food – because i said

Fishing for Food and Meaning in Chania

I’m reading an English translation of The Flaw, a Greek mystery thriller by Antonis Samarakis. That characterization, mystery thriller, isn’t quite right. In fact, the book does not fit into any single category. It’s just too strange and funny and destabilizing. It dwells on banal events, some of which later turn out to be not so banal. Flits between one character’s point of view and another’s. Never pretends to know what any character is thinking or feeling, which leaves you wondering that you’re thinking and feeling. About the book, I mean.

Chania, Crete. Days 2 to 4 2/3

As we entered To Mikro Karavi (The Little Boat), a bookstore on Daskalogianni Street, Maria Callas — I assumed it was Maria Callas — was deep into some aria. I could see her at stage front, shattered, bloodied, defiant. Callas was cranked up so loud you couldn’t hear yourself think.

Chania, Crete. Day 1 1/2

On the thirty-five-minute flight from Athens to Chania, the young and pretty flight attendant pushes the refreshments trolley down the aisle. When she gets to my row, she leans over and holds out a bottle of water and a snack. We have been travelling for nearly twenty-four hours — exactly twenty-four by the time we check into our hotel about an hour later.

The Waters of Fontaine-de-Vaucluse

As I write this at an iron table in the South of France, a donkey is bawling his eyes out behind a stone wall. Meanwhile to my right and left, streams of churning water tumble and rush south on their way to the Mediterranean.

Hungry in Lyon

We are in Lyon, the food capital of France, eating with chopsticks. We ate at an Asian restaurant last night as well, and will ask for chopsticks again tomorrow, at a place where the steamed buns and barbecue pork belly, with a side of kimchi, are especially good.

A poke in the eye

On our drive to the Titan II Missile Museum in Arizona, which served as a grim reminder of humanity’s brush with total annihilation, I was reminded of Mr. Peanut.