Inordinate Fondnesses

NYC, Beetles, AirBnB Reviews, and a Guitar that Might Save a Forest

How to Rock NYC with a 13-Year-Old

When you have 3 kids spread 10 years apart, there’s always someone who’s too young to ride the ride at Disney, too old to enjoy the kids’ production of Shrek. Which is why I started the tradition of taking my kids to NYC, just the child and me, the summer they turn 13. Why 13? They’re old enough to enjoy almost everything. . . but not yet in high school, so they still like me. I took my last child, the baby, last week. I organize the trip around them—their pleasures and preferences. This meant a lot more snacking and LEGO stores that I’d normally choose, and none of the art museums that I love. But my idea is to gently introduce them to the pleasures of a big city and I work my most important preferences in. I ADORE Broadway and love to introduce them to it, and I pick shows that align with their interests. (I took Nolan to The Outsiders—we bought our tickets BEFORE it won the Tony for Best Musical—and we reread the book together before going—it holds up! The female lead actor is, crazily enough, from our town in MS, which was exciting). I also do a little sneaky education—like teaching them how to read a subway map, how to hail a cab, how to tip a busker (and not get pick-pocketed in Times Square). All this seems simple to someone who grew up in a city but to someone from a small town in MS these lessons aren’t readily available. I like to introduce them to new cuisines or dishes if possible—in Chinatown, we had sauteed pea shoots, soy sauce noodles, flowering chives and roasted duck.

Anyway, I highly recommend it. If you’ve got a preteen you can borrow and would like to know how one might organize, here’s an example:

BA and Nolan’s EPIC NYC ADVENTURE

Thursday July 26

• Arrive LGA, car service to apartment where we were staying in SOHO, Dinner at Altesi (gnocci for Nolan—his fav), walk around neighborhood.

  Friday, July 26

• Walk to the River

• 11:00am-1:30 Greenwich Village Food and cultural walking tour: Mamoun’s Falafel, Bagels on the Square, Molly’s Cupcakes, Taco Mahal, Two Boots, Chip City

• Flatiron LEGO store, 200 5^th Ave.

• (downtime back at apartment)

• Walk around Times Square

• 7pm The Outsiders, Jacob’s Theater, 242 W 45^th  

• Subway back to Soho for gnocci at Café des Amis

Sat. July 27

• Dominique Ansel Bakery for cronuts

• 11:15 Rockefeller Plaza—FAO Schwartz and LEGO Store

• Urban Hawker for bento boxes

• 2pm Hadestown at Walter Kerr Theater

• Times Square: M& M Store, Hershey’s Store

• Ellen’s Stardust Diner

• Central Park with a ice cream cone

Sun. July 28

• Breakfast at Russ and Daughters

• Walk to Economy Candy

• 12:15 Tenement Museum (“After the Famine” tour of the Irish immigrant experience)

• Chinatown--Great NY Noodletown

• downtime

• Leave for airport at 6, Airport Lego Store and last Bento box

The Ruby Throat Hummingbirds Are Swarming My Feeder

First, they filter down in late August from Canada and the northern states to the states bordering the Gulf, and they linger, doubling their weight before their 500-mile, nonstop flight over the Gulf of Mexico to winter in Mexico and Central America.

Because they stay so long in MS, I’ve become a bit hummer obsessed (some of you have heard me speak about my love of hummingbirds before, and how the ruby throat is the spirit animal for my micro-memoirs).

They’re back now, in full force, before their migration, putting me in the mind of a poem I wrote about them. This poem, The Last Hummingbird of Summer, published in Poetry, is a a sneaky little double sonnet—sneaky also because the poem ends up being about—wait, I’m gonna say it out loud—MENOPAUSE! If you read the poem, I hope you like it.

Podcasts Worth Checking Out

Normally I like to recommend books, but for a change I’ll recommended some podcasts that are writing-adjacent.

• I like to listen to artists from other genres discuss process—hearing a painter talk about painting, for example, as it often provides unexpected insights into the writing life. For that reason, and others, I’ve enjoyed Comedian Mike Birbiglia’s podcast Working it Out. In each episode he welcomes a different comedian and together they work out original, untested material. So you can hear Ira Glass, for example, listening to Birbiglia tell a story, and then Glass tells him how he needs to shift the focus of a story onto his parents’ reaction, because that makes the story funnier. And later, you can hear Birbiglia do exactly that in his comedy special. This is a look at process that we rarely get, because Birbiglia is being vulnerable with us, sharing in-process work. He’s married to a poet, btw! Where to start: the June 2023 Elyse Meyers episode.

