WEEZY SCHOLARS are abuzz about the sneak-attack simile from the hot new single "6 Foot 7 Foot."
First Weezy Scholar: You heard that shit? Real g's move in silence like lasagna.Second Weezy Scholar: Yeah man shit's hot...Real talk though... Fuck does that mean?WS1: Think about it. Real g's move in silence like lasagna.WS2: I'm seeing a lasagna doing slug walk cross a plate.WS1: Like lasagna. Spell it.WS2: L-A-S-A-- Oh shit the g is silent.
WS1: Yuup.
WS2: Damn.
WS1: Yuup.
WS2, following a moment's reflection: You know what, though? That's kinda whack actually.
WS1: You just mad you ain figure it out.
WS2: Nah nah for real, because the g in lasagna ain really silent.
WS1: Fuck you talkin about. Yeah it is.
WS2: Nah, it's not. Cause think about it though. If the g wasn't there you would pronounce it "la-zann-a." That nya sound is from the g. On some Italian shit.
WS1: Oh damn. You got me there.
WS2: He shoulda said real g's is like gnats.
WS1: Flyin all in a ball with other gnats is not gangster.
WS2: Says you.
WS1: You know what is gangster though?
WS2: Huh?
WS1: A letter acting all innocuous where it falls in a word, then moving silently, only to show up later making a y sound, on some Italian shit.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
Hey Nicki! Hey Nicki! Asthmatic Ode to Nicki Minaj
WHEN FIRST I heard "Your Love" on KMEL, I thought I had met it in the sky. Nicki's arrival had the same effect; I didn't know she was somebody I'd been waiting for, and I already can't fathom a hip hop world without her.
Nicki Minaj exists o
n so many planes she might fool you. First come the pink wig and flaunted ass, daring you to underestimate her. Then there are the many faces, many voices, Nicki as self-created cultural artifact. But rip off all the shiny packaging and you find an artist with talent and heart. (Also be advised you'll want to re-use such nice wrapping paper.)
An obtuse observer could mistake her sexiness for a cheap appeal to men, but in fact her brew of brazen sexuality and conquering power is bound to baffle and terrify many males. (Hence, When I throw this p**** you better not start duckin.) It's not easy to find straight male Nicki fans. Men seem to want to watch her, but from a safe distance.
She appeals, instead, to women. Nicki is power, and transmits power. On some advanced like fifth wave feminism shit. In this she differs vastly from beefmate Lil Kim, whose kittenish sexuality, while powerful in its day in its way, is less threatening, and voluntarily subordinate. Nicki would never list herself after Wayne the way Kim deferentially self-seconded once upon a time: Brooklyn home of the greatest rappers/Big comes first then the Queen comes after.
Nicki shrewdly combines her Barbie wigs with aggressive rapping, one of many replications of her perfectly calibrated hard-soft dichotomy. See also her person, with its sharp points and soft pillows, and her voice personas, which range from babyish to thug murderous. And unlike Lil Kim and Foxy Brown, who specialized in a delicious ghetto brand of sexual aggression (yeah I said it: specialized) , Nicki's aggression is general. Thus does Barbie also get accused of being too masculine.
AND SHE DOES channel masculinity when she feels like it, calling upon male alter ego Roman Zolanski. Suffice it to say that Roman can go head to head with that paean to male aggression known as Slim Shady. (It is understood that regular Eminem is a marshmallow Peep compared to this alter ego; Shady is the one still stuffing ladies in the trunk after all these years.) Over a scary railroad track of a beat, courtesy of Swizz Beatz, Roman and Shady defile and destroy anything and anyone in the vicinity. My favorite bit is in her second verse:
"Dear Old Nicki," in which Minaj openly grapples with her past self, is the most honest work of self-reflection I've heard from a rapper. Stars so often have unglamorous former versions hiding in a closet, those easily embarrassing rough drafts along the editing process of self-creation. It's quite a feat to embrace an old self while deciding to move beyond it. But Nicki can.
