It's a Kansas thing

Cherchez le garbage can

Mesdames et messieurs, je vous présente "Cherchez le garçon" by Taxi Girl.

Save your prayers for this one.

Man, this one's so 1981, it makes my vinyl copy of Gary Numan's "Cars" ache.

My dear French people: This was incredibly cool in 1981, I'll grant you that, but I opine that you do better when you take English and American trends and make them your own. (See Mikado below.)

However you say "just sayin'" in French, that's what I'm saying.

Still, no doubt, I will be humming this lil' ditty the rest of the day.

Nous devons adorer les Français. Maintenant!

We should bow down and worship the French.

Any nation or cultural group that could create the above--"Naufrage en hiver" ("Shipwrecked in Winter"?) by early '80s French pop duo, Mikado--deserves the highest honors our universe can bestow. Something more than a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, a few phrases adapted into/stolen by English, and repeated thumbs-ups to Nicolas Sarkozy for having a hot wife.

More, definitely more.

In my mind, you could not ask for a more perfect blending of electro-pop, vocals that touch upon both ennui and seduction, and Pierre et Gilles style. And if you do want more, well shame on you.

There's no problem in America that can't be solved by putting this song and video on heavy rotation throughout the land. (At least problems of an aesthetic nature.) I see a million billion rednecks' heads exploding every time this tune is played on CMT.

Get 'er done. Now!

A deviation. Or three.

"You can't get what you want . . ."

Finish that lyric with the appropriate line--

a) "But you get what you need"

b) "Until you know what you want"

c) All of the above

If you chose c) all the above, you're incorrect (the answer is technically speaking b) ), but you're actually "more correct" in a greater, more global, psychological-lil'-ol'-me sense.

Short version? I went to see the Iranian film A Separation last night. I heard from yet another old boyfriend (that makes three since Valentine's). Yesterday was the 5th anniversary of my father's death.

Quite a little trifecta of angst, no?

Long version? Well, how much time do you have?

* * *

First, the movie, which was quite good. I don't know that I thought it was Oscar-winner worthy (Oscar-nominated worthy, most definitely), as I think our illustrious Academy of Motion Picture Sales and Special Effects tends to pick the safest Best Foreign Film every year. #MyOwnOpinion as the kids say on the Twitter. But my opinion and general sense of ridiculousness are what you visit here for, n'est-ce pas?

The movie works on a couple of levels--one being that it shows you a very different world from our own, in which women's fixed roles in society and the pervasiveness of religion, repression, and class affect people's judgments and abilities to act on their own, in their own best self-interest, and in the best interest of others.

Oh hahahaha, had you going there, didn't I!? I know, like, right? How is that any different that our own world? It seems to me to be just a matter of degrees and a few chadors added as part of the set design.

Seriously, it does show differences, how life might operate under a system where religion and the state have a significant role in every aspect of life. But it's really not that different. If anything, the issues at hand--the classic who's telling the truth, what is real and what is not--are universal. Everyone has a version of truth in the story, everyone has their prejudices and perceptions that affect their version of the truth. Their guilt, their needs, their shame, their frustrations. Peeling back the layers reveals even more layers and then finally . . .

As of this writing, A Separation has now been showing in Pittsburgh now for at least three weeks, testament to its appeal and universality I would like to think. If you get the chance, do go see it.

* * *

The story begins with a married couple, Nader and Simin, talking to a legal or religious "interrogator" (according to IMDB, that's the role) about a divorce. Simin wants to leave the country to find a better life for herself, her daughter, and her husband, Nader. Nader, on the other hand, feels he cannot leave the country because his father is infirm and needs constant, round-the-clock care and oversight.

Nader's father has Alzheimer's, which just so happens is the same affliction that befell my father and eventually took his life.

Upon realizing that, I almost left the movie theater. It was, after all, the fifth anniversary of my Dad's death, an event that even just a week earlier had me in tears while I was getting dressed for work. I just wasn't sure I could handle watching the movie in a public space. On the one hand, the movie struck too close to my heart; I wasn't sure I could watch the movie without being overcome with grief and emotion. On the other hand, if the movie got Alzheimer's wrong, dramatizing it for cinematic purposes rather than giving it a more reality-based portrayal, I would get angry and spend the time cursing under my breath at the actors on the screen.

