Life in General

Anyone Can Open A Restaurant

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It was Restaurant Day in Helsinki, where on the third Saturday of February, May, August, and November, anyone can open a restaurant, anywhere.

Karen Burshtein in On Restaurant Day in Helsinki, Anyone Can Open an Eatery, Anywhere

Better make your plans for one of those four weekends. Everyone, anyone, can open a restaurant with no reviews, no health department inspections, no nothing besides their own initiative.

One couple, from Spain, opened a ceviche stand. A schoolgirl sold muffins. This started in 2011 when”Timo Santala wanted to start a mobile bicycle bar, selling drinks and tapas.” I can get behind this big time. When it started,

In May 2011, they launched their first event. Participants opened restaurants in lingerie shops, on unused railroad tracks, in people’s kitchens and attics, and in bus stops. There was a restaurant for babies. Cooks got creative, serving everything from crayfish soup on their boats to entrees made with grasshoppers. A Michelin-starred chef grilled hamburgers and gave them out for free.

Karen Burshtein in On Restaurant Day in Helsinki, Anyone Can Open an Eatery, Anywhere

This lead to a social movement. “It helps that there have been no known instances of food poisoning stemming from Restaurant Day, according to Elisabeth Rundlöf, a marketing manager for the City of Helsinki.” And while this movement has spread to other countries where authorities can make it difficult, they tent to turn a blind eye on the extremely popular event.

You can read more about it. International events occur in Nicaragua. That’s close enough for us.

Thank God … Later

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There’s a story. About a, well was it a writer? a painter? Whatever, he couldn’t work. At all, just no ideas at all. He’d sit down and … nothing. Finally after his long dry spell he had an idea. Not just any idea. It was a fantastic idea. He could see how it works out all the way. The idea was so fantastic he was overwhelmed. He sunk to his knees to thank God for the inspiration. He said his thanful paryers. He got up to got to work on the idea. And realized he’d forgotton it.

God will wait. Get your idea written down so you won’t forget. God will wait.

I’m not saying I had a fantastic idea. But I did have ideas. Hopefully I’ll have them again.

Herrera Land

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One day reading through Facebook I found an intriguing link from Grace Emmual. It was of a Latin American canon of literature. It was organized with “if you like _____ try _____” As in,

If you have to read: Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Try: I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez

Remezla’s Website

Or

If you have to read: Beowulf
Try: Popol Vuh

Remezla’s Website

Or, the one that got me,

If you have to read: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Try: Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera

Remezla’s Website

There are more, many more, check them out at Remezla’s Website. I will certainly be back for more to read.

Their book Signs Preceding the End of the World begins with a woman walkig down the street.

I’m dead, Makina said to herself when everything lurched: a man with a cane was crossing the street, a dull groan suddenly surged through the asphalt, the man stood still as if waiting for someone to repeat the question and then the earth opened up beneath his feet: it swallowed the man, and with him a car and a dog, all the oxygen around and even the screams of passers-by.

Opening sentence of Signs Preceding the End of the World

Could you stop reading there? I couldn’t. So I continued.

Three cheers for Lisa Dillman! She is the translator of the work and several others. Translators have a difficult craft to practice. Ms. Dillman does so well.

It seems Patti Smith is also a fan of this book and other by Yuri Herrera. She is in “Herrera Land” (where I stole the headline) where you can find Kingdom Cons. Which is, fortunatly, avaailble at my local library.

I’m off to finish this book and hope the hold list for Kingdom Cons is not too long a wait.

On Patti Smith

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If you read, then you must read this article. If you don’t read, or read much, you should skim this article to catch a nugget or two about why reading is great to do.

Feel free to skip the What books are on your nightstand? and What’s the last great book you read? Both questions are fluff. Go on to What’s your favorite book no one else has heard of?, What book should everybody read before the age of 21?, or Has a book ever brought you closer to another person, or come between you? These are not ordinary questions with illuminating answers.

Where Did I Go?

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I looked back at the day and asked, where did I go?
And I remembered, the YouTube videos when one lead to another and another and there were hours.
And I remembered. the mention of a presidential candidate from two people from very different parts of my life. And I started to really look at his policies.
There was a day, watching and reading and not taking notes but I do learn a bit. A bit.

I tend to get interested in something and stay there until I kinda sorta understand it. That’s where I went. But it’s not someplace where I go on a plan. Something grabs my attention and until that curiosity itch is scratched I’m there, looking, reading, lost in the “what about …” questions and answers.

That’s where I go.