• The premise of the podcast Dead Eyes is pretty trivial—the actor/comedian Conor Ratliff was cast in a small role in Tom Hanks’ TV series Band of Brothers, but then he was fired when Hanks saw the audition tape and decided Ratliff had “dead eyes.” During the podcast, all these years later, Ratliff purports to investigate why, but in truth the podcast isn’t about his niche grudge—it’s about failure and fate. There are fun guests (Jon Hamm, Amy Mann) and lots of Hollywood and acting insider knowledge (who knew that bit parts often have no more than 6 lines in a movie—because over 6 lines means they’d have to be paid more). Where to start: this one is a serial, so start with episode one.

• SmartLess—Jason Batman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett are just having a good time, and they invite us to listen in as they talk to their friends. Where to start? Give episode 34 with Geroge Clooney a listen. I’d never considered myself a rabid George Clooney fan until I did. He is hysterical when discussing practical jokes he’s played on friends (he’s committed to the bit, that’s for sure) and then inspiring when discussing his involvement in human rights issues.

• I’m a lover not a fighter. But when asked to pick a book about marriage for Book Fight Podcast—”A podcast where writers talk honestly about books, writing, and the literary world”—I knew Harrison Scott Key’s memoir How to Stay Married: the Most Insane Love Story Ever Told would be fun to discuss. You can listen here.

Remember that Scene in Shakespeare in Love?

The one in which Will Shakespeare is riding a boat across a river, having an impassioned conversation with Thomas/Viola, and the boatswain interrupts to ask Will to read his manuscript?

Seems pretty far-fetched until you see a guest who stayed in our house as an AirBnB renter use the comments box to try to woo us to write his story:

At least he gave us 5 stars.

I Solved a Southern Conundrum

Garden & Gun asked me to opine on the following: “Is it ever okay to alter a piece of family heirloom jewelry?” Read my answer here.

The Coolest Art I Saw This Summer

When the Walton family (of Walmart infamy) opened the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, AR in 2011, there were plenty of skeptics, many on the coasts, who thought this museum “in the middle of nowhere” would be a waste of good art. But the museum, designed by architect Moshe Safdie, has exceeded all expectations. If you’re anywhere near, you’ve got to go—it’s free, it’s gorgeous, the grounds are stunning, and it has a great cafe. The exhibit I saw there this June was called Exquisite Creatures. The artist and naturalist Christopher Marley created three-dimensional works comprised of animal, mineral, and plant specimens arranged in precise geometric compositions. Here’s an example of one of his beetle compositions:

Which reminds me of an oft-told story about the biologist JBS Haldane.  Sitting with a group of theologians over dinner he was asked what his studies of the natural world had led him to conclude about God.  After a pause, Haldane replied “He has an inordinate fondness for beetles.”

Marley’s work does seem somehow to evoke the “WOW” response that I go to museums for. That feeling of awe and appreciation for the mystery of human genius does so much to counteract the depression I feel about politics and the wars. It’s the same feeling that my husband and I experienced in January, when we were lucky enough to visit Mallorca and visited the cathedral begun in 1290—here’s the rose window:

A lovely counterpoint to the beetles, both of them equally astonishing.

What I’m Excited About This Fall: MS Book Fest & Montana

If you are in driving distance of the Mississippi Book Festival in Jackson, MS, to be held Sat. Sept. 14, you’d be insane in the brain not to come. I’ll be on stage with Major Jackson, interviewing him about his new and collected poems.

Then, on Sept. 28, I’ll be one of the “& Friends” with “James McMurtry & Friends,” for The Black Ram Guitar Festival, the second iteration of a group of writers and musicians who gathered last fall in Portland, Maine to try to establish the world’s first climate refuge—an old growth forest in the Yaak Valley, MT, called Black Ram, that the Forest Service wants to cut fire lanes through—never mind that the forest is original, some trees over 800 years old, and never burned in a forest fire because it sits on a water table. I wrote about this forest for Orion Magazine. Rick Bass is at the helm, Bill McKibben and Terry Tempest Williams and other writers, lots of musicians involved to play the Black Ram guitar, a guitar made from a storm-downed Engleman Spruce from the Black Ram forest. I love the idea that these environmentalists and activists believe the forest could be saved through poetry and song. Naive? Maybe. But it’s working.

I hope your fall is also bringing you some opportunities to connect with art and artists and sacred places. Thanks for reading!

In Closing, I’ll Remind You

The Bethannigan is free! The Bethannigan doesn’t want your money. The Bethannigan only wants your love. Praise me, pet me, share me, feed me. Take me home and tell your friends. Apparently if you like or comment below, it helps other people find The Bethannigan? So do the thing! Point the way! Thanks, pals!