Thursday, January 26, 2006

Honey Don't

Like an exquisite marble statue, Corn Chips & Pie is best defined by what it is not. Despite my general mopery and fascination with the San Francisco 49ers, there are many varieties of loss about which I will not write. For your edification, I list several below.

I will not write elegies to my childhood in a former aristocracy, a childhood characterized by wet nurses and afternoon tea on silver salvers, by French lessons and amateur wrestling, by philatelism and sexual initiations from blushing maids. I will not discuss the way the light fell upon our manicured hedges in the last days of European affectation in my country. I will not discuss those easy humid summers characterized by the illusion of inevitability. I will not discuss our midnight flight, the last goodbyes to my beloved Palomino, the stashing of silverware in burlap sacks, the way my translation of Thucydides (a gift from a Bulgarian countess) consoled me during those first dark days in exile. No talkie talk about the stupid brutality of the new regime with its disingenuous appeal to the folk history of my people, the peasants in unconsciously parodic arabesques, the futuristic fonts, the show trials.

I will not discuss the Golden State Warriors.

I will not speak of the days of paper millionaires, of renovated Victorians on Hayes St. and poor business models. I will not use the word "heady" with 75% irony. I will not speak of scooters at work, of believing that we really could revolutionize the way we blanked, of the tragic return to investment banking.

I will not mention the loss of control by the subway operator when he spoke in an angry crescendo, "Please allow everyone to completely leave the train before boarding," ending in an actually deranged shriek, despite the fact that the cars were nearly empty. I will not mention this unless I can find a labored way to insert it into a themed post.