As it turns out, Alzheimer's only played a role in the plot, not *the* role, serving as a catalyst for many of the events that take place. And the way the disease was portrayed seemed emotionally and factually accurate as well. Nader struggles with his job, his life, and his father's care-giving. The efforts to provide for his father's well-being strains and disrupts his life and his family. Simin, who in some ways seems heartless for leaving Nader at that moment, merely suffers from frustration and bad-timing; she clearly loves her husband and her father-in-law and is concerned for her family's well-being, taking great steps to assist and protect them.

In desperate need of assistance, Nader (with Simin's help) hires Razieh to provide care-giving to his father. She, like many of us in this situation, barely understands the problems and needs that Nader's father has. She tries to give him instructions that he clearly can't comprehend. Razieh's daughter Somayeh (perhaps the most adorable little child ever seen on screen) mistakenly lets Nader's father escape from the locked apartment and wander into the street. Nader's frustration grows with Razieh, his father's care-giving, and the complex, desperate situation.

I still found myself cursing under my breath at the screen. Well, not so much cursing, as barking out information. "He can't understand that!" "Watch the door!" "You need to speak slowly!" "What's the underlying need?" (this latter command in relation to why Nader's father kept trying to get out in the open and down the street to the news vendor). "Understand that, and he won't try to escape!"

Of course, it's easier to see all this from hindsight. In the middle of it, trust me, it's difficult to see much of anything, at least if you're a close, impatient relation of the person suffering. My own experience with my Dad during Alzheimer's was somewhat limited as I didn't live in the same city, state, or region as he did. I saw him on periodic visits home and witnessed a generally happy man but one whose mental and physical capacities were gradually in decline. I'll spare you the details, but it's important to note that Alzheimer's not only affects memories of people, places, and times; it eventually affects the remembrance of basic functions, such as walking, eating, and swallowing.

Trying not to take the former personally is a serious challenge. You want your father to remember you, to be the man you always knew him to be. The latter underscores the point that there's nothing personal about Alzheimer's. Stuff happens to people you love, and often it's completely out of everyone's control. It's not all about you. It's not all about me either.

* * *

The return of yet another old boyfriend warrants a post all its own. In fact, each and every one that has reappeared in some capacity in my life since February deserves some digital space and time from me. Eventually, eventually.

For now, it's all a bit too new, and I don't want to talk about it too much, at least until I've sorted things out a bit more in my head.

But let's just say it was something of a cosmic, world-shifting moment to hear from the Baron after many, many years. Five I think? No, more than that, maybe six or even seven.  He called me up at work, having tracked me down through the wonder tool that is the internet. On the anniversary of my father's death.

And essentially the message was this: To ask my forgiveness for how things went down between us years ago.

I'm not a push-over these days. After an especially bumpy couple of years, emotionally and professionally, I have learned some hard, overdue lessons about life and about human nature. Since my Dad's death I have also become a somewhat quieter and more private person than before, not sharing myself too easily with others and finding it more difficult to make connections with people. I am a friend, a lover, a colleague, a brother, a son, and I serve in all those roles very well and genuinely. Nevertheless, only a few, only the trustworthy, get in too deep.

But since my Dad's death and other life events, and with the help of a good therapist, I have also somehow become a little lighter in spirit, freer to feel like myself and be that person in public, come hell or high water. I have learned to take life's setbacks and hardships less personally than before. It's not all about me, after all. Sometimes people are just shitty because that's what they do. It doesn't mean that I necessarily did something to bring that out in them and cause them to treat me shabbily. It doesn't even mean that's how they well and truly are. Maybe that's just them at that moment in time. Maybe they're not even being shitty; maybe they're just trying to live their lives, and somehow we end up on the wrong end of their behavior or our perception of their behavior.

Best to just let it go. It's not about you. It's not even about them.

* * *

By no means have I become the Zen master of Pennsylvania. While maybe just maybe I'm expressing some new-found maturity, it doesn't take me long to return to my slightly more paranoid, hyper-sensing side. Nor does it take me long to balance the uncertainty with my lighter, jokier, sillier self.

After seeing A Separation, I couldn't help but compare our situation, the Baron's and mine, to the theme of the movie. What is true? What is truth? Who is telling the truth? Is it possible to have more than one truth in any given tale? Misconceptions, misunderstandings, missed connections, mixed emotions--it's all in there, with an unhealthy dose of religious guilt and social shame tossed in for ill measure.