After all the serious work is over, it's end-of-album party time. The bangingly superficial "Super Bass," waiting to be discovered by club turntables everywhere, celebrates her own femme version of fun pimpery:
NICKI IS PART of a cadre of Millennial rappers who realized in the nick of time that rap had staled into its own conventions in need of flouting. She is joined by Young Money labelmates Lil Wayne, the eyelid tattoo alien, and Drake, the matinee idol psychoanalyst. Peers include the dapper-suited philosopher of hard-partying Kid Cudi, and political nerd Lupe Fiasco. These Millennial rappers aren't nervously checking their street cred every five minutes, and so are free to explore uncharted terrain, like singing their own hooks, wearing eyeglasses, collaborating with rockboys, riding skateboards, experiencing ambivalence. And at long last, Andre 3000 has challengers for the weirdness throne.
Nicki, with her many guises and cartoon curves*, is trailed by an inevitable misapprehension that she is phony. (To which she responds: If I'm fake I ain notice cause MY MONEY AIN'T.) But her rapid rotation of wigs and voices is rooted in theatricality--she studied drama at LaGuardia High, the "Fame" school--and her embodiment of so many Nickis is a way of claiming every possible iteration of self, as well as an acknowledgment that to rap, after all, is to wear a persona.
*Her improbable ass to waist ratio does have this perfectly logical explanation: she's on a diet, but her pockets are eating cheesecake.
Were she sexplosion only: dayenu. But she can do sex, she can do glam, she can do swag, she can do love. She can be scary, zany, savvy, vulnerable, introspective--often under the same wig on the same song. She can murder a Swizzy beat then hopscotch across a will.i.am confection. Her strength is her stubborn unwillingness to be any one thing, least of all whatever you might want her to be. And I'm not just saying that as an X-pon-tittie Barb stan. Though to be one is a privilege.
Nicki Minaj exists o
n so many planes she might fool you. First come the pink wig and flaunted ass, daring you to underestimate her. Then there are the many faces, many voices, Nicki as self-created cultural artifact. But rip off all the shiny packaging and you find an artist with talent and heart. (Also be advised you'll want to re-use such nice wrapping paper.)An obtuse observer could mistake her sexiness for a cheap appeal to men, but in fact her brew of brazen sexuality and conquering power is bound to baffle and terrify many males. (Hence, When I throw this p**** you better not start duckin.) It's not easy to find straight male Nicki fans. Men seem to want to watch her, but from a safe distance.
She appeals, instead, to women. Nicki is power, and transmits power. On some advanced like fifth wave feminism shit. In this she differs vastly from beefmate Lil Kim, whose kittenish sexuality, while powerful in its day in its way, is less threatening, and voluntarily subordinate. Nicki would never list herself after Wayne the way Kim deferentially self-seconded once upon a time: Brooklyn home of the greatest rappers/Big comes first then the Queen comes after.
Nicki shrewdly combines her Barbie wigs with aggressive rapping, one of many replications of her perfectly calibrated hard-soft dichotomy. See also her person, with its sharp points and soft pillows, and her voice personas, which range from babyish to thug murderous. And unlike Lil Kim and Foxy Brown, who specialized in a delicious ghetto brand of sexual aggression (yeah I said it: specialized) , Nicki's aggression is general. Thus does Barbie also get accused of being too masculine.
AND SHE DOES channel masculinity when she feels like it, calling upon male alter ego Roman Zolanski. Suffice it to say that Roman can go head to head with that paean to male aggression known as Slim Shady. (It is understood that regular Eminem is a marshmallow Peep compared to this alter ego; Shady is the one still stuffing ladies in the trunk after all these years.) Over a scary railroad track of a beat, courtesy of Swizz Beatz, Roman and Shady defile and destroy anything and anyone in the vicinity. My favorite bit is in her second verse:
I hear the mumblinNext she breaks out the emotional matter, ranging from the glorious romantic phantasm of "Your Love" to the relationshipal nitty gritty of "Right Thru Me." The most powerful lyric in the latter goes simply, Okay you're right/Just let it go.
