This evening at 5:30, looking for inspiration to goose the 4th rewrite of chapter #2; “What I learned at UC Davis,” I found myself curious about film director (Mondovino, et.al.) Jonathan Nossiter. I hadn’t heard anything about him for quite a long time. He used to live around the corner and we made a habit of bumping into each other on the street, usually in the morning light.
In particular, I wondered what ever happened to the promised 10-part series of outtakes from his wine documentary?
A quick Google led to a discovery; his series will be shown at MOMA from December 2-10th. (ww.moma.org/exhibitions/film_media/2006/Mondovino.html - 31k)
Didn’t Jonathan hire a publicist? How peculiar. Everyone hires a publicist for this sort of thing, or has Michel Rolland managed to engineer a press blockade, or have I been in a hole writing this book and missed the media frenzy?
I couldn't find any profiles, interviews, or notices. But in the mini-research, I unearthed a piece in Decanter, which ran on September 18th reporting the 10-part series had been picked up in South Africa--of all places. (Since then it had been picked up in France.)
The piece also amused me because it reminded me of the Jonathan posting on erobertparker.com. “In particular Jonathan accused Robert Parker's then partner Pierre-Antoine Rovani of being "a Mussolini apologist, indirectly fascist and anti-semitic, 'monolithic and unscrupulously self-serving' after he voiced a negative opinion.”
I’m not sure I found the inspiration I was looking for but I did have myself a fun little distraction.
On the other hand, many people have been asking me what I will drink on Thanksgiving. This question leaves me confused and distressed, because I don't understand its importance. I can't understand the national obsession with the perfect food and wine pairing for turkey and the trimmings. I've got two rules of thumb; if you only have a case of 1987 La Tache, don't blow it on Thanksgiving. And, don't even think about Nouveau!
It is un-American of me to not care, isn't it? Am I really bad? Am I starting my Scrooge routine too early? But whether the holiday works for me or not, is beside the point. The point is the silliness about wine and food pairing; dealing with the existential question of What To Eat With Turkey seems absurd. Dealing with what to drink, is noble. Hey, if we were eating lots of white truffles, now that's a pairing worthy of an obsession. Yet, if someone is opening up some old burgundy or barolo on Thursday and would like to have me over.....
