Maura Judkis, a Modern Day Hungerkunstler.

Maura Judkis, of the Washington Post

When Ms. Judkis graduated from the University of Southern California in 2011 the world was not just her oyster but her Oysters Rockefeller. Working for the Washington Post as a chronicler of food, culture, and belle arti, her motto was: "Eat, drink, and be merry -- for tomorrow we get to do it all over again!" 

She collected awards for her journalism the way other people collect bottle caps -- effortlessly and constantly. 

But then, in a sudden attempt to better her artistic sensibilities, she began studying the work of Kafka -- and that was her undoing.

She started with his short story "A Hunger Artist." In it, a nameless protagonist explains the art and philosophy behind prolonged fasting. His fasting technique is so well received that he is locked up in a cage and put on display. At first he is treated as a celebrity, but gradually over the years the public loses interest in his long fasts and one day his emaciated body is callously removed from public view and just before he dies he confesses that the reason he went hungry voluntarily was that he could never find any food that he really liked. 

This strange tale struck Ms. Judkis like a thunderbolt, because it made her realize that she, too, had never found any kind of comestible that she really enjoyed. Tokay wine tasted like thin vinegar to her. A crusty baguette, direct from the oven, seemed but a puffed up Saltine cracker. Kyoto beef was indistinguishable from a Slim Jim. And a Grand Marnier souffle was as insubstantial and unfulfilling as a strand of gossamer. 

Her whole existence, her vibrant joie de vivre, was but a farce and a sham. Retiring to her country estate in Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee, Ms. Judkis reexamined her priorities and dietary excesses. She read extensively from the Bible, the Quran, and the Bhagavad Gita. And at last, after several months of inner turmoil and spiritual kerfuffle, she emerged with a new sense of purpose and an artistic maturity that startled her colleagues and amazed her readers. No longer the giddy sybarite, she now writes with a philosophical calm and penetrating insight about deep subjects like eating a burrito from the middle and the vagaries of candy corn that leaves the critics breathless.   

Her one remaining vice is a fondness for White Castle hamburgers washed down with a Big Red creme soda. She donates her entire salary to the Zez Comfrey Music Preservation Society. 

After reading this profile, Maura Judkis emailed me her response, thus:  I love this, Tim! You nailed it. Thank you for the great start to my weekend :)

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New York Times Reporter Held Hostage by Pigeons!

Andy Newman, pigeon hostage

It all started on a mild spring morning last year, when Andy Newman, a reporter for the New York Times, was taking his daily constitutional through Central Park. Skirting a viaduct and gamboling gaily through a gazebo, Mr. Newman was as lighthearted as a jelly donut. But his life, which up until then had been one of unexampled jubilation, was about to take a very dark turn.

As he skipped gaily along the sidewalk he nearly stepped on two miserable-looking pigeons, sprawled in his way. Naturally compassionate, Mr. Newman bent down to shoo the two loitering birds out of his path. But they refused to budge, and one of them, after emitting a loud belch, asked him for a cigarette. 

When he told them he didn't smoke the two birds eyed him narrowly, then collapsed in a heap of dirty feathers, moaning softly.

Fearing they were injured, Mr. Newman scooped up the two birds and swiftly returned home, where he ensconced them in a wooden crate lined with jewelers cotton and provided them with a drip fountain filled with Perrier and a silver ramekin overflowing with a selection of grains such as quinoa and teff. 

The two pigeons, of course, were grifters -- and once they realized how gullible Mr. Newman was, they began to take over his life. First they demanded an indoor birdbath and a supply of patchouli bath bombs. Then they kicked him out of his own bed so they could construct a filthy, lice-ridden nest in it. Soon they demanded a cut of his weekly paycheck for liquor, tobacco, and sex workers off the street. And imagine Mr. Newman's horror when he discovered that while he was at work each day, reporting the news, the two dirty birds were dealing drugs out of his flat! When he threatened to go to the police about their nefarious activities, they pulled Kalashnikovs on him and backed him into the linen closet. 

The neighbors heard the entire ruckus and immediately called police for a SWAT team. They broke down Mr. Newman's door and disarmed the two vicious pigeons, but when they released him from the linen closet he refused to press charges and told the officers to get out. 

Mr. Newman had become the victim of Stockholm Syndrome. 

