Doombus Omnibus 23 05 2006

Meanings and Connotations

Yesterday, I had a busy and happy day. At one point, I found myself enjoying a bowl of hot borsch at Odessa, while reading from "In Watermelon Sugar." And I thought to myself that if I were to blog this, as I surely must, I would begin the entry with "I was eating a bowl of borsch at Odessa, while reading "In Watermelon Sugar." And so...

I was at Odessa, a Ukrainian in origin if not in menu eatery in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Or maybe it's the East Village -- I can never tell neighborhood boundaries properly. I can tell you this: it's directly across the street from the western edge of Tompkins Square Park and it is called Odessa.

Once, when I was a boy in high school, I, along with two friends, searched the streets of Manhattan for Odessa for near two hours. That journey has become a part of life's mythos, symbolizing perseverance in the face of utter futility. Since then (and it's been no less than twelve years since that night of mythic wandering), strangely enough, I can't seem to do anything in the southernmost mile of Manhattan without running into Odessa.

And this is strange, too, because I'm fairly certain that in Odessa, there is no restaurant called Manhattan. Odessa the City shares the reputations and characteristics of New Orleans and New Jersey -- it's a town of merry debauchery as well as of high organized crime. The combination of the two makes for an archetype mafioso who became a sort of underground national hero. Bards celebrated this lifestyle in what were Russian singer-songwriter anachronistic equivalents of gangsta rap. Odessa the city was New Orleans, New Jersey and circa-NWA Compton all mushed together.

The restaraunt is fairly mellow. And in fact, the only remaining hint on the menu that this is not just another L.E.S. diner is the presence of borsch on the soup list. Even better, it was "Cold Borsch." Yesterday was a fairly warm day, and I'd been walking. Circumstances were, therefore, perfect and I ordered a bowl of borsch. Unfortunately, the waiter did not read my mind and brought me hot borsch. And I hasten to note here that the difference between the two soups is not merely in temperature! They are, in fact, completely different soups which are, also, served at different temperatures. Nevertheless, I decided against complaining because the waiter's eyes glinted with a fervor for life that I was in no mood to dispel; instead I asked for some sour cream.

Sour cream is a strange food -- entirely overvalued in Eastern Europe and entirely undervalued in the United States (except for Mexican cuisine, god bless it). And though I'll be the first to admit that it is overvalued and overused by the Slavic Chef, to suggest that borsch and sour cream are somehow separable is pure silliness.

So I asked for some sour cream, and -- as if I had just spoken some Sinbadic magic phrase -- the waiter's countenance turned from contained joy to what is in every nation called "fluttery giddiness." "Of course," he yelped with a knowing wink and bounded for the kitchen.

Not long before this, what surely shall be remembered for generations as the Incident of the Over-Excited Waiter and the Sour Cream, I was strolling towards Odessa on St. Marks when I came across a bookstand. It has always been impossible for me to just walk past these guys.

San Francisco has more independent and used bookstores than New York could ever hope for. But New York is teeming with people who have vans and fold-out tables and books, but no money, and they set themselves up in the NYU and Columbia vicinities on nice days and sell their books. This is New York's version of the independent bookstore, with the added bonus of being able to smoke while browsing. Irresistable.

This particular bookstand consists of two fold-out tables and two guys. I wind up finding two copies of Brautigan's "In Watermelon Sugar" and a volume of selections of H.D. I buy both copies of Watermelon Sugar because a good friend has told me that this is a book he picks up every time he sees it, and later gifts people with it. This is a wonderful practice; I just acted as proxy for it. The bookseller was a little dismayed that both of these, no doubt prized, posessions of his were leaving with the same person. "Good eyes," he said. "I didn't realize I'd put both of them out."

All of this, and much much more, is contained in the phrase "I was enjoying a bowl of hot borsch at Odessa while reading from 'In Watermelon Sugar.'"

posted at: 09:58 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Doombus Omnibus

Tue, 23 May 2006

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Meanings and Connotations