The Nix: Nathan Hill

Soooo…. We are well into the new year and I am just finishing the book I was reading when the year ended.  Not because it was hard to read but because I am an old man who only gets in 10-20 pages a night before the eyes just get too… heavy.  Very sad, brain plasticity among so many other things deteriorating.  Ah well.  

So this book was on a lot of short lists for best book of 2016 and it is with good reason:

http://ew.com/gallery/best-books-2016/the-20-best-books-of-2016

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28251002-the-nix

A New York Times 2016 Notable Book

Entertainment Weekly's #1 Book of the Year

A Washington Post 2016 Notable Book

A Slate Top Ten Book

I would concur with the gushing.  It is author Nathan Hill’s first novel and other than winning some prizes for his short stories he had not been on anyone’s radar.  This is a really ambitious first novel, essentially the story of a screwed up (really, really screwed up) mother son relationship and you spend a great deal of time dealing with the results of the dysfunction but more importantly he unravels the causes of it and at the same time pokes at, but does not really explore our current societal, political maelstrom with a blowhard hate speech candidate.

The main backstory in the novel unfolds during the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago  and it is a pretty dark picture.  Walter Cronkite appears as a beleaguered hero of sorts, Hubert Humphrey cannot believe his crowning moment is unfolding amongst violence, pepper spray and the stink of blood and death from the convention which was close to the Chicago Stockyards.  In what I hope was an apocryphal scene the candidate is obsessively showering to get the stink off of him.  There is some pretty good commentary about police, policing and the specter of violence and the manipulation of these images and Alan Ginsberg makes a brief appearance.

But that is not the only story as our main protagonist, the son, a failing writer/college professor is dealing with an entitled co ed when his long estranged mother is arrested for terrorism (throwing a handful of pebbles at the Trumpian candidate).  After that...events begin to unfold with childhood nightmares and romances disclosed and ultimately explained.  In a portion of the novel we delve into the son’s excessive video game immersion as an adult and his on line friend Pwnage who is the mightiest of warriors in ElfQuest.  This gaming series and exploration of the characters relationships in real life and on line is...troubling.

With 50 pages left I was a little frustrated because I could not imagine how he would tie it up successfully but… he does.  He does not put a bow on it but ends it honestly with the characters working towards reconciliation of relationships as they try and first reconcile with themselves.  

I think this is the best modern literary fiction has to offer and it is worth the extended pages.  Read it.  You will see things in the narrative that resonate.

Post Fact

Soooo… I have been laying low since the election.  

What I discovered in the election is that...

MY SILO WALLS ARE VERY THICK AND HIGH AND I THINK MY SILO SITS OUT BY ITSELF IN A FIELD SOMEWHERE.  

To say I was confused by the result is a dramatic understatement.  I pride myself on being well read, well informed and kind of an information junky.  I proudly discussed the fact that I sought out all of the input I could on a day to day basis from what I thought was the “spectrum” of opinion.  This generally included:

1. The Wall Street Journal (Subscribe)

2. The Post Dispatch (Subscribe)

3. NPR (Send them money and listen as default in car)

4. Patriot Radio (Because my brother is Tea Party Conservative and listens to them

I mean that is pretty diverse.  And I listen and read a lot.  I read things on line.  I know the difference between Fake News and a journalistic piece.  I assumed any 6th grader knows that but once again I discovered that I was wrong.

The Drive By Truckers, a southern rock band (being totally unfair to them) came out with a song this year called “What It Means” regarding the current status of the “Black Lives Matter”, “Blue Lives Matter” racial divide that we are all living in post Ferguson.  It is a great song and here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY0qOCUy27Q

But one of the many great lines summarizing our morass is this:

"And we're standing on the precipice
Of prejudice and fear
We trust science just as long
As it tells us what we want to hear
We want our truths all fair and balanced
As long as our notions lie within it
There's no sunlight in our ass'
And our heads are stuck up in it”-DBT

So we are are all just hearing things that confirm our own innate world view and we don't hear anything that disagrees with that. And we all come to the table loaded with opinion. The Internet that was supposed to bring us all together and level the playing field instead is dividing us more than ever in ways we never imagined.