As of today Mr. Newman still caters to the every whim of those feathered fiends. His social life has disappeared and his work at the Times is suffering -- he only shows up on Ash Wednesday and Dominion Day. Co-workers are seriously considering an intervention, but the last editor to venture into Mr. Newman's home was found hanging upside down from the bow of the Staten Island Ferry two days later. It may be too late to do anything at all. 

Governor Cuomo has denied reports he is considering sending in a unit of the National Guard. But an anonymous source in the Governor's office has told reporters that a drone missile strike has gotten the green light from the Pentagon.

Sue Shellenbarger Says All Mothers are Working Mothers

Sue Shellenbarger writes about the conflict between work and family for the Wall Street Journal

"No one ever started a family by themselves" Sue Shellenbarger is fond of saying. The Windy City kibitzer works for the Wall Street Journal, and for many years has examined the tension between working mothers and working mothers (there's no such thing as a non-working mother, claims Shellenbarger.)  

Her own background as a former atilliator and printer's devil introduced her early on to the challenges of how to balance career demands with domestic responsibilities.

"No one ever got rich by being poor" she advises her readers today. And with good reason; that hard-bought wisdom came from a period in her life when money was so scarce she lived on nothing but salted mulch and honeydew from aphids. She is a firm believer that women in the workplace should be paid MORE than men, because they are not likely to spend any of their salary on dipping Skoal or hoarding bottles of Castrol. Her published insights have led to a precipitous drop in bruxism. 

Her many charities include the chairmanship of Bindlestiffs Anonymous and fundraising to help find a cure for carphology.

"Never look a rocking horse in the mouth" she has said on numerous occasions, meaning that children and child rearing are responsibilities she takes very seriously, along with her professional career. She counsels young mothers to read and annotate the first 35 books of The Baby-Sitters Club series (available from Scholastic.) She also thinks that celery goes good with fish -- but nobody's right all the time.

Her latest book, "The Pampers Conspiracy," is due out in the spring. 

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Penelope Green Loves Her Hygge

Peneolope Green, of the New York Times

Say what you want about the New York Times' Penelope Green -- that she is tall or short, rich or poor, bonded in the bottle or free range -- you cannot deny that she has a certain style, an eclat that carries all before her. Her admirers include politician Bujar Nishani, philologist Kunio Kohori, and British Boxing Champion Mushy Pease. And her detractors are even more auspicious: Australian newspaper editor David Penberthy, who called her reporting style "so factual it becomes authentic " - writer Orhan Pamuk, who labeled her work "as ubiquitous as the summer breeze" - and industrialist Fenton J. Mundy, who made headlines recently by stating "I would rather not comment on Ms. Green until after the Midterm Elections." 

She has worked at the New York Times for the past 28 years, which is nearly a record in these helter skelter days of revolving door employees. The reason she has stayed so long, she explains in her new autobiography "I Won't Stand for a Sit Down Strike!" is that the hygge of the office she works in is so palpable that you can cut it with a bolo. Her comrades-in-ink are an affable bunch who often leave their used swizzle sticks at her desk because they know she likes to build birdhouses with them. Her editors practice the art of benign neglect to such an extent that she hasn't seen one moping about the place in a month of Sundays. And each weekday promptly at noon the management has a cart wheeled around, offering champagne infused syllabub, Esterhazy torte, Charlotte russe, and McVitie's Digestive Biscuits. With gallons of piping hot atole to wash it all down with.

Her hygge is further cultivated by the generous salary and benefits she receives. All Times employees are given a free annual tour of the Spangler Candy Company's NECCO wafer factory in South Boston; plus their health care includes paid leave for flatulence. (Don't you wish you worked there, all you WSJ scribblers?)

When Ms. Green is not gloating over her hygge, she can usually be found polishing her scrimshaw collection or knitting her brows. 

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Anne Kadet's Search for Meaning

Anne Kadet, of the Wall Street Journal

By all accounts Anne Kadet was a precocious child. At the age of eight months she said her first word. It was not "mama" or "dada" or even "goo goo." It was "why?" The answer did not come to her until she reached her true spiritual climacteric. 

As a teenager she backpacked her way through the wilds of Manhattan, asking perfect strangers on the subway or at Katz's Deli "why?"  Most of them either shrugged their shoulders silently or mumbled "I dunno, kid; ask somebody at the New York Post." 

