Carnet de voyage

After a year that included five weeks across Europe, a wedding in France, and a twenty-two dollar smoothie in Los Angeles, October was the month I stayed put. Or tried to. The furthest I got was a Frank Lloyd Wright house in Virginia, which I reached by car, like a person with a normal life. The rest was close to home: a pizza I made myself, a Sunday bike ride with a destination made of butter, and a museum downtown that taught me something I will have forgotten by December. Here is October, mostly within driving distance.

Verity, and the problem with reveals

I read Verity earlier this year, and when I heard the film was coming with Anne Hathaway in October, I was ready. The book is genuinely tense: a story inside a story, pulling you toward a reveal you cannot wait to reach. When I reached it, I was mostly perplexed. Without spoiling anything: the ending and the story it ends do not quite belong to each other. The film softened it further. Details I thought were essential were cut, and what should have been a revelation arrived more like an announcement served with a dry amuse-bouche with warm prosecco. La réalité dépasse souvent la fiction, as we say. Here the imagination was better than the thing itself. It landed on Prime Video this week, if you would like to argue with me about it. Did you read the book? Watch the film? I want to know.

A Wright house, and a guide beyond the legal limit

In an attempt to leave the house without going to an airport, I drove to Woodlawn and Frank Lloyd Wright's Pope-Leighey House. I have always liked this kind of architecture, the long windows, the generous volumes, the calm that comes from a building that agrees with the trees around it. It was built in 1940 for a journalist named Loren Pope, who wrote to Wright and simply asked for one. The surprise was the guide. Engaging, possibly beyond the legal limit, including the moment she high-fived a visibly startled man who had come to absorb a room, not participate in it. I began looking around for hidden cameras as if this was a prank. There were none. She was simply a person who loves her work, and who slipped in some quietly revolutionary opinions about consumption while explaining that the children's bedrooms were never designed to hold an abundance of toys.

The pizza, and the dough I did not make

I grew up being taught that food deserves attention. My mother would tell me to sit down if I dared to eat or drink standing up. Meals happened at the table. I started baking early. I hate cooking every day, but every so often I enjoy making the effort, which this month produced pizza. Full disclosure: I made the dough once, in my life, and have since located a cheap and excellent one that removes the part I do not enjoy (from Trader Joe’s, if you can get to one). Smoked salmon on one. Bresaola on the other. Both were very good, and neither required me to be a more committed person than I am.

A better focaccia than mine

I also went to Cafe Fiorello, which makes a better focaccia than I do. It also uses roughly four times the olive oil, so I am choosing to record this as a draw. The room sits somewhere between a Parisian bistro and a very good train carriage, and it transported me, though not to Italy. Italian-American food is its own country. The chicken parm would puzzle a Roman and is not attempting otherwise. It is simply comforting, which is its own achievement. My only regret was not being able to eat more.

Three signs, three chances

As the professional cyclist I clearly am, I went on a Sunday ride with a destination, and the destination was sugar. The bakery disappointed on flavor. It did not disappoint on spelling. I present, without comment, the CROSSIANT, the CHOCOLATE CROSSIANT and the very popular ALMOND CROSSIANT. I want to be clear that I admire the consistency, and that I also stayed quiet, so I guess I’m part of the problem now. These are of course entirely distinct from the French croissant, which comes exclusively from the croissant region of France and is protected by treaty.

Beverly Pepper, Piombino, 1962

Last, something I learned, which I am passing to you immediately because my memory retains information in a mysterious way. If we ever meet and I cannot remember something, this is simply how I work. I went to the National Museum of Women in the Arts and finally learned about Beverly Pepper. I had seen her work before, at SFMOMA and at Storm King, without ever once stopping to learn more about who made it. Born in Brooklyn in 1922. She came to sculpture late, and in 1962 she taught herself to weld inside a steel mill in Piombino, Italy, producing nearly two dozen works. There were no women's bathrooms in those factories. She used the men's. I am at a point in my own life that feels uncertain, or more honestly, frightening, and there is something steadying about a woman who walked into a steel mill in 1962 and did not stop to ask wether she was allowed to.

Learn more about New York Avenue Sculpture Corridor: Beverly Pepper Ten Monumental Sculptures, which is free ;)

Et voilà! If you saw something I missed, hit reply, I read all of them and answer most. Until next month,

Jacques

COMING UP