Friday, November 24, 2006

Mercy, beau coup!

Last night I celebrated Thanksgiving at a wine bar - a departure from my original idea to host 25 people for wild food acrobatics.

Plans change and spheres collide. Four women found themselves instead at le Verre Volé, upending tradition with oysters and foie gras.

It is no longer possible, after Sex and the City, for four women to gather chastely around a table. Perhaps this has always been true. Perhaps I am just getting older. But when a recent business dinner in Dublin included an assignment of the "Samantha" role, I began to sense that the times, in fact, are a-changin'.

Last night's conversation unfurled with the usual revelations about work. The curator from Boston explained her visit (Paris Photo). The reporter from Miami discussed a recent assignment (Castro). The Paris-based writer described her (completely awesome) book deal. And I don't discuss work on this blog.

This reasssurance of professionalism, this "go girl!" performance - this is what smart women do during the first drink. The devolution begins with the second, however, and can wind its way through any number of discursive gutters.

Our particular Thanksgiving path included the following:

1) The reporter's counsel that "sturdiness" is the most important quality in a dining table.
2) The curator's fist-in-the-air manifesto about every-day oral sex.
3) The writer's description of trans-Atlantic difference in circumcision.
4) My illustration of said difference with a wine bottle and baguette end.

In a contemplative moment, I asked my friends what they were thankful for. There was silence, glances cast toward the ceiling, and an immediate return to the sex talk.

I'm not entirely sure, was this a dismissal or a response?

4 comments:

mad muthas said...

hmm - interesting! now that irony is the only acceptable way of expressing oneself, maybe it just feels easier to take refuge in observational humour - even of an apparently self-revalatory kind - than to really expose one's feelings. and maybe satc is partly involved there - though whether it would be causal or consequential, i wouldn't like to hazard.
interesting point, though!

Tin Foiled said...

Err, wasn't Thanksgiving a month ago? I distinctly remember roasting a chicken (I only have a small oven) and making pumpkin pie...

It's a Canadian thing!

I think I speak for us all when I say that we need to hear many more details about the filthy mouths of sophisticated women at wine bars.

Toby Higbie said...

Sounds just slightly better than the annual feral-family viewing of "Trains, Plains, and Automobiles" over here in the USA. All the cursing was over-dubbed with "gee-wizzes" and "gosh-darns." Suitable for the ears of the parents.

Wishing you the best. TH

blueVicar said...

Thanksgiving has to be what it needs to be...celebration is the eye of the beholder...it's all in the story telling!! Glad I found your's...

Meilleurs voeux!