So she did. The receptionist at the Post took just enough time to stop buffing his nails, look her over with barely concealed contempt, and reply curtly "We only answer 'what' questions here -- you'll have to go to the New York Times with your 'why' question."  

Anne quailed in terror. Civilians who ventured through the portals of the Gray Lady were never heard from again. But so great was her determination to find out 'why' that she decided on the stratagem of becoming an accredited journalist who would then worm her way into the New York Times, where she would corner an Editor to ask them her burning question.

It took many long years of hard work and study before the suspicious sentinel at the elegant front door of the Times building reluctantly let her in after she defiantly flashed her credentials at him. (She also showed him her Press Pass . . . )

Once inside she made a bee line for the nearest Editor, clearly identified by his beatific smile and saffron robe, sitting under a Bo tree. 

"Namaste" she whispered to him respectfully, her hands cupped before her face in a traditional namaskar. "Tell me, oh sage of the newsroom, WHY?"

"My child" he kindly replied, "when you find out how, you will then know why." 

Banging her forehead on the floor three times, Ms. Kadet retreated from the Editor, who had begun to levitate prior to achieving Nibbana, and quickly found an empty cubicle where she could begin meditating on this wonderful revelation. 

She is still there today, only venturing out for an occasional cup of yak butter tea and a Dharmic plate of braised tofu. And when pilgrims arrive at her cubicle to ask the age old question of 'why?' she joyfully gives them the ultimate answer:

"Why not?"

(Editor's note: Ms. Kadet's doppelganger, who has no enlightenment whatsoever, is currently employed by the Wall Street Journal.)

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Why Amy Argetsinger, of the Washington Post, Has Never Visited Brainerd Minnesota

Amy Argetsinger, of the Washington Post

Ms. Argetsinger is grateful for her degree from the University of Virginia in Political and Social Thought. It has opened the doors of a great many fine opportunities for her, beginning at the Rock Island Argus back in 1991 and continuing to this very day as Style Editor at the Washington Post. She has worked hard for these plum positions and remains optimistic about her career path, despite the debilitating malady that has shadowed her since childhood.

Like thousands of others across the United States, Ms. Argetsinger suffers from megalophobia. A fear of giants. She has struggled with this challenging condition since her ninth birthday -- when an oversized teddy bear she had been given as a present accidentally toppled over on her while she was alone in her bedroom and kept her pinned down five hours before help arrived. There is no known cure for this disease; its victims must simply soldier on in a world filled with jumbo items that could turn on them at any moment. 

Which is why, when Ms. Argetsinger was assigned to visit Brainerd, Minnesota, early in her journalistic career, to report on the trend in Norwegian Waffle Hats, she suddenly developed a mysterious rash that caused his eyelashes to fall out and kept her in bed for a week. She knew, as did all well-informed journalists at the time, that Brainerd is the home of Paul Bunyan Land, a tawdry amusement park that features a towering statue of the folk tale giant that greets each park visitor by name as they enter. 

The terrifying prospect of facing such a creature caused Ms. Argetsinger's body to break down, giving her a legitimate and blameless reason to avoid the ordeal. 

In the years since then Ms. Argetsinger has redoubled her efforts to become a fully functional and successful journalist. The list of awards on her living room wall attest to her accomplishments in this effort. She is one of the most highly respected writers in the District of Columbia, and her podcast and television appearances have bolstered her reputation nationwide. 

Just don't ever chant "Fee Fi Fo Fum" in her presence. 

Paul Bunyan, Ms. Argetsinger's imaginary nemisis

The Untold Story of Lizette Alvarez, New York Times Journalist

Lizette Alvarez, of the New York Times

The untold story of Lizette Alvarez begins in the Florida Keys (doesn't every good story begin there?)

One day in 1997 Manny Honduras, the local kingpin of illicit bay rum operations, was smoking a leisurely Cohiba in the backyard of his luxurious Key West hacienda when the phone rang. Angling out of his chair with some difficulty (for Manny was fond of cazuela de platano and boniatillo, both very fattening,) he waddled inside to answer it. His wife was in Chilicothe, Ohio, for an Arbor Day workshop, and the maid had gone to visit a healthy relative who had money. He was alone in the house.

