Photo courtesy of New York University's Grey Gallery Would it shock you to read that "only" 146 people died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire? It's not a lot, really, but poets and peasants long ago figured out that death can't be measured by numbers. "A thousand" tsunami-drowned bodies wash up on Japan's shore. "Hundreds of thousands" died in Haiti's quake; global disease and starvation kill cool, statistical "millions." Yet every mourner knows that one loss close to home … [Read more...]
Archives for March 2011
Condiment Time-Travel
Who Invented Crab Louis? It's almost pink, not a pretty-in-pink pink but a sickly, Pepto pink. Neither liquid nor solid, it crawls from server to plate like lava, lava with chunks. I know what those chunks are, because I chopped and diced green pepper, green onion, and green olive to create them. Sure, I licked that spoon. But in the time it took for my palate to awaken, before I could compute the flavor and register my pleasure and approval -- the taste was right, in the certain way that a blend of wrong things can be right -- I found … [Read more...]