There was nothing in any of my information sources (and I don't want to label them “media” because that has become a prejudicial term) but there was nothing in any of these sources, liberal or conservative that prepared me for the fact that we could elect a man like Donald Trump to be President of the greatest country on earth and perhaps the greatest power in history on that earth. It felt like and it still feels like we gave the car keys to a drunken kid.

I get that the country rejected Hilary (although she won the popular vote she lost the election under the same rules that she thought had gamed the system for her. She was and is, difficult to like, a career politician, weighing every word and evaluating every opportunity to see how it “played”. Nothing got said that was not field tested to make sure it fit one of the demographics needed to cobble together the votes she needed...and she blew it. And she deserved to lose. Don't ever let me be mistaken for a Hilary lover but she was the kind of politician I knew and frankly the kind of politician that our country has historically rewarded. She played the game. I was happy she lost. Just not to this man. What the election said is that there are 48% of voting Americans who reject that and demanded change and it was change at any cost.

I am amazed at how wrong the polls were. Even Five Thirty Eight, my favorite and the other numbers stats guys had it wrong and evidently they had it wrong because no one would admit to a pollster that they were voting for The Donald. How does it feel that we elected a guy that people were embarrassed to acknowledge that they would consider voting for? Not too good.

But ultimately we get the leadership that we deserve. My hope and prayer is that I am wrong and this man who I loathe everything about (and when people ask me what I am basing that on I am basing it on everything he has ever said or done and his entire predatory, self aggrandizing, proud bullying career). I do believe he will bring change. So we pray that God blesses our country and blesses or leaders and for me, I have to expose myself to more and different people. Outside my silo, outside of my work, outside of my church. The fact is that I know more urban African Americans that I do white, rural working poor. Shame on me.

So I am looking for a source for news and for facts. Facts are something we should all be able to agree upon. If you are aware of a source where I might glean these common accepted facts, please advise. If not then I think we all have right to be scared because if there is not place to get facts that we can all agree on then I believe we are all well and truly #$%&*%$$!
Help me out.
Please.

The Egg: A Diner Review

It is a beautiful, limited menu.  I sampled the Carnitas Taco with the Covered Sweet Corn Bread with Fennel Pork Sausage Gravy.  As you know your diner reviewer does not normally favor the “fancy” breakfast but with The Yolkerie and now The Egg I might have to start speaking respectfully of these “chefs” and their “take” on breakfast.  I went on a Saturday morning and they don’t open until 9.  I went early and so took the time to head down to Soulard Market and do a little shopping and then swung back a little before 9 and they were open.

Here is the website: 

http://breakfastcamefirst.com

The place is located in the former location of...I cannot even remember the name and it might be the same owners but it was a taco and bbq place that didn’t particularly impress me.  It is one block southwest of Hodaks on Gravois so for most of us it needs to be a destination breakfast but I want to emphasize...strongly that it is worth it.

It was not too crowded and although it is small it is also wide open and there is a lot of table seating.  The Yolkerie kind of suffers in my mind for it’s lack of comfortable seating.  I took a table and they poured me water and got me some brewed tea and i ordered.  One of the minuses to places like this is that they attract a “foodie” crowd and, well, we hate those people.  It is fine to like good food but I had a guy at the bar and another guy (who apparently has weekend custody of his son) at a table and they conversed loudly for 30 minutes regarding the best this and that all over town.  Exhausting, but still not meal ruining.

My food came up after an amount of time I would call respectful and it was clear that this was extremely high quality at every level.  My taco had succulent carnitas as well as a perfect egg.  I also got some white toast and it was thick cut and fancy but did appear and taste fresh baked (kudos) and they served with real butter (double kudos). It was delicious, juicy and manageable either as a taco or you could knife and fork it and not miss anything.

So that was awesome but… the cornbread covered in sausage gravy was more like a metaphysical experience.  This gravy was stuffed with sausage and flavored by fennel and was dumped in a bowl over a square of some of the sweetest and best cornbread I have ever put in my mouth.  The savory sausage and gravy over that perfect corn bread was vaguely sexual.  Perhaps not even vaguely.  It was...awesome.  More than awesome.  I will go back tomorrow to start my year off right.

 I have sent other people there and have heard very good things about the Corn Bread Benedict and the breakfast Sopes.  I will get to those myself sooner or later but in the meantime I am calling this early as the best breakfast for 2017 and I am calling it on January 2, 2017.  Go yourself, and tell me that I am wrong.  I dare you.