"Yes?" he barked impatiently into the phone receiver. He was in a bad mood; he did not like having to shift for himself in the big house. 

When he heard the voice on the other end of the line, his face grew pale. Beads of sweat trickled down his furrowed brow and flabby cheeks. He let his Cohiba go out. 

"Yes, of course. Right away!" he whispered meekly and hung up.

Packing quickly, he chartered a plane to take him to Bismarck, North Dakota, and there we must leave him for the moment.

At the same time, up in Miami, a young Latina reporter was tracking down an anonymous tip about a batch of adulterated bay rum that had caused an outbreak of espinillas among professional jai alai players. Her editor had given her carte blanche to follow the story wherever it took her. Going the limit, the vibrantly attractive reporter took a taxi to Etzel Itzik to consult with Mama Bravo, a voodoo priestess known to have dealings with the corrupt underbelly of the city. And there we must leave them for a few brief paragraphs.

For at the very same instant, halfway across the world in war-torn Zagreb, Croatia, the sinister influence of Vladimir Putin was put to use in the murder case of Maslov Maslovsky, recently poisoned with a dose of Deadly Dapperling. Before he had sunk into a lethal coma, Maslovsky had scribbled on the sidewalk in front of his apartment: "Kako sada, smeda krava?"  Interpol was very interested in this cryptic message about brown cows, until they received word from their Moscow operative that it would be best to let sleeping brown cows lie. And there we really have to interrupt our narrative for just a teensy weensy bit . . . 

Because Lizette Alvarez, a graduate of Northwestern University, at this exact same moment decided to cut out all keratin from her diet. Which led, inevitably, to the Helsinki Accords. 

And now you know . . . the rest of the untold story. 

Paul Harvey, who else?


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Ms. Alvarez replied to her new profile by email, thus:

Ha. Love this. You are so awesome. It’s as if you’ve know me my whole life. Keep writing!

Lizette Alvarez

The New York Times

973-508-5595

Dan Barry, the Wandering Reporter

Dan Barry, of the New York Times

By his own admission, Dan Barry is on permanent Wanderjahr. Beginning in Manchester, Connecticut, then moving to Providence, Rhode Island, and then meandering to New York City in 1995 to work for the New York Times, Mr. Barry's restless feet and disquisitive mind have caused him to embrace the open road with a passion not seen since Marco Polo set off from Venice in quest of the fabled wealth of Cathay.

With nothing but a pen and pad, Mr. Barry trods the obscure rural lanes and glittering cosmopolitan boulevards of America to discover what makes America tick. He has crisscrossed the country on foot so often that his Florsheims have Frequent Flier Miles. Although he will occasionally fly or take the train, and has been known to get behind the wheel of his vintage Citroen from time to time, he prefers to travel by mare's shank -- in order to snuff up the pedestrian pollen of everyday life in Dubuque or Pahrump. Sidling along a sidewalk in Woonsocket, Mr. Barry relies on serendipity to discover things like the last castor oil works in the United States, or how to make good corn cob jelly. His inexhaustible curiosity keeps him constantly on the move, and his editors in New York stamp the ground in a Rumpelstiltskin-like rage at his propensity to be in Cut Bank when he's supposed to be in Alpharetta. But wherever his traveling tootsies take him, you can be sure he will find a story of elemental surprise and slightly acidulous schmaltz to report on.

He has written so many books that he has been the Center Fold in the Nebraska Library Journal a total of five times in the past ten years. 

He always travels with his pet glass snake Oscar, and has never turned down a helping of scrapple in his life.

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Peter Baker, Alias 'Eleftherios of the New York Times'

Eleftherios, of the New York Times

An Oberlin College graduate who worked for many years at the Washington Post before joining the New York Times eleven years ago, Mr. Baker is the proud bearer of 'Eleftherios' as his middle name.

To John Q. Public and Jane Sixpack this middle moniker may mean less than a thread of gossamer briefly seen wafting by in the summer sun, but to Peter Baker himself the name is fraught with portent and consequence.

For it is the first name of Eleftherios Kyriakou Venizelos, a revered figure in the Greek National Liberation Movement who became an elder statesman guiding the modern nation of Greece to prominence among world democracies. He also had a notable beard and mustache that bristled like an aroused porcupine. 

