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Soho Ethiopian food
Friday, September 7 2001
I've been working for my present employer for so long now that my company email address, which I give to very few people, has found its way onto a number of spam lists. I wasn't used to spam in this email account at first and immediately went to read but then I saw the tell-tale use of ALL CAPS.
Gretchen called me at work today to tell me that the guy from the Paris Review had written her about another batch of poems she'd sent.
I joked that perhaps the poor guy was taking out a restraining order, but no, he's accepting two more of her poems for publication. He even told Gretchen that she was an important "discovery." Wow, this was big news. This means that Gretchen has surpassed poetic "one hit wonder" status and moved on one more exalted. We spent much of the phone conversation comparing her to various rock and roll bands that have come and gone, imagining what Gretchen's story would be on some future VH1, Behind the Poetry special. Already she's the poetic equivalent of something like the rock and roll band Heart, which produced something like three well-known songs before fading into obscurity. But at what point would Gretchen become addicted to drugs and hit rock bottom? The future seemed pregnant with poignant obligations.
The plan tonight wasn't really clear to me but it involved seeing Hedwig and the Angry Inch with Gretchen's friend Denise and then doing dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant in Soho. Gretchen came to work to meet me, and after making several xerox copies of the handwritten snailmail letter from the guy at the Paris Review, we walked all the way to the big multiplex theatre on Union Square Park. I stopped at a little convenience store nearby to get three 22 ounce cans of appropriately-named Colt 45 malt liquor and then we met up with Denise to see the movie. Hedwig and the Angry Inch was even more intense this second time. The final scenes were so overwhelming that I couldn't help myself and my cheeks were soon wet with tears. Just thinking about how overwhelming it was later in the lobby made the tears start up again. It's probably safe to say that my weak emotions were partly the result of the two cans of malt liquor I'd drunk.
We walked from there down into Soho to an Ethiopian restaurant called Ghenet. I thought the food was okay, even if they did serve my chicken with a boiled egg thrown in (a tradition Gretchen didn't warn me about until it was too late). For her part, though, Gretchen found food mediocre. She says its difficult to find good Ethiopian food outside Adams Morgan, Washington DC.
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