all you need is soup

The Vice-Presidential debate is on now, and I am lying on the kitchen sofa writing to you. I can't bear it, I can't take it. Finally, in the middle of last night, as I was fretting about this Libya thing, the American ambassador who was killed and whose fault was it - I made a decision: I have to stop caring so much about what goes on down there, or I'll go mad. Take ten giant steps back. Yes, I think the fate of the planet hangs in the balance; that if those intolerant, smug, unbelievably narrow-minded, lying cretins win, we are all in big big trouble.

But there's nothing I can do about it, and all my fretting just makes me crazier than I already am. So my resolution is to remain calm. And pray. After my students left just now, I did turn on and take a tiny peek, saw the two combatants, heard a sentence from Paul Ryan blaming Obama for something, and turned the TV off. Nope. Not for this sickie.

Managed to hold my Thursday home class tonight, though I was pretty croaky - but these writers are like family, it's always so good to see them and they're pretty forgiving. I'd spent the afternoon falling in and out of sleep in the kitchen, while my sick son fell in and out of sleep in the living room. He came over this morning; I'd asked him to please come and buy me some soup at Daniel. Instead, he began chopping onions and garlic, and he made, over several hours, the most delicious French onion soup I've ever tasted. If anything heals us both, it's that soup.
"I read somewhere that what is most wonderful about cooking is that it's done out of love," I said to him, as we ate. "Cooking is love. I am eating love."

He didn't say anything because he's a guy. But I think he liked that. And then we both went to sleep.

I might just take a tiny peek at Twitter.

Ten minutes later: Okay. It sounds like it's going well for Biden. GO JOE! No, Beth, you do not care about those people any more. Go to bed.

GO JOE!

Chuck Close on Vermeer

Bruce just sent me this from the Guardian - he and I adore Vermeer, but he is a dedicated Vermeer hound and has gone around the world in a quest to see each and every painting. A beautiful tribute below.

Vermeer's The Milkmaid. Photograph: Krause, Johansen. Click to enlarge

Chuck Close on Johannes Vermeer

Ever since I was a student, my favourite artist has been Johannes Vermeer. I understand, or can intuit, how every painting ever made, from the Lascaux caves to today's most cutting-edge work, was painted. Information about a piece's creation – touch, hand, process, technique – is embedded in the paint, like a Hansel and Gretel trail.

Vermeer, however, is the only artist whose paintings I cannot readily deconstruct. Other than the fact that they were all made with a camera-obscura-like contrivance, they remain impenetrable. The paint appears to have been blown on by divine breath. Neither opaque nor translucent, it does not seem to function as a film of pigment, but as light itself.

While most people only notice the subject matter and marvel at the verisimilitude, time spent with a painting like The Milkmaid, painted in the 1650s, is time spent communing with an image so sublime that it transcends its physical reality (mere paint on a panel) and becomes an apparition worthy of creation by the gods. Such sophisticated and remarkable paint handling – all for a plain and ordinary-looking Dutchwoman with sleeves rolled up revealing a farmer's tan. The foodstuffs that surround her are so naturalistic, a passing fly might try to land on them, while the pail and the basket that hang on the wall are, in terms of perspective, perfect.

On the floor rests a foot-warmer which, despite the abundant light flooding through the window, speaks to the unmistakable chill in the air. Chips of plaster are missing from the rough and cruddy surface of the wall, which is much in need of a paint job.

So much information and compressed energy is packed into such a small painting. Inch for inch, The Milkmaid is one of the most remarkable achievements in art.

the flu chronicles

Worse. I don't know how it happened, but rather than better, I am sicker. Perhaps this is what it is to be a teacher and a former actress - the show must go on. I had to teach yesterday afternoon, so I got dressed - very warmly - rode my bike to U of T, had an absolutely wonderful class with eleven fine writers, and rode back, stopping at Daniel and Daniel to buy a large tub of chicken soup, which just may save my life. It felt good to be in the fall sunshine.

Bruce brought take-out Indian food for dinner, delicious though I couldn't eat much. I insisted on making him watch a re-run of "The West Wing" at 8, since he had NEVER SEEN IT - such brilliant TV, could have been written yesterday. And then we watched the previous day's Jon Stewart and Colbert on his computer - Jon interviewed the legendary Pete Townshend of the Who, a wise and witty man in grey cashmere who has just written an autobiography, hard to imagine him smashing guitars - and by then, I was feeling really lousy.

Then followed the coughing night from hell. 2.30 a.m., staggered to the kitchen and made tea with lemon and scoops of honey. Nothing has ever tasted better.

This morning, my voice is so low that on the phone, my mother told me I sound like a gay man. I ache all over and look like ... well, just not so good. This is a first, this flu. There is no mucus in this illness, just aching and a vile dry cough and exhaustion and sore eyes. And lack of appetite, that's the real shocker. I am not hungry. It's so unusual, it's disturbing.

Sorry, this is the most boring post I have ever written. Enough. A decision has been made - our trip to Ottawa Friday has been postponed a week. I will cancel various things, inform various people, and sink with relief back into my Dame aux Camelias pillows.

And now, my Brucie has just departed - on his way back to Vancouver. I am bereft.

Aaah. Dark chocolate. Some remedies never fail.

Sickland

Eli listening to his favourite Michael Jackson mix tape. When he arrived, he was wearing a tie and bluejeans with that nice shirt, gradually discarded, as he was chewing on the tie and impatient with the jeans. He enjoyed our potatoes and carrots, mushed. His first Thanksgiving.

But my son was sick and I was feeling dreadful, and yesterday whatever it is hit me full force. It must be a flu, with aching back, legs, eyes, head and wobbly stomach. I was not hungry! I am never not hungry! Did not drink wine! So I must be really sick. Sam came over again and is here now, the two of us coughing and snorting. The House of Sick. Really gross. Poor Brucie has remained cheerful throughout, and our iPhone 5 seminars have continued.

It's a beautiful day, sun shining, brisk. All I would like to do is take a walk and kick up some fallen leaves. But methinks, not today.

Bruce the newshound says that Obama's poll numbers have dropped, and he and Romney are neck and neck. It does not seem possible. But then, I've said that before, and yet somehow, the most unthinkable things are possible.

And, from another kind of Bullshit Mountain, in the "Jerusalem Post"

Rabbi strikes against iPhone

By JEREMY SHARON

09/14/2012 06:06

Bnei Brak rabbi holds iPhone-smashing ceremony: "A religious person who owns impure device is an abomination, disgusting."

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