Mr. Baker is quick to tell anyone who asks (which is why no one asks him anymore) that Eleftherios is a derivation of Eleutherios, which has reference to the ancient deities Eros and Dionysus, and means, loosely translated, 'Liberator.' Or, in the Slavic tongue, 'Librarian.'

Mr. Baker has striven all his life to honor the great Greek patriot that he is named after; he dances the traditional kalamatianos at every wedding he attends, and tosses moussaka and tzatziki to his admiring fans wherever he goes. His dry cleaning bill is enormous.

Mr. Baker's hobbies include heavy breathing and woolgathering.

His family motto is:


Τι έχει να κάνει με την τιμή των ψαριών;

Which he prefers to translate as "A Fish in the Hand is Worth Two in the Pond." 


Mr. Baker's email response to this profile is thus:

"Ha, this is hysterical. My father (Eleftherios Peter Baker) will be delighted. Thanks so much for passing it along."

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Potluck

Sunday. November 11. 2018. 4:06 p.m. Provo. Utah.

I hereby make a record of a Potluck held in the Community Room of the Valley Villas Senior Housing Building at 650 West 100 North.

For the past several months I have been bringing soups, salads, hotdishes, and curries to the kitchen adjacent to the Lobby and serving them out to one and all an hour before Sacrament Meeting in the Community Room at 1 p.m.

But two weeks ago I decided to delay serving until after the Relief Society meeting , which ends at 2 p.m. Suddenly the crowd of hungry sisters grew unmanageable, so I told them I quit -- I couldn’t feed twenty at a time. But those Relief Society ladies are tenacious as well as starving. They proposed that we start doing a Potluck each Sunday after Relief Society (and, by implication, I could bring the main course.) Since Sunday afternoons are rather boring for me, I grudgingly acquiesced.

I told the ladies we would have a blessing on the food first, and that in honor of Veteran’s Day we would let all the veterans go first. This didn’t sit well with several hoggish types, who had already filled their paper plates up with all the best goodies. I told them, as politely as possible, that they would have to wait for the blessing and that they would have to let our brave veterans go first. This caused several of them to throw their plates in the trash in a fit of pique. I muttered a Scotch blessing over them as they marched back to their own apartments, where I hope they choked on a stale Ritz cracker.

This Sunday I made a spicy Thai chicken curry -- the coconut sauce was thick with red pepper flakes. I figured the ladies who like to shove their way in line first and take the biggest portions of everything would get an unpleasant surprise when they dug into my fiery stew. But the joke was on me; they gobbled it up with unalloyed relish and didn’t even break a sweat. Doubtful as to its potency, I took a tablespoon of the curry myself and had to rush down the hall to the drinking fountain before I could get the steam to stop issuing from my ears. So I guess those nanny goats will eat just about anything on God’s green earth, as long as it’s free.

I’m happy to say that several of the ladies brought some very nice vittles -- including scalloped potatoes, a succulent coleslaw with sunflower seeds and apple slices in it, and a homemade chocolate cake. The rest of the gang just went over to Fresh Market across the street and bought stale cookies, apples that were about to be thrown out, and cheap boxes of Brand X ice cream bars. One old couple, who don’t choose to wear dentures, gave me a jar of expired mustard and a jar of expired sweet pickle relish in return for letting them into the feast. But then, my Potluck philosophy is that no one gets turned away as long as there’s any food left. Karen Allen, who you kids know from North Dakota, insisted on quizzing each person at the Potluck to find out what they brought, and if they didn’t bring anything she told me she would ask them to leave. Summoning every ounce of patience I possess (which is never very much, and was rapidly diminishing at that moment) I gently suggested that we just let well enough alone this time, as it was a sort of shakedown cruise, and worry about deadheads next Sunday. She agreed to that.

Old people, and especially those here in Provo, do not seem to have much of a sense of taste. They like to graze indiscriminately on fresh and stale alike -- so the mushy apples and stale cookies and gluey ice cream bars all disappeared in due course, right along with the really good food.

So I guess I could make a lasagne from used cardboard next Sunday and it would still get eaten up to the last staple. But I choose the high way -- I am making baked hamburger goulash, with a fresh garden salad on the side. Enough for twenty. Everyone else can bring pork rinds, for all I care.