I hear the cacklin
I got em scared, shook, panickin
Overseas, church, Vatican
You at a stand-still: mannequin
"Dear Old Nicki," in which Minaj openly grapples with her past self, is the most honest work of self-reflection I've heard from a rapper. Stars so often have unglamorous former versions hiding in a closet, those easily embarrassing rough drafts along the editing process of self-creation. It's quite a feat to embrace an old self while deciding to move beyond it. But Nicki can.
After all the serious work is over, it's end-of-album party time. The bangingly superficial "Super Bass," waiting to be discovered by club turntables everywhere, celebrates her own femme version of fun pimpery:
I am Nicki Minaj
I mack them dudes up
Back coupes up
And chuck the deuce up
NICKI IS PART of a cadre of Millennial rappers who realized in the nick of time that rap had staled into its own conventions in need of flouting. She is joined by Young Money labelmates Lil Wayne, the eyelid tattoo alien, and Drake, the matinee idol psychoanalyst. Peers include the dapper-suited philosopher of hard-partying Kid Cudi, and political nerd Lupe Fiasco. These Millennial rappers aren't nervously checking their street cred every five minutes, and so are free to explore uncharted terrain, like singing their own hooks, wearing eyeglasses, collaborating with rockboys, riding skateboards, experiencing ambivalence. And at long last, Andre 3000 has challengers for the weirdness throne.
Nicki, with her many guises and cartoon curves*, is trailed by an inevitable misapprehension that she is phony. (To which she responds: If I'm fake I ain notice cause MY MONEY AIN'T.) But her rapid rotation of wigs and voices is rooted in theatricality--she studied drama at LaGuardia High, the "Fame" school--and her embodiment of so many Nickis is a way of claiming every possible iteration of self, as well as an acknowledgment that to rap, after all, is to wear a persona.
*Her improbable ass to waist ratio does have this perfectly logical explanation: she's on a diet, but her pockets are eating cheesecake.
Were she sexplosion only: dayenu. But she can do sex, she can do glam, she can do swag, she can do love. She can be scary, zany, savvy, vulnerable, introspective--often under the same wig on the same song. She can murder a Swizzy beat then hopscotch across a will.i.am confection. Her strength is her stubborn unwillingness to be any one thing, least of all whatever you might want her to be. And I'm not just saying that as an X-pon-tittie Barb stan. Though to be one is a privilege.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Hibernating (Like a Dungeon Dragon)
WHAT HAVE I been up to lately? Oh, hibernating. You know, winter torpor.
I have this theory of radical sloth. I invoke it as needed. Sometimes, the theory goes, the best thing to do is nothing. Said theory is staggeringly difficult to convert to policy. But you know: I try.
I am a staunch opponent of the culture of busy. I do my best to resist societal pressure to scurry about antlike, and operate instead at my own strange pace. Doing nothing I consider an art. I like to suppose that if you do nothing enough the things you then do will be better and count more.
Of course even in mid-hibernate you end up doing something, but it'll be exploratory and non-required. I took up Nicki Minaj whilst Carmela took up Pema Chodron. We have conversations like:
Carm meditates for days in her kitty bed cave. I leave Wild Cravings treats at her feet and she bows ever so slightly but doesn't touch them until her sit is finished. I'll be in badbitch heels giving myself a dominatrix lapdance with gold-teeth-and-fangs derangement sneers for the mirror and the little feline Buddhist nun remains perfectly still.
Start at 3:35. And emphatically not before.
But mostly I've been filing my nails and thinking my thoughts and taking decadent naps and twiddling my thumbs. I had a nice long sleep. Now I'm rubbing my eyes and stretching my limbs. Emergence is nigh.
Good looks to the illustrator.
I have this theory of radical sloth. I invoke it as needed. Sometimes, the theory goes, the best thing to do is nothing. Said theory is staggeringly difficult to convert to policy. But you know: I try.
I am a staunch opponent of the culture of busy. I do my best to resist societal pressure to scurry about antlike, and operate instead at my own strange pace. Doing nothing I consider an art. I like to suppose that if you do nothing enough the things you then do will be better and count more.
