Month / June 2007

by Edward Champion

Another Endorsement for City Jerk

As I’ve begun to settle into my delightful new neighborhood, I’ve become addicted to the PLG-based blog Across the Park. Some weeks ago, I conducted an elaborate independent canvassing campaign along Flatbush Avenue to determine the lay of the land and apply my own personal Google Maps “street view” to my temporal lobe for later processing. (I apologize if such terminology is perceived as ostentatious, but I can only report the way that my twisted little brain operates. If it’s any consolation, the sickness has caused much of the machinery in my noggin to operate at half speed.)

During the course of this prodigious walk, I espied the fantastically named City Jerk, which seemed rather fitting in light of a specific type of individual I have observed in Manhattan with troubling frequency. The establishment specializes, as one can easily aver, in jerk chicken.

Now I’m a fan of jerk, but the difficulty in stepping into any random neighborhood restaurant is that there are approximately 300 other restaurants also doing business with this Jamaican delight. I had thought that the prodigious number of taquerias in the Mission District was impressive and perhaps nonpareil in its near rhapsodical dissemination. Until I encountered Brooklyn’s bountiful jerk restaurants. The jerk restaurants may very well stop rapacious landlords from gutting the boroughs and replacing them with high rises and jacking up property values with little concern for everyday folks. (Accordingly, I must don a skirt and a pair of pom-poms and shout, “GO JERK RESTAURANTS! GO! GIVE ME A J…,” inter alia. Your tips on apposite eye liner for these ostensibly Marxist purposes are, of course, quite welcome.)

However, I have also recently discovered — almost entirely by accident — that chicken has proven strangely beneficial to the recovery of my voice. Shortly after I have eaten chicken, I have been shocked to discover some of my voice’s affable qualities returning. Now whether this has occurred because of the steam that flows from the meat as one delicately peels back the skin, causing a pleasant aroma and visible mist to drift up one’s nasal cavity, or it’s the chicken’s protein and grandma’s panacea qualities which permit it to form a dominant allele in that trusty homeopathic formula that was, according to my unreliable notes, devised by Mendel (I refer, of course, to “chicken soup”), I cannot say. I am not a medical expert. But I do observe what works.

Which is to say that chicken was very much in the cards.

Now since Across the Park gave the thumbs up to City Jerk a few weeks ago, I decided to investigate it myself. The proprietor was exceedingly kind, helping to acquaint your yokel correspondent with the provincial culinary procedures, and took great care to provide and recommend very specific amounts of rice and gravy. For a mere seven dollars, I walked out of City Jerk with a remarkably tasty congeries of delicate chicken, sauce that was very precise in its spiciness (not too overpowering but resonant enough in taste and texture to more than warrant its application), perfectly cooked plantains (soft and not overcooked), and some vegetables. We’re talking good chicken with the fixings.

I must disagree, however, with Across the Park’s view that the jerk chicken in question is better intact. Because the aforementioned proprietor was thankfully not inspired by the comfort food mentality that has proven remarkably resilient six years after September 11. Thus, she did not chop the chicken to unsuitable particulates. She clearly understood that, rather than having oblong bits of chicken breast to tear up awkwardly and mix with the various sides, it needed to be chopped ever so slightly, so as to be better disseminated across the plate and mixed up among the rice.

All this is to say that City Jerk is certainly worth your time, particularly if you’re in the latter stages of laryngitis and you find yourself in my hood. It’s located at 591 Flatbush Avenue.

by Edward Champion

Mini-Roundup

  • Is Michael Chabon the first author to credit his writing software in the acknowledgments section? I’d like to thank WordPress and Firefox for permitting me to write this sentence. I’m absolutely positive that there was no other way I could have blogged in quite the same way or quite the same circumstances, had it not been for these two stunning programs. If someone gets me drunk enough this weekend, I will be sure to tattoo that silly Firefox logo into my upper arm. After all, I pride myself on my individualism. And if you want a link to Chabon’s Google Calendar, here you go.
  • What is the Nigerian literary scene like after Abiola Irele’s infamous statement?
  • Dan Green examines the Small Beer anthology Interfictions.
  • Rebecca Mead on Obama’s poetry.
  • Is Annie Dillard done writing? (via Orthofer)
by Edward Champion

Do Not Under ANY Circumstances Order from Optimum/Cablevision

To: Doug ________
From: Edward Champion
Re: Lies, Incompetence & Rudeness

Doug:

Never in my history of dealing with telecommunications companies have I lost more man hours, borne such a burden for your company’s failure to communicate and organize action among its remarkably Kafkaesque branches, and experienced more outright incompetence.

Let us review the history: I ordered your Triple Play package last month. I was told that I would be given a static IP. It was under this specific condition that I ordered your service. When the technician arrived on May 30, he was hostile and threatened to leave when he saw that I did not have a television. The cable service was more or less a fringe benefit that I could do without. But that didn’t seem to matter to this technician. I had apparently committed an installation solecism. I then had to persuade him to install the phone and broadband service — in part, by calling Cablevision while he was here. Your technician bitched and moaned the entire time, particularly since the super wasn’t available in seconds to open up the basement.

He installed the service, but there was no static IP. There were at least four conversations with Optimum I had on the phone. Until I finally got in touch with you. You represented to me that through a work transfer order and through switching my service from residential to business, I would be able to obtain my static IP and keep my phone number. But that this would take two and a half weeks. I reluctantly set the appointment for the morning of June 25, 2007, where the cosmos would be aligned and all would be well.

I anticipated a technician to arrive this morning to make the change. The man, George, showed up at 5PM with a work order directing him to move my line from the fifth floor to the ground floor. After wasting twenty minutes with his dispatcher on his cell phone, he then left — without installing the static IP. When I objected, he told me, “Don’t look at me.” Well, who else should I look at? The Virgin Mary? The nearest Mister Softee truck? This man was a representative of your company. This technician then told me that I would have to call your sales department to arrange for another appointment.