I think we have the makings of an Iranian movie about our lives. Lots of misinterpretations of meanings, lots of unanswered mysteries, lots of repressed desires. In honor of all that Mahmoud Ahmadinijad has wrought in the lives of people, gay and straight in Iran and elsewhere, let's call it . . . A Deviation.

Curse you, Ahmadinijad. But praise be to "allah" you (groan) in my life, past, present, and future. You make it what it is, and it's pretty damn alright most of the time.

Mutual surrender

The mood du jour is "mutual surrender."

And despite the incredibly godawful '80s hair and style, what a wonderful world it would be, indeed.

The it's-not-OK corral

I spent Thursday afternoon in lockdown in the office building where I work because a man with two semi-automatic handguns woke up that day and decided to go on a killing spree at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic here in Pittsburgh. As the result of his actions, two died (one of them being the shooter himself) and seven others were injured.

I was never in any danger during this event. My office is at least three or four miles from the hospital, although it is a branch of my employer's operations, and, thus, when they went on lockdown in Oakland, so did we. I think everyone in my office felt a little nervous at first, dis-eased by the unknown, the drama, and the repeated and rapid-fire (if you'll pardon the expression) calls and texts received from our employer's post-Virginia Tech warning system. A few of us were inconvenienced because we had appointments at other offices near the hospital, but I think everyone was pretty clear on not needing to venture near the neighborhood after this incident.

So impact on us? Minimal. After a couple of hours of being stuck inside our offices, we relaxed and propped open the card swipe-protected door, so that we could go to the bathroom and the water fountain.

We even resorted to some black humor. One of my colleagues, upon hearing that a police officer had been grazed by a bullet in the shootout, joked, "I can hear it now, 'I shot the sheriff, but I did not kill no deputy.'"

Ha.

"Just make sure you're singing it like Bob Marley and not Eric Clapton," I quipped. "I can't stand the Clapton version of that song."

Double ha. We slay us, don't we?

Except that two people did get slayed, the shooter and a 25-year-old psychiatric nurse named Michael Schaab, who worked with geriatric patients and had just gotten engaged to his girlfriend in February. Apparently, too, this was the second (and last) child of Mr. Schaab's parents, Mary and Harry Schaab, to be murdered. Less than two years ago, their daughter Nancy, 26, was killed during a domestic dispute by her boyfriend.

If you were ever trying to find a pure example of the meaning of the word "tragedy," here's where you would start.

Of course, we didn't know any of this at the time. Nevertheless, that joke's not so funny anymore, is it? If it ever was.

Given the details that we now know, I do feel especially reprehensible for my part in trivializing the afternoon's events. No family should ever have to endure what the Schaabs are going through. My heart goes out to them. The whole city's, the entire nation's should as well.

I'm not some moral puritan who thinks you can't have a laugh, even a bitter pill of one, at someone or something else's expense. Gallows humor is a coping mechanism, pure and simple, something we do as a way to scare away the distress and alleviate the upset from horrific events. For good or for ill, I think we Americans have excelled at this over the last decade or more. Lordy, we've had to, given an up-and-down economy, lingering social ills, threats of domestic terrorism, and the bizarre, incendiary actions of some to impose their visions of law and order upon us. It's laugh or cry most days. The gods bless The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the Colbert  Report. Many of us would have caved ages ago without them.

Moreover, humor, black or otherwise, is just a part of our national character.

As I state to others elsewhere who decry some of the events that take place in our country, these now-almost common workplace shootings a case in point, we're Americans, not Europeans. We're not even Canadians. We made a conscious decision more than 200 years ago to separate ourselves from European rule and to embrace a New World culture.

While our cultural stock is made up of Europeans, it is only partly so. Besides, Europe's a big, diverse place. Our heritage hails from all parts of Europe, not just Britain or Northern or Western Europe. We are Southern European and Eastern European as well, as much Italian and Jewish as we are German, English, and Irish, I would argue. And we are also African, Latino, Asian, and indigenous as well. Heavily so and increasingly so and hooray for that.

I'd argue that we're actually spiritually more akin to Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and the rest of the Americas. After all, we all fought for independence from a "foreign" power. Even English-speaking Canada, our long-lost cousins, whom, on the surface, we resemble in language and custom more than just about anyone else on the planet, seems different from us in its view toward Europe and our approach to "civilization."

Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don't upset us: We have it our way. We're Americans. We're not exceptional, just different.

Maybe we're too rambunctious, too hard-headed, too conservative, too hot-blooded, too quick to react, too non-contemplative, too everything. I try to look at these as less "too muches" and more neutrals: It's who we are, for good, for ill, for better, for worse.