Of course even in mid-hibernate you end up doing something, but it'll be exploratory and non-required. I took up Nicki Minaj whilst Carmela took up Pema Chodron. We have conversations like:
Ca[rm]: Bodhichitta is essentially a quality of warmth, an experience of our connection with all beings and with all things.
Cl[eb]: Shoulda sent a thank-you note you little ho. Now I'ma wrap ya coffin with a bow.
Ca: Don't have expectations for others. Just be kind.
Cl: I don't sympathize. Cause you a simple bitch.
Carm meditates for days in her kitty bed cave. I leave Wild Cravings treats at her feet and she bows ever so slightly but doesn't touch them until her sit is finished. I'll be in badbitch heels giving myself a dominatrix lapdance with gold-teeth-and-fangs derangement sneers for the mirror and the little feline Buddhist nun remains perfectly still.
Start at 3:35. And emphatically not before.
But mostly I've been filing my nails and thinking my thoughts and taking decadent naps and twiddling my thumbs. I had a nice long sleep. Now I'm rubbing my eyes and stretching my limbs. Emergence is nigh.
Good looks to the illustrator.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Last Name Ever. First Name Greatest. Middle Name Cat.
I HAD TO say goodbye to Paulie James Walnuts III. King James, Wally Almonds, Molly Pecans, P Kitty, Diamond Princess, Juglans paulinus, Paulo, Wognuts, top predator, master of all he surveyed. Light of my life, fire of my loins, my sin, my soul. The cat the myth the legend.
House is quiet without him. No one bites me awake to be fed. Nevermore that claw grip to the edge of my bed, the sound that announced his ascension ever since he abjured feline agility and opted for a two-part pawual hoist instead.
He didn't live to be old. But "Die Young, Stay Pretty" was his second favorite song. (After "I Know What Boys Like.") No use trying to get him to slow down and do self care. He'd be all Fuck maintain boy I gotta keep BALLIN.
He left Carmela his full wardrobe, excepting the boas. Those went to Marianne, who had always coveted them. The jewelry went to me. So if you're wondering why I've been rocking all the gold chains with dinnerplate medallions: that's why.
As I leaned into that sad hospital cage he made funereal requests. I honored the reasonable ones two days later, digging his final resting place in his old strawbed nap spot, pouring out tooney, filling his grave with passion fruit and adorning its surface with passion flowers. He wanted "Aston Martin Music" played. (I opted instead for quiet and Kaddish.) And he wanted Crim to come over and help dig, which the latter was glad to do.
Before we parted he rasped some advice: It may look for all the world like you don't know whatthehell you're doing. But I know you do. After I'm gone I need you to know it. He was selfless really.
Miss you, big friendly orange cat. But legends don't die.
House is quiet without him. No one bites me awake to be fed. Nevermore that claw grip to the edge of my bed, the sound that announced his ascension ever since he abjured feline agility and opted for a two-part pawual hoist instead.
He didn't live to be old. But "Die Young, Stay Pretty" was his second favorite song. (After "I Know What Boys Like.") No use trying to get him to slow down and do self care. He'd be all Fuck maintain boy I gotta keep BALLIN.
He left Carmela his full wardrobe, excepting the boas. Those went to Marianne, who had always coveted them. The jewelry went to me. So if you're wondering why I've been rocking all the gold chains with dinnerplate medallions: that's why.
As I leaned into that sad hospital cage he made funereal requests. I honored the reasonable ones two days later, digging his final resting place in his old strawbed nap spot, pouring out tooney, filling his grave with passion fruit and adorning its surface with passion flowers. He wanted "Aston Martin Music" played. (I opted instead for quiet and Kaddish.) And he wanted Crim to come over and help dig, which the latter was glad to do.
Before we parted he rasped some advice: It may look for all the world like you don't know whatthehell you're doing. But I know you do. After I'm gone I need you to know it. He was selfless really.
Miss you, big friendly orange cat. But legends don't die.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Earffirmative Action
THERE ARE white people in my iPod, a tragically underrepresented minority. I make a sincere effort to support them, because I recognize that they have contributions to make. Cosettina loves to default to GENRES>>R&B/SOUL, which measures like 16 hours. (Cosettina is my iPod. Obv.)
