On Being Cliché

Watching New York, I Love You, I observed myself labeling some story lines as overused, trite-- New Yorkers in cabs, New Yorkers obsessed with sex, New Yorkers.

Cliché is possibly the most popular word in creative writing workshops, and the most useless. When somebody writes about a meet-cute, or a suicide, or a teen pregnancy -- how ridiculous, how contrived, make these people seem real.

Or I've heard news stories being turned down by editors because who wants to read about another kid who triumphed over the odds of the ghetto, or an immigrant adapting to a cold America?

I even hear of people being called cliché. Because they are Indians who want to be doctors, black guys who want to be ball players, poets who want to be...poets.

But then a short story lands in my hands. And it is simple, and it is a love story, and the girl is emotional and the guy distant, and I secretly breathe relief that I can put down my pen and analyzing and just read.

Or I find an article tucked in the folds of The Washington Post, and it's about an athlete who can't see, and I'll cry, right there on the metro, in the morning, when everybody is machine-like and giving annoyed glances to anyone speaking.

The idea that every story -- on paper, in film, in paint, set to music -- should spontaneously appear and be unlike anything before, is twisted. If we can Reduce Reuse Recycle our trash, we can definitely be inspired by the artists before us.

If Annie Proulx had been scared to add to the stack of love stories, we wouldn't have "Brokeback Mountain" (in Close Range), and if Bob Dylan really minded, we wouldn't have ten versions of "All Along the Watchtower".

By the time an idea travels through one person's cauliflower maze of a brain, it will never be the same as when it entered. So here is my vote for free reign of your art -- and as many Romeo and Juliet's as you can possibly imagine.

Slooowww Fooood

My roommates and I were living steps from Santa Croce in Florence, Italy, when we saw a circle of red and white tents pop up in the piazza. Our excitement peaked when we realized the tents housed samples of the freshest mozzarella, warm bread and pastries.

The big sign advertising Slow Food was quickly passed by -- I didn't know at the time that this was a movement greater than a few free bites. I figured it referred to the Italian way of waiting hours for meals to arrive at your table, and even more hours spent enjoying each sip of Chianti and bit of tagliatelli. Even my cooking teacher in Italy said the reason the population was so healthy was because they ate good food, real food.

Nowadays, it scares the heck out of me when people haven't heard about Slow Food -- a non-profit concept that counters fast, tasteless, traditionless morsels that we've gotten so used to. Instead, over 100,000 people and 130 countries are advocating the return of the responsible and delicious palate.

And while the Slow Food movement speaks to all of my ideals and values and economic views, it speaks even more to my stomach. That mozzarella was the best I've ever had, and the thought of eating the shredded kind in a Sargento ziploc bag is not even an option. What I like about Slow Food is that instead of hitting people over the head with guilt, it plays up to our simplest fantasy.

So eat and cook on, friends. But do it slowly.