I am currently suffering from laryngitis, but I called your sales department, only to strain my voice considerably in describing your screwup to three different people. The last one claimed that he could help me, only to tell me that it was “impossible” to move my number, to the new business account. This was not, of course, what you told me. Before I could describe everything that had been set down for the record, he then put me on hold and, since I was unable to talk on the phone any further, I hung up.

Let us review the email that you sent on June 8, 2007 — two and a half weeks ago:

Hello Mr Champion,

Just a correction for your reference. The new account number will actually be XX-XXXXXX-X not XX-XXXXXX-X

Sorry for the confusion.

Thanks,

Doug __________ previously wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
This is just to confirm your move transfer request for XX XXXXX St #XX 11225 to attempt to move the phone # XXX XXX XXXX from residential acct # XXXX-XXXXXX-X to dual Commerical acct # XX-XXXXXX-X. We are sending out this request as an accomodation to you as our customer to correct the type of cablevsion acct your serivces are on , which should allow you to order Static Ip in the future. Install will be reduced to $46.95

Thank you for your patience

* * *

Because your company has completely failed to solve this problem, and because your company has lied to me repeatedly, beginning with the false promise that I would have Internet service with a static IP (which again I have been without for almost a month and which has greatly inconvenienced me), and because your company has talked to me on the phone as if I was the one who screwed up, not YOUR company, I have no choice but to pursue other broadband options. At this point, I would not trust your company to perform basic arithmetic, let alone possess the decency to help an old lady cross the street. (Basic spelling and grammar likewise seems to have failed you.)

Since I am entitled to a 30 days money back guarantee, I wish to disconnect my service, effective June 29, 2007. I will return my equipment to your New Jersey address and be sure to postmark it for that date. I demand the immediate refund of the $100 that I initially paid you.

I assume, based on this history, that your company will likewise fail on this front. So here’s the deal, Doug. If I do not receive my refund within 30 days of June 29, 2007, I will have no choice but to pursue a small claims action. I trust that we can resolve this dispute amicably.

— Edward Champion

[6/28 UPDATE: Word apparently has made the rounds of my Cablevision horror story. This morning, I discovered that my service had been cut off without warning. This evening, a gentleman by the name of Bob Weisman, who claimed to be the head of the Brooklyn branch of Cablevision, called me, wanting to see if there was anything he could do to keep me as a customer and noting that he had “seen my writing.” I talked with Mr. Weisman for about fifteen minutes, pointing out that I had already taken steps with a new provider who had communicated with me at all stages of the installation process. But I did go through the history of events with him. I don’t know if this will have any effect upon the way that Cablevision treats its customers. But Weisman’s gesture is a start. I’m only sorry that it took a public callout to get Cablevision to listen to its customers.]

by Edward Champion

Update on San Diego Union Tribune

Arthur Salm informs me that yesterday’s Books section was indeed the last one. The books coverage will now be “two pages inside Sunday Arts, plus daily reviews once or twice a week inside the Currents section.” Salm also indicates that a Books website will be launching on July 1.

John Freeman offers suggestions on what can be done about this. Meanwhile, Ron Hogan is more skeptical, noting, “Might I humbly suggest that preserving the legacy of serious literary criticism in American letters, if that’s what the ‘battle for the book review’ crowd is actually doing, demands a slightly different approach than the one used to ensure a second season of Jericho?”

by Edward Champion

Roundup

  • Rumors, put forth by San Diego literary agent Sandra Dijkstra, are now making the rounds that the San Diego Union-Tribune books section is dead. I have no wish to perpetuate a false rumor and I plan to make several calls tomorrow to confirm if this is indeed the case. (In the meantime, an email has been sent to Books Editor Arthur Salm to determine information.) But if this is true, this is very sad news, as Salm ran one of the more underrated book sections in the country. (Don’t believe me? Check out Salm’s footnote-laced review of Consider the Lobster.)
  • Marilyn Robinson on Annie Dillard.
  • Joseph Campana offers one of the best takes on the J.T. Leroy fraud ruling, pointing out that “[t]he problem was the exploitation of addiction and abuse narratives to feed a national hunger we assiduously excuse or deny.” I too am perturbed that such a base capitalization upon the public’s appetite to commiserate with the scarred horrors of someone ostensibly using fiction as a coping mechanism would outweigh the possibilities of infinitely more interesting author hoaxes and identity shenanigans. If anything, Laura Albert should pay for cheapening the potential of more talented authors to tinker with what is real and what is not.
  • Michael Winter is turning to Facebook to unveil his novel. There, he will find many friends who will claim passing acquaintance with him as an excuse to harangue him with hastily composed messages. Or he will find a way to get laid.
  • Pierre Jourde is in trouble. Five farmers have accused the French novelist of revealing family secrets in a “tell-all novel.” But one wonders why these farmers didn’t just keep their traps shut. After all, with the “novel” label attached, Jourde’s work is “fiction.” Was the book miscategorized in the nonfiction section? Personally, I’m hoping for more “tell-all novels,” if only because resulting conflicts along these lines may encourage more baroque French novels deconstructed by literary scholars instead of barristers.
  • Lev Grossman offers this bold lede: “Writing about rich white people is no way to make it as a novelist anymore.” On the contrary, Mr. Grossman. Never underestimate the parochial reading tendencies of those determined to read solely within their own niches. Particularly the rich white people who inhabit certain areas of New York. After all, if they view my own safe neighborhood as dangerous, then what’s to suggest that they won’t apply the same ridiculous lack of logic to their reading choices?