White people doing black music* only semi-count for earffirmative actions. I did get Eminem's last album, concluding a long journey from outright loathing to tepid acceptance to tornado-volcano embrace. My first erstwhile hint of respect for him came when he likened himself to Elvis: To do black music so selfishly/And use it to get myself wealthy. I thought that showed self-knowledge. Recovery is his bar mitzvah album for real though. He is finally making use of those purported eighty pound balls to handle icky matter like love and personal growth. (Also, Em: I was wondering how your day went. xoxo)
*Don't ask me to define such terms. Just like do me this one favor and suppose you know what I mean.
Amy, for her part, has said she never listens to white music, a statement I find unaccountably, characteristically awesome. Looking forward to spending an evening as you soon, babygirl.
I USED TO listen to rap in the closet. Nowadays that's where I listen to rock. Well, not precisely the closet, but just outside it, lazy-splayed across the bed. For such occasions I don my glasses and wifebeaters and wide-stripe thigh socks, in a weak attempt to be as culturally as I am biologically white.
I favor rock bands with definite article-preceded names; there is swagger in such unironic certainty. Not that I select to like them on this basis. Just, having perceived the liking pattern, I thought I'd make up a whizbang rationale for it. And I gravitate toward white music that is soulful,* a quality inevitably, controversially (see Mercedes v. Quinn, S1 Ep XXI) associated with blackness.
White people doing black music* only semi-count for earffirmative actions. I did get Eminem's last album, concluding a long journey from outright loathing to tepid acceptance to tornado-volcano embrace. My first erstwhile hint of respect for him came when he likened himself to Elvis: To do black music so selfishly/And use it to get myself wealthy. I thought that showed self-knowledge. Recovery is his bar mitzvah album for real though. He is finally making use of those purported eighty pound balls to handle icky matter like love and personal growth. (Also, Em: I was wondering how your day went. xoxo)
*Don't ask me to define such terms. Just like do me this one favor and suppose you know what I mean.
Amy, for her part, has said she never listens to white music, a statement I find unaccountably, characteristically awesome. Looking forward to spending an evening as you soon, babygirl.
I USED TO listen to rap in the closet. Nowadays that's where I listen to rock. Well, not precisely the closet, but just outside it, lazy-splayed across the bed. For such occasions I don my glasses and wifebeaters and wide-stripe thigh socks, in a weak attempt to be as culturally as I am biologically white.
I favor rock bands with definite article-preceded names; there is swagger in such unironic certainty. Not that I select to like them on this basis. Just, having perceived the liking pattern, I thought I'd make up a whizbang rationale for it. And I gravitate toward white music that is soulful,* a quality inevitably, controversially (see Mercedes v. Quinn, S1 Ep XXI) associated with blackness.
*In the best footnote of all time, Zadie Smith wonders, "Is there anything less soulful than attempting to define soulfulness?"
This is what soulful means. (It's Dan!)
UNEQUIVOCALLY QUALIFYING as soulful is everyone's favorite White, my first husband Jack. Dan Auerbach is even soulfuller, and he could be Jewish, in which case we could maybe have a huppah, something bossy Jack was not into. Though I do miss Jack's angry sexuality, like on "Instinct Blues." They can both say "uh" as well as Biggie--the only thing that truly matters.
Perhaps the moral here, if I got to generally set morals, would be: If you can't be for-reals awesome, just be trashy awesome. Call it the Pitbull Principle of Know Thyself. (Speakinawhich, did you hear "Hey Baby (Drop It to the Floor)"? Shit's bangin!)
It's funny how when Jack says, Shake your hips like battleships I'm still tempted to say, "How fast?" We're not even together anymore! I had the same problem when I was with Game. He'd be like, Bounce like you got hydraulics in ya g-string and I'd be like, "How high?" Dan says that's wrong, and he's probably right. Dan also says I'm the only one, whereas I'm pretty sure Game was simulfucking Kim K while we were together. (I'll share a man with you anytime, bitch. High-five booty clap.)
And this, naturally.
