At the Host’s Expense

I can’t get enough Harold Land.  I was listening to an album of Donald Byrd’s the other day, which I’ve heard many times before and only just realized that the esteemed Los Angeles tenor-man was also on the session for “Ethiopian Knights.”  This set me off to consider his discography and all the albums he appears on.  The Wiki page lists nearly one hundred such sessions.  I’m not familiar with the pianist Dolo Coker, nor bassist Curtis Counce, but typing away today, I’m well accompanied with lots of fresh hard-bop.

It’s very beautiful outside.  And I like Fridays.  I had a call at 1:00AM and another at 5:00AM.  I remembered the one at 8:00AM.  But after that marathon, I could begin to properly enjoy some repose.  Once China settles into the end of its Friday, my New York weekend can begin.  Of course, come Sunday evening, local time, its back to work.  I caught up on old emails.   I caught up on writing and I even remembered that it was Valentine’s Day and brought my wife a hot cup of coffee to the bedroom once I heard her stirring around. 

We’ve decided to finally catch up with the rest of world and see “Parasite.”  We’ve decided to take a walk.  We’ve decided to have lunch and perhaps choose a place for dinner.  I suit up for a stroll, but the walk gets cancelled.  We’ll never make the movie.  I’ll have to eat popcorn without having earned it. 

I haven’t been to our local New Paltz movie theatre.  I’ve been warned its small.  It is but it seems as though regular people run it, rather than a multi-billion-dollar homogenized chain.  At the outset of the film they show what seems to be a rather complete listing of all the businesses in town, who pay for advertising spots.  I read my book.  But again, its’ preferred to the slick previews your bombarded with at the Galleria Mall.

An organism that lives off another organism at the host’s expense.  No epiphyte, the Kim family’s infiltration is only interrupted by the presence of another parasite, Kun-sae, who’d long since been drawing from the Park family teat, down in his basement hideout.  I greatly enjoyed the film but having been told about its profundity by multiple third parties before actually viewing things, much of the surprise had already been defanged.  I knew the rain would build.  I knew the party would be ruined.   I didn’t know my wife would focus her empathy on the Park family, and how terrible it would be to have the growth of such a malignant chancre on an otherwise upstanding family. 

A Valentine’s Day dinner then?  I suggested Lombardi’s in Gardiner.  We could tell by the jam-packed parking lot, before we even stepped in that there wouldn’t be any places to wax romantic.  There weren’t.  We called Garvin’s and they were not able to accommodate us either.  We settled on the Main Course, on Main Street, which has good food, but you must serve yourself.  There were tables.  We took one by the window and ate duck and scallops and it was all rather pleasant.  But no one else appeared to be celebrating the evening as a couple, there in the main dining room.

Friday 02/14/20