Nonetheless, I must admit that the "toos" still drive me crazy from time to time. Or even often.

* * *

Maybe we're more violent, too--I just don't know. I tend to think we're maybe less different than we might imagine ourselves to be. Europe and Canada have had mass shootings as well. It's just that we also have easier access to firearms and a cultural norm that says they're OK--corral or no corral--to use.

Having said all that--and, more or less, unapologetically so, or at least nonjudgmentally so--at times like these, when yet another shooting occurs in a public space, I have to agree that the Canadians and the Europeans are onto something: Limit access to guns, and you'll have fewer shootings and killings, in public or in private.

It seems incredibly simple, and yet it is an idea that stands no chance of gaining traction at this time. For when a mass shooting happens in Europe or Canada, there always seems to be an examining of the national conscience and an attempt to mend the social fabric. In the U.S., the opposite seems to happen now: The more shootings there are, the less contemplation occurs.

When a mass shooting happens in Europe or Canada, there seems to be a concerted effort to further limit access to firearms. In the U.S., again, we do the opposite: Another shooting just seems to prompt more calls for even fewer restrictions on access to firearms.

After Columbine and then eight years later, Virginia Tech, you'd think we would have gotten the message loud and clear and taken immediate action to curb access, limit gun ownership, or at least the types of guns people are allowed to own. But no. Instead our fearless leaders and class-action lawyers recommended we put in more metal detectors and pursued less restrictive gun laws. Funny, huh?

Even after Thursday's shooting here in Pittsburgh, all the focus seems to be on what the hospital and the university had done or not done to prevent this sort of episode from happening. The very afternoon of the shooting, I heard a colleague say, "See, if we had laws in place that would allow us to carry guns on campus, this problem would have been taken care of in a second." Given the general level of punch-drunkeness that occurred that afternoon, I don't know for sure whether he was joking or not.

Nevertheless, even our state's governor, Tom Corbett, weighed in on whether the institution had done enough to prevent this horrendous event from happening. "Obviously it's very disturbing, and I think we need to review exactly what happened and what happened to the lack of security at that facility," the governor was quoted as saying.

Coincidence that the university and the governor are locked in a heated battle over state funding of higher education with plans to cut several million dollars more of the state's appropriation? Cynical me thinks not so much.

So lots of treating symptoms, but not much dealing with the problem, which to me is essentially this: Why should your right to bear arms supersede my right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Why do I need to worry that I will be killed at work or at the gym or at the mall or sitting in my living room watching TV so that you can have unbridled access to all kinds of weaponry, the vast majority of of it out of proportion to your actual need?

You want to hunt? I don't really get it, but I know it's a cultural thing in Pennsylvania and other places. So fine, go hunt. A simple rifle should do the trick. Level the playing field a bit and keep it moderately powered and low-tech. Give the deer or the elk a chance to kick your ass if you can't shoot straight. Seems fair.

You feel you need protection at home? Hmmm, I'm not sure I get your reasoning, that having a loaded pistol will do the trick, especially when so much can go so wrong in such a scenario. As far as I can tell, nobody uses a pistol to hunt; they use it to threaten or kill. I don't understand why you would want to do this, and I certainly don't support it. Here's a case where some additional paraphernalia, like door and window locks, might just take care of your worries without the need to go all Dirty Harry on someone's personhood.

As you feel so strongly about this point, I can be a little flexible on this point--as long as you keep the firepower low and your actions are aimed at stunning and scaring off, rather than killing anything that moves. Oh, and limit one per customer. And consider yourself forewarned: If you mess this up, the privilege (not the right) goes away. Blam!

Everything else? No. Banned. Completely. No exceptions. You may hate it. (In fact, I'm sure you will.) You may fight it. (In fact, I know you will.) You may offer up your curious interpretations of what the "Founding Fathers" intended in the Second Amendment. And who really knows since none of us was around much in the 1780s, not even our most decrepit citizens--our senior members of Congress and the Supreme Court. My layperson's interpretation of the Second Amendment reads it as though we were simply being allowed to form state militias, National Guards, as needed. I see nothing in there about the right to bear arms in the form of AK-47s or armor-piercing bullets. If you're going to be a "strict constitutionalist," as you so enjoy repeating at loud volume, then you have to always be one, not just when it suits you. Them's the rules.

