I be counting any more steps, or just fretting over the absence of sun drying options for the remaining laundry? The dryer could be repaired for about $230; a new one, installed, for about $520 with tax.

These numbers were disparate enough. They created distance, between me and those who wanted my money. Venezuela could use some American charity. American girls needed more than funding to reduce the number of their diminishing lives.

Counting the cost was up to me.

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© 9/9/18  Ruth Ann Scanzillo   All rights those of the author, whose name appears above this line. Please respect original material. Thank you.

littlebarefeetblog.com

 

 

Pam Baker.

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I learned one of life’s most valuable lessons from Pam Baker.

She wasn’t a teacher.

She was a classmate, and she sat behind me in 7th grade.

Pam wasn’t a close friend of mine. During the first months of junior high everybody was a bit strange, so many of us having converged from the various elementary schools in the area. I still missed my 6th grade teacher, and struggled to find each room in the building which had been designated for every subject being taught.

I was fairly tall for a 7th grader, as was Pam and, yet, we’d both either chosen or been assigned seats near the front of the room in the center row. Gone were the days when the tall girls ended up in the back, of each row, with the boys.

The scenic memory is vague. Perhaps we were doing seatwork, or the teacher had stepped out of the room for a moment. I felt a tap on my shoulder.

I turned around.

It was Pam.

“What race are you??”  she said.

In those days, white people called those of color Negroes. None of the white people had a clue what Negroes called their white counterparts because, in those days, there was no dialogue between people of differing race. Pam was one of the Negro girls and, that year, I was the darkest skinned white girl in the entire school.

My father’s parents had both emigrated to New York on a ship just as the 19th century was flipping to the 20th. They were each of Southern Italian descent, though my grandfather would have born the darker shades of hair and skin. Appearing to be Sicilian, my grandmother had the light eyes and broad, full features marking Moorish ancestry. Dad had only met his mother once and his father never, providing the family only a bridal photograph, and I took after him almost entirely.

In early September, Pam’s skin was the color of coffee with milk, just like mine. Hers stayed that way, though, as the winter encroached, and mine faded just enough to make the subject less of a concern to anyone.

Clearly, Pam had never seen a white girl with skin the same color as her own. And, up until then, I had seen few African American people at all in my world, only those who came from Virginia to Grove City College to attend our Eastern Bible Conference every summer, among them the Hintons – Arthur being the thin, quiet boy who always smiled at me across every room.

What I learned in 7th grade was that there were those who weren’t sure what I was when they looked at me. I also learned how it felt to be the person nobody was sure about, unless they knew my family or attended the Bible Conference where people came to worship in spite of their skin color even if they did not sit together. Arthur Hinton could have been my boyfriend, and Pam Baker and I could have been sisters, but in those days nobody would have understood.

The bitter cold had lifted somewhat and there were about forty minutes for three belated returns, one a large postal shipment, before my private students would arrive. A full thirty of those had already passed before I realized that the Post Office would be closed. Today was a legal holiday, in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Pam Baker would have remembered.

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© 1/15/18   Ruth Ann Scanzillo       All rights those of the author, whose story it is, and whose name appears above this line. Leave prejudice at the door. Thanks.

littlebarefeetblog.com