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Brit comedian Eddie Izzard does a bit about a school guidance counselor. “Aim lower, you’re British,” he advises, over and over. The student’s aspirations are gradually reduced to the comically macabre performance art of “putting babies on spikes.” If you’ve seen it (it’s in Dress to Kill), you’re smiling right now. If you’ve seen other Eddie Izzard routines, you believe me that it’s funny. If you’ve never seen Mr. Izzard perform, you are wondering how this could possibly be funny. Take my word for it, or watch a sample (contains profanity).
I noticed a similar lack of ambition, or perceived lack, in the Hollywood adaptation of Nick Hornby’s book High Fidelity. The movie changed the location from London to Chicago but didn’t much change the story, except for the ending. [Spoiler alert] At the end of the book, Rob finds happiness as a club DJ, the only thing he ever really loved doing – and, of course, gets the girl. In the movie, Rob becomes a record producer with a hit single – and, of course, gets the girl. It bothers me that the book’s ending was not seen as “happy” enough for the movie (This is completely my own interpretation of the change, BTW. It may not be why it was done at all.) And it isn’t just the difference between books and film. Even British films tend to be smaller, more personal, just ask Eddie (more profanity).
I find it interesting that in America, finding joy in your passion isn’t enough for a happy ending. You need fame and fortune, acknowledgment from the world at large. The Brits aren’t any less ambitious – they used to rule the known world, that’s pretty ambitious – they just have a more liberal definition of success. You don’t have to be rich, or rule the world, or the record industry, to be considered successful and happy. You just have to pursue your dream. Perhaps after the U.S. has conquered the world, we’ll be content with smaller successes, too. Oh, wait, we won’t be doing that – we elected the other guy.
But this does seem like an awful lot of pressure to put on schoolchildren. Since only the tiniest percentage of people achieve the sort of success seen in American movies, since our culture venerates a type of happy ending few can expect, since we clearly should not be satisfied with ordinary lives, we all are doomed to disappointment and a chronic sense of inadequacy. As a child, I was told I would grow up to do great things. What are these things, I wondered, and if I don’t do them, will I be a failure?
Kids today do have one outlet, one sure way to achieve real American success – reality television. You can be famous just by being foolish in front of millions of people. You may be one of the few who get rich, so toss your hat in ring and start behaving badly. If you happen to be rich already, you have a leg up on the rest of us. In just a few weeks you could become a recognizable face, a popular personality, a villain people love to hate. You could have the caché of Dr. No, Lady Diana or Michael Vick by next Tuesday.
This, it would seem, is where our rabid ambition has led us. There are moments when I am proud to be American, glad that the accident of my birth landed me here. President Obama’s election was one of those moments. Watching TMZ, was not.
According to the World Database of Happiness, we in the U.S. are currently ranked 20th in the world for average happiness level. We drop to 68 when they take into consideration the disparity in happiness levels among our population. I wonder if we’d be happier as a people if we could find a new way to define success.
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What happened to Day Six? you might ask… it happened, but I missed it. Yes, for the first time in my life, I missed a shift. I was mortified. The manager said, “It happens.” Really? Not to me. And no one called, so I didn’t even know I’d missed the shift until two days later. It seems that sometimes schedules are changed at the last minute. Now I know.
So Day Seven was a Saturday – the last Saturday before Christmas, to be precise, and the URL was hopping. I raced up and down the stairs of hell a dozen times an hour, maybe more. Most people were very nice, and some were even patient. I tried on sneakers for a man shopping for his wife – assessing the arch support. We went with the black ones. I found snow boot stand-ins for a woman who had recently had surgery on her foot. It needed to be soft and unzip, unlace or unbuckle all the way down, so she could get her swollen foot safely inside. The answer? Mukluks! I don’t think I realized these were an actual brand of shoes until I started this gig.
For my much needed and well-deserved break, I made a bee-line for the mall Santa. Not to sit in his lap and rattle off my list – just to watch. He is one good looking Santa, even with the coccyx cushion. I don’t think the facial hair is real (I wasn’t close enough to tell), but it is very good. And he has the jolly twinkle down to a science.
Most impressive, perhaps, is his sincerity. He listens with earnest attention to each and every child. And some of those kids have a lot to say. One girl of about nine stood before him, weight shifted to her right, in serious discussion for nearly five minutes. Santa was rapt the entire time, focused and in character. There was not one ironic glance. No hint of levity. Santa is listening, and he cares. That is a skill.
I returned to the URL and to hell refreshed and restored. Ready to charge up and down the stairs for a few hours more….
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Bacon wrapped matzoh balls with horseradish cream; Sweet potato fritters with fried sage; Cucumber salad with toasted garbanzo beans, chili threads and a crispy sesame leaf; Chicken sandwich on homemade rye with pickled turnips; Sticky pudding with sage and brown sugar ice cream.
It is not a pretty neighborhood. We walked down hobo alley – where there actually were men on the sidewalk playing dice for money (I thought that only happened in the movies!) – to get there. The Alexandria Hotel use to be a glittering home-away-from-home for the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Humphrey Bogart, Mae West, Rudolph Valentino, Clark Gable, Greta Garbo, Winston Churchill and several U.S. Presidents, including Taft, Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt. Now it is home to low-income residences made up of “Micro-Lofts®,” complete with community spaces and regular visits from social services. And The Gorbals.
To say that this is an unexpected location for a foodie paradise is a gross understatement.
The restaurant isn’t fancy. There is little to distract from the food – I’d describe it as Minimalist Rustic Industrial. Rough-hewn tables, exposed pipes and ductwork and an open kitchen with counter seating. The lunch menu is on a chalkboard over the tiny bar. If there is anything else on the walls, I didn’t notice. The only decoration I saw are the leaded glass windows that look out onto the lobby – I assume they are original to the building.
It was a bit surreal to see Ilan (Top Chef Season Two winner) bustling about in the kitchen. I went over to thank him for the beautiful meal, and he was gracious and warm. We talked about the food – he was curious to know what we thought of it. He really seems to be treating the restaurant as a laboratory, trying things out and modifying as he goes. It was the first day for the Sweet Potato Fritters, for example. They are absolutely delicious – crispy and caramelized on the outside, rich and creamy inside – and the unexpected addition of the sage leaves is the perfect foil for the sweetness. There was an issue with structural integrity, however. With no coating on the outside, they didn’t really hold together the way you’d expect something called a fritter would. Ilan is working on it, and in this workshop of a restaurant that seems just fine.
It’s a tiny operation. Well, maybe there’s a larger staff at dinner, but when we were there, there was Ilan, a sous chef and one server. Far from seeming neglected, the spare staff added to the homey sense of the place – almost like the chef is cooking for you in his home. I have great respect for a man who takes his prize money and spends it so carefully (the rent at the Alexandria must be cheap), and keeps the focus where it belongs – the food. I am enchanted by The Gorbals and its unassuming proprietor. I hope to go back soon to sample more of his outstanding food.
http://www.thegorbalsla.com/