So bitch all you want, rant, wail, berate, and threaten. I will, nonetheless, prevail. It's over. No more. Stop the shooting and killing. Stop pretending it's about your freedom when it's really about your unchecked irresponsibility and about gunmaker profits. Stop it all now. NOW. I deserve to live in peace, and so do you. If you follow my lead on this, we'll get what I want but we'll also get what you and I both need.

Still not convinced? For added incentive, look at this way: Just think how much we'll piss off the Europeans and Canadians by tuning them out, taking action, getting this right, and then stating that this was our intention all along. We just had to do it in our own way, our time, when we were ready and thought it was the best for us, best for the world at large--but not because we were paying any attention to them.

American exceptionalism, American difference, America our way. Call it what you will. Let's stop shooting one another and get back to living well through our unique ability to annoy the world around us. Just imagine being able to shout, "We're number 1! we're number 1! USA! USA" due to a dramatic drop in gun-related violence and homicides.

It'll kill 'em!

Sprung!

Awwww yeah, got me some crocuses in mah yard, boi!

(Imagine the preceding said in the voice of Flava Flav. You're welcome.)

Twitterpated--but with a purpose

I think anyone who knows me, really really knows me, is aware of the fact that I am spending way too much time on Twitter these day.

Well, perhaps you do know me and don't know this--because, duh, I've been spending so much time on Twitter lately, I haven't exactly kept up my conversations on Facebook, via email, phone, LinkedIn, or in real life.

Alas, my bad. I have become rather hopelessly Twitterpated.

Anyway, I have spent enough time on Twitter to coax in about 100 followers (chiefly thanks to Twitter-friend Hanna), many of whom, I'm led to believe, are actual persons, not merely porn bots--or as I like to call them, Twookers = Twitter hookers. And yes, I'll be registering that trademark in the very near future.

I've also mustered up just over 2,500 tweets. No, we really don't want to think about the per capita ratio of tweets per follower. It's way too depressing for me, and way too annoying for everyone else.

In addition to sending a lot of tweets, I get/follow/receive/insert appropriate nomenclature here a lot of tweets in return. A lot of them are "conscious" tweets. By that I mean there are lots of people and lots of causes. It's nice to see people so motivated--and much more motivated than I often am about issues (or getting my carcass to the gym on a regular basis). I think like most people I alternate between being oblivious and feeling helpless. And sometimes, well, ye olde compassion fatigue sets in.

As I told my Twitter-friend Jen recently, I have enjoyed Twitter for the conversations and the connections, thanks to efforts like the #LocationCuration projects that have sprung up around the globe. I also like a good joke, to be silly, to hear about others' lives, and to share a little of my own. And, hey, I will never turn down a good recipe or the chance to laugh at myself about something absurd I've done or experienced.

But maybe I can do a little more.

Twitter has definitely made me feel more connected to people around the world. I get to chat regularly with people from the U.S., Canada, Ireland, Mexico, the UK, Sweden, Australia, Argentina, New Zealand, Indonesia, India, Russia, and probably a few other locales that are escaping memory at the mo'. And the more we talk, even with our misunderstandings and prejudices getting in the way from time to time (who, me?), the better I feel about living, breathing, and reaching out.

One way to reach out--to make me feel less lost in my own head, stuck in my own inertia, and more involved with the world around me--is to donate time, as well as a little needed money.

* * *

The Charities

So here's the deal. In commemoration of my 2500th tweet, I will make this pledge: I will donate a small amount to a charity I'm familiar with and/or have supported in the past. It won't be much--maybe $75 to $100 US, depending on how this year's tax returns go.

You, in turn, will get to vote on which charity I support. See below for details.

Here are the now six, count 'em six, charities you can choose from--

#1 Direct Relief International - http://www.directrelief.org/ - they focus on providing aid and assistance in both the U.S. and abroad during times of emergencies and disasters, as well as ongoing help with world health issues.

#2 Global Links - http://www.globallinks.org/ - a Pittsburgh-based charity that provides needed/wanted medical supplies to nine developing countries. (Bandages, sutures, syringes, rubber gloves, and the like.) I've helped package supplies here before.

#3 Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank - http://www.pittsburghfoodbank.org/ - even in the world's wealthiest country, food insecurity and hunger are ongoing worries for many. I've helped distribute food for them; it's quite an undertaking and one of the more satisfying experiences I've had since moving to da Burgh five years ago.

