Burning Bridges Like Matchsticks

My favorite mural in Madison has been painted over. Fortunately, I took pictures prior to the desecration.

This isn't entirely as random as you might think. It was painted on the side of an appliance repair shop. But it's still pretty weird. What Would Jesus Do? Laundry, apparently.

I just finished Michael Perry's book, Population:485, this morning and I've got to say, it's a pretty good read. Perry works hard to capture the historical details and present day feel of New Auburn, but what the book succeeds in doing is illustrating what life is like in one of the thousands of small towns that dot the upper midwest. In fact, it was loaned to me with a explanation that "this is what it's like where I grew up."

One thing that struck me about the book was the difficulty Perry felt fitting in. He's moving back to his hometown after twelve years, now a writer by trade and he feels immensely out of place, like he lacks common ground with his neighbors. It's almost self conscious the way that the book is sprinkled with descriptions of his macho hobbies (hunting, fishing) and every philosphical bit seems to be bracketed by a description of something signifing his "rural authenticity." Sometimes it flows naturally, other times it seems like he's trying too hard.

Still. Perry feels out of place. Remember that he's a heterosexual white man who grew up in this town. He still has family living down the road, knows people from high school, is part of the VFD and likes to hunt and fish. By the standards of anyone outside of the insular world of New Auburn, he's native, both culturally and socially. And he's still not really sure how welcome/integrated into the community he feels. Now imagine you're a Hmong immigrant. Kind of intimidating, huh?

Chai Vang may have been an unhinged guy with a history of anger management problems, but it's not a stretch to see how tensions between "the other" and "from around here" could (will?) lead to similar situations in the future. (And let it not be thought that I'm just talking about Hmong. Anyone who is "the other" (i.e. racial minorities, gays, religious sects outside of the usual Protestant suspects) is viewed with suspicion.)

But don't let the fact that small towns are xenophobic (this just in: puppies are cute!) dissuade you from reading this book. The main thrust of the book is about being an EMT and a firefighter, and that is good stuff, filled with entertaining and moving stories.

Random encounters with wildlife always make a day better. On the way to my garden plot there was a pair of sandhill cranes (whatever, goddamn birds) picking through the tall grass near the cattail marsh. And a log covered with turtles (Chrysemys picta) basking in the sun.

And to cap things off, I found morels (Morchella esculenta) and shaggy manes (Coprinus comatus) when I was tromping around in the woods in the afternoon.

M: So, what have you been up to?

n: Nothing much. Just working a lot.

M: Ha ha ha. Don't lie to me. If you were working, you'd have graduated by now.

It's Monday and the last time I went to bed before 2 am was last Thursday. Graduation is a explosion of excess as everyone releases the tension of finals, celebrates their achievements and prepares for the diaspora by trying to hook up one last time, and damn the consequences. I stand as an observer through all of this, as my own graduation will be a whisper in the winter wind. Still, I woke up this morning with sangria-stained lips. I don't know how much more celebration I can take.

Last night I broke down and bought a bag of littleneck clams from the excrutiatingly self-satisfied organic co-op down the street. They may be snooty, but they've got the best seafood in Madison. The craving had been building for several weeks, sneaking into my idle thoughts, insinuating itself into my meals and generally being a pest. Last night it was satiated, at least temporarily, by a double handful of clams cooked with caramelized shallots and white wine. As the clams opened their little shells, unfolding like new leaves, I thickened the sauce with cream and poured it over fresh linguini.

Biting into each plump, savory clump of visceral mass and foot, I have vivid memories. They're not of seafood shacks on the coast of Massachusetts, or the sweet saltiness of rotting seaweed in Puget Sound, but rather my mother ordering clam chowder in a Friendly's off Rt. 434. She offered me a few bites. It smelled delicious, but as I raised the spoon to my lips, I looked down at the chunk of clam sitting in its little pool of broth and thought back to the diagram that I'd seen in "Seashells of North America" that morning. I could recognize the coiled ball of the intestine.

It was many years before I would eat clams again.

These days I still think about the anatomy of my food before I bite into it, but it only serves to enhance the flavor. I doubt Richard Feynman gave any interviews about how much better his steak tastes knowing about the structure of the myofibrils that make it up. Seymour Benzer, however, might well have.