Anyway. Much white music does sound soulless to me. Or at least undersouled. Soul suck may result from aloof withholding, grating cleverness, or ironic remove. To my ears, white music has a greater tendency to sound like it's trying hard to be cool; art should strive to be good, coolness being a possible byproduct only.
You could say there are values besides soulfulness in music, and you *might* have a point. Even my iPod admits as much. Fairly or not, Cosettina grants wide berth to rappers and R&B cheesemongers, calling their vulgarity real-keeping and their tackiness fun. No white person could say, We don't even clap the same when we livin that champagne life/Sexier than a regular clap. And yet I totally tolerate, even enjoy, Ne-Yo saying so. Because the beat is right and one could be tipsy on the dance floor and really feel, for one transcendent moment, to be living The Champagne Life.
Perhaps the moral here, if I got to generally set morals, would be: If you can't be for-reals awesome, just be trashy awesome. Call it the Pitbull Principle of Know Thyself. (Speakinawhich, did you hear "Hey Baby (Drop It to the Floor)"? Shit's bangin!)
What I like about the aforementioned soulful whites is their wide-eyed artistic devotion, and the full-heartedness of the music they make. They have found their own roads to soulfulness, not copping anybody else's style. Amy and Em make black music their own, and do so in a way I respect. But Jack and Dan make white music soulful, and that may be the greater feat.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Hustle and Cuss
WE SIT DOWN for a finance meeting and Carmela crunches the numbers with the swift ease of a kitty who sidelines as a seasonal accountant. She presents the results in tidy printouts. With the school garden program in the shitter the outlook is grim, and Paulie Walnuts operatically declares that the only remaining option is to send one of us out on the stroll. He quotes a recently-rejected Haitian presidential candidate: Closed legs don't get fed/Go out there and make my bread. I know him well enough to read his assumption of the pimp role as a ploy; he secretly hopes to be pressed into ho service.
Meeting adjourned, Carmela sets out searching for ways to economize. Her first stop is the coop for a little chat with Marianne, AKA the laziest layer of all time. Paulie and I set out debating two related questions:
1. Is it trickin if you got it?
2. Can you make a ho a housewife?
On both I find myself at odds with conventional rap wisdom. Paulie insists it ain't trickin if you got it, and swears he's not just saying that because he's got it. I counter that however much of the elusive It one may possess, trickin is trickin.
On the second question he's the conservative. When the law changes--and I always promise him it will--he does wish to settle down, perhaps adopt a kitten or two from Hopalong. So he worries his reputayshun. I say we should put on our heel boots and have some fun meantime, and promote my viewpoint by taking him out to Easy, where we pay neither cover nor drinks. He says it ain't trickin if you got it and sweats out his "Fancy" dance.
We're half dead the next day so we do lazy gardening and lie in the sun while Carmela calculates the possible salad savings implied by my fall planting. I observe that there are many types of grinding. Fall Writing Program must go on, broke or unbroke. And I could always go back to SAT tutoring. Paulie observes there are many types of whoring.
I managed to befriend a bank security guard, so maybe we'll heist it and flee in the Beemer with "Sweet Escape" playing and abscond to Senegal and raise goats. To which Paulie says stop being dramatic and unreasonable. Holy pots and kettles, right?
And we are practicing our French. I'll find Monsieur le Noix snoozing on the straw pile that bears his imprint, and he'll lift his lids languidly and say, Ne detestez pas le joueur; detestez le jeu. Then he likes me to ask: Soyant souteneur, c'est facile? And he answers, Hell yeah, c'est facile.
Meeting adjourned, Carmela sets out searching for ways to economize. Her first stop is the coop for a little chat with Marianne, AKA the laziest layer of all time. Paulie and I set out debating two related questions:
1. Is it trickin if you got it?
2. Can you make a ho a housewife?
On both I find myself at odds with conventional rap wisdom. Paulie insists it ain't trickin if you got it, and swears he's not just saying that because he's got it. I counter that however much of the elusive It one may possess, trickin is trickin.
