Outside Counsel

I'm doing a little food writing for Spree this month, and it got me thinking a bit about writing generally. In an introduction to one of his Consumer Guides Robert Christgau described how his job gradually became more and more like work. In writing his reviews he felt the obligation to be as comprehensive as possible, and over time that meant that he was listening to more and more music, and never having time to go back and listen to any old favorites. I can certainly see how that could become a drag, and it would operate to the detriment of your critical senses as well. Over time it might mean that only things that would appeal would be the things that popped out at you immediately. Driving back and forth to NoHo The Arcade Fire kept appearing on the radio. Listening to them, I understand why they are well-regarded, but I'm not getting it. Chances are that there music requires more concentration than I am giving it, and if I were a music reviewer that would be a constant problem.

I think the same would be true if I wrote about food all the time. The risk of becoming jaded (and hugely fat) makes the job a lot more challenging than I think people realize. In NoHo I ate three really good things: a grass-fed beef hamburger, a plate of barbecued shrimp with grits (mine are better, and Dave's are still the best I've had, but still really good), and a cup of frozen yogurt, made from local, organic milk, with blueberries. I could give you a paragraph on each, but the pressure of having to do that all the time might take a lot of the joy out of the immediate experience. It's made eating pizza a lot more complicated over the past couple of weeks, I'll tell you that.