#4 Heifer International - http://www.heifer.org/ - makes donations of farm animals to people in the developing world.

#5 The Rappahannock Council Against Sexual Assault - http://www.rcasa.org/ - recommended by Twitter-friend Carol, this organization's mission is to provide education, prevention, and intervention on sexual violence. And after a week or Rush Limbaugh calling Sandra Fluke a slut and a prostitute "for fun," clearly there's a lot of work still to be done here.

#6 The Trevor Project - http://www.thetrevorproject.org/ - helps provide counseling and suicide prevention for Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender-Questioning youth.

* * *

Voting

You can post your votes to this blog or message me your choice (direct or otherwise) via my Twitter handle, @MontagsOnFire. Please submit your votes by 10 am Eastern U.S., Sunday, March 11, 2012--or whenever I get up that morning.

I'll try to have my donation made by the following day. In case of a tie, I'll split the donation in as many ways as is financially and charitably feasible.

So, come on, tell me how to spend some money--with a purpose.

Anggun-in' around

Meet Anggun, Indonesia's biggest pop star (or so I'm told). She's not had much of a profile in the U.S. since the late 1990s, when her English-language album Snow on the Sahara made a dent in the American consciousness.

Nevertheless, she's still out there singing--in Indonesian, English, and French, no less. In fact, her English-language success has come about through her French connection, first having recorded in French and continuing to do French first, English second albums, thanks to a record label headquartered in France.

"In Your Mind" (see above) is from her 2005 Luminescence. (She's released two others since then--2008's Elevation and 2011's Echoes.) I like the sound of this one (sort of Indian, sort of Asian, sort of Middle Eastern, but still pop), as well as the message, which I think could be interpreted in a couple of ways. On the one level there is the simple idea of the lyrics: "You may be my lover, but I am my own person, and this should be no threat to you. So do please get over yourself."

On another . . . is there a subtler message to certain fundamentalist elements in the Islamic world as well? It's the same message in a sense: I am part of you, you are part of me; yet I can still be myself, a woman, which is no threat to you or to our way of life.

I don't want to make too much out of it or cast aspersions on cultures I know precious little about. Indonesia, I believe, is the most populated Muslim country in the world, and one that appears to have a less regimented approach to its culture, religion, and gender roles (when, say, compared to Saudi Arabia). Maybe there is a subtext here addressing more aggressive religious elements . . .

. . . Or maybe not. Maybe I'm just reading into the song too much of my own Islamophobia and Muslim misunderstanding. Instead, Anggun may be talking to the patriarchy in her and other cultures, including very much our own.

Because, truly, whenever I hear this song, I perceive it as a sort of anthem to those who are at risk in abusive, controlling relationships or who are in the path of dating violence. It might be a good song for every girl and every woman to commit to heart and witness to whenever some guy needs to be reminded where he stands and what dominion he has (or doesn't) in their lives.

Or maybe it's just a catchy pop tune. Up to you to decide.

Color me français

It was a mild Saturday in early March, so I had to make my semi-annual pilgrimage to see mon bon ami, Jean-Marc Chatellier, in Millvale, Pennsylvania.

Actually, I don't know Monsieur Jean-Marc at all. Just his baked goods, pastries, and kitchen creations. (He makes a really mean Quiche Lorraine, I must say, in addition to the croissants, Breton cake, and French macarons.) Which in and of itself is enough.

But, oh, when I see him in his bakery on North Avenue, I do want to go up to him, anoint his head with oil, wash his feet, and kiss him full on the mouth, just to show my appreciation for the existence of his bakery in lil' ol' Pittsburgh, USA. I'm sure he would be fine without my showing that kind of appreciation, of course.

Nevertheless, I try to remember to occasionally herald the people and places that make a difference in our world. We all bring enough negativity to our daily situations--oui, moi aussi, as shocking as that may be to you, dear reader--so when something comes along that's praiseworthy, I try not to hold anything back. Thus my sincere offer to, um, French kiss the Pastry-maker of Millvale.

Too much? Agreed, but aesthetic pleasures mean a great deal to me (despite my general aversion to cleaning my bathroom and kitchen with anything approaching regularity). Having a sweet spot in an aging, Appalachian milltown, one that produces pastries with panache, means a lot to me and to others residing here.  On purpose or by happenstance.

Alors, vive la pâtisserie! Long may it wave delicious and colorful fumes across the Allegheny and into the cold, gray heart of Steeltown.