On the second question he's the conservative. When the law changes--and I always promise him it will--he does wish to settle down, perhaps adopt a kitten or two from Hopalong. So he worries his reputayshun. I say we should put on our heel boots and have some fun meantime, and promote my viewpoint by taking him out to Easy, where we pay neither cover nor drinks. He says it ain't trickin if you got it and sweats out his "Fancy" dance.
We're half dead the next day so we do lazy gardening and lie in the sun while Carmela calculates the possible salad savings implied by my fall planting. I observe that there are many types of grinding. Fall Writing Program must go on, broke or unbroke. And I could always go back to SAT tutoring. Paulie observes there are many types of whoring.
I managed to befriend a bank security guard, so maybe we'll heist it and flee in the Beemer with "Sweet Escape" playing and abscond to Senegal and raise goats. To which Paulie says stop being dramatic and unreasonable. Holy pots and kettles, right?
And we are practicing our French. I'll find Monsieur le Noix snoozing on the straw pile that bears his imprint, and he'll lift his lids languidly and say, Ne detestez pas le joueur; detestez le jeu. Then he likes me to ask: Soyant souteneur, c'est facile? And he answers, Hell yeah, c'est facile.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Pleasure and Melons (Cold Summer)
Pleasure and melons
Want the same weather
--Italian proverb
I DON'T LIKE spring to be better than summer. It implies something unfortunate, like the best of life is in anticipation and planting, and the harvest can never live up. July was tomatoless. August was half over before I saw the first Black Krim breaking, ending the big green stalemate that was interminable this cold summer. If I'd planted some bitchass cherry tomatoes I'd have long been picking, but that simply isn't the way I roll. I'm not into cherry tomatoes and rather resent consolation prizes.
Turned out this would have been a season to insure against disappointment, but instead I planted eggplants and edamame and the most ambitious, unreasonable heirloom tomatoes--all of which are now sickly, under-performing, shivering every dewy morning. I even switched from my dependable sauce variety, Super Marzano, a megavirile hybrid impervious to setbacks, to the vulnerable, romantic heirloom San Marzano Gigante. The latter is an old school version of the same fine paste tomato; it lacks the usual hybrid goodies (disease resistance, insane profligacy) but makes beautiful, odd-shaped, enormous tomatoes purported to be delicious. And you can save the seeds. It's an heirloom. That's classy.
Alas, I won't be saving any seeds. My San Marzano Gigantes got verticillium. The lush green tops are a fraud, given away by the yellow-and-brown-chevroned leaves at the base. When I grow the Super hybrids, two plants give me a year's worth of tomato sauce. The lovely heirlooms I planted this time will give me a dinner or two at best. But I can't hate; who knows what they could have done with a bit more bravery, in heat and undiseased soil.
Hot weather makes me want to be superficial. Which can be nice sometimes. If it's cold I have to keep considering serious matters instead of offering my bikini self up to the sun and thinking nothing. Plants worry overmuch in the cold too. They just can't seem to relax.
I like to grouse, so good things often happen just to spite me. This cold summer I grew my first successful melon, over at the school garden. Watermelons always top the kid request list, but I'd never been willing to plant them, because I don't like teaching children that gardening is about disappointment and I never thought we could harvest a damn watermelon. If all warm-weather crops want richness and heat, watermelons want both more. More than zucchini, more than tomatoes, more than peppers, more than eggplants, more than cucumbers--hell, even more than other melons.
In spring's planting daze I snuck two plants of an early, small watermelon variety into an already-overstuffed bed we'd newly constructed at the school, making no fuss so as not to build up childish hopes. The soil was lush, the courtyard location snug and warm, and in late July a softball-sized watermelon occurred. No kid ever saw it, as far as I know. (The school is abandoned to custodians and construction workers in late summer. They all like beans and squash.) Like a dummy I picked the prize when it was utterly unripe and had to feed it to my hens. But I think I saw a couple other set fruits nestled among those hand-shaped leaves.
In the same school bed with the watermelons I grew my first successful Bay Area cucumbers and made a half gallon jar of pickles, which ought to keep until Back to School time. Maybe more watermelons will be ripe for the kiddos by then too. Maybe not.
But there's always picking. Even in a cold summer garden.
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