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Sunday, April 22, 2007

From oysters to Bette Midler, seems natural?


Tomorrow Marcel is leaving, so we're on an oyster craze, the last days. Yesterday we had an amazing dinner at Omakase, a tip from my hairstylist (well, she cut my hair)..10 small courses, as is fashionable in better restaurants these days. And tricks like searing mackerell live at our table work well. Amazing staff, bursting into a sort of yell everytime some party arrived or left. They looked like they still loved their job. And we loved eating there.
Today we made our choice out of 21 varieties of oysters at Joe's. How many different oysters would there be? I can remember being shocked when someone told me there were over 30 different types of strawberries. In the average Dutch supermarket you just find one. Strawberries are strawberries seems to be the Ahold view on things. After eating bags full of at least six different types of strawberries at Edith's organic farm in Belgium, the average strawberry doesn't do much any more for me. Will the same now happen with oysters?
In the meantime I have done a little work to get into the mood again. Next week I will dive into theory, now I have done some work on the clothing styles of the sixties and more for fun than anything else, have read the biography of Bette Midler.
One of the wild freedom acts of the seventies, turned family entertainment in the eighties. Of course Live At Last was her killer-album for me. I can still remember seeing her live show on Dutch television. Must have been 1976. I did not get most of the steamy jokes, but I was an immediate fan. Even though our television set was turned off halfway through (unfortunately parents did try and exert some control over teenage viewings then..), I was wearing three badges with her image the next day at school (badges were all the rage back then). After my older brother visited a friend in America, he brought back the double live album, and I tricked him into donating that to me. Still one of my favorite listening experiences. It is incredible that one person can switch from emotionally moving, tearinducing ballads to sexual innuendo and banal jokes within five minutes.
Must say I also enjoyed her family entertainment movies like Ruthless People and Down And Out in Beverly Hills.. Great fun, though her lifestory has not been all Roses..

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