Gravy/Oscar post-mortem

So. Here's where the gravy whose making I chronicled on Friday ended up, mostly. Turned out pretty well all told. (I did not take the picture; an appreciative guest did.)

What happened was, a couple of friends of My Lovely Wife and mine are talking about a move to the West Coast and Claire thought it would be nice to have them and another couple over for dinner before they flew the coop. So Claire offered a few potential dates and the consensus acceptances were for March 2. Once that was established we realized that March 2 was the night of the Oscars. Ooops! Our friends like movies but they're not big awards mavens so we weren't gonna suddenly morph the event into an Oscar party. 

Anyway, missing the Oscars was not without precedent: last year we didn't see the Oscars either, because we were vacationing in Iceland. The ceremonies were taking place the night before we were to fly home, I think. Because I write, professionally even, about movies and, to a lesser extent, the industry that produces them, watching the Oscars isn't something I frown upon, and in past years I've had fun (I think) watching and live-tweeting and all that. But, you know, I'm not DRIVEN to watch the Oscars. On our last night in Rekjavik I wondered idly if there wasn't some all-night bar or something where Icelanders were watching the Oscars—maybe that Big Lebowski-themed bar on the main drag?—with the five-hour time difference and all...and after a desultory exploration of my options, I just decided to sleep. 

Last night's dinner was awfully pleasant. I was particularly happy with the way I'd smoothed out the gravy, and the lasagna itself was as close to perfect as I've gotten it—moist but not wet, held together really well, and was super-tasty. I reiterated to my guests how my lasagna-baking is related to the bell-casting episode that ends Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev, and that went over well. Eventually the conversation got around to music, and one of our guests asked another what he made of Bob Dylan's Chrysler commercial. After the does-he-really-need-the-money question was batted around a bit, I attempted to wax philosophical. I shrugged and said, "Dylan's in show business. Always has been. Show business people do commercials." To say that show business and art-making aren't mutually exclusive activities/endeavors is a huge understatement, and although it's an occupational hazard that one's show-business activities could have a deleterious effect on one's art, I'm not one to think that Dylan's Chrysler commercial destroys or even substantially recontextualizes "My Back Pages" or "Masters of War."

So anyway, we missed the first couple of hours of the ceremony and once we tuned in I thought, I'm not gonna join the Twitter commentators, because why start in the middle. I know that I've gone through patches during which I've come off like The Angriest Man and/or The Biggest Asshole on Twitter, but I think I've straightened out my act over the past year and a half or so, which still might be too soon for me to say this, but still: Man, people sure are cranky about this stuff. I mean, I understand why, I suppose, but I can't quite grasp how some people can build up a head of righteous indignation and/or feigned boredom with genuinely pissed-off undertone year after year over an event that is pure show business, and represents the most bullshit-suffused aspects of show business. Oh no, not "grotesque, runaway narcissism," right, because there's nothing at all "look at me" about live-tweeting the Oscars in and of itself. Jesus. Try coming up with some material, maybe. Or, like the guy in the movie version of Glengarry Glen Ross says, "You don't like it? LEAVE." 

See what I did there? No, I don't either, actually. But, as I've learned, the thing is, one needn't watch, and if one watches, one needn't say anything. As for myself, I won fifty bucks on a bet I was pretty stupid to make in the first place, so I can count myself as lucky. And I thought it was pretty goddamn delightful when 12 Years A Slave won Best Picture, because if there was any real justice that action alone would put the "Oscar blogging" cottage industry out of business. (If you weren't following, the conventional wisdom was that Slave was award-doomed because old, out-of-touch, Going My Way-preferring Academy members were too a-scared to even watch it, let alone vote it an award or three. Ooops. Also: Eat It, Toby Young!) And there are two sides to every story, as an exchange between two critics I greatly admire and also personally like a great deal, Richard Brody and Dave Kehr, demonstrated this morning. Linking to his own Oscar post-mortem (which is well worth reading despite its unfortunate reiteration of a Wolf of Wall Street four-hour-director's-cut myth) , Richard tweeted, "I hate to be a recapper of bad news, but the Oscars had a chillingly tamped-down and neutralized uniformity." To which Dave replied "Oscars may be bland but they do support an important archive and library." So there's that. Which isn't nothing. 

Comments

[Oliver]

Toby Young is a mediocre troll who, having repeatedly failed as a legitimate journalist (despite opportunities others would beg for), re-established himself as yet another rightwing Twitter loudmouth. The last time he contributed meaningfully to pop-cultural debate was when he published Oliver Morton's article 'A General Theory of Terminators' in the first issue of The Modern Review.

[Joel]

Since I stopped using Twitter, I've been disconnected from the Universal Outrage Machine, but I agree: who complains about narcissism in the Oscar ceremony? The narcissism's the best part! Almost nothing on screen last year was as entertaining as Matthew McConaughey thanking all the Matthew McConaugheys throughout history for the success of Matthew McConaughey.

[mw]

Good points. Incessant internet outrage is tiresome, especially when it's directed at oneself. So I can see how you may have tired of being one of the bigger assholes on twitter, but you do it with such aplomb, I hate to see it end. And also the outrage over moneymakers acting in such a way as to make them more money. Bob Dylan is not a charity and the friggin big studios even less so. Of course they work for cash, as do most of us. And once the Clash went there, it can't possibly get any worse. And personally, I'd happily sell out to Chrysler, regardless of their long history of producing piece of shit automobiles, or just about any large corporation willing to throw big bucks my way. Unfortunately, no one is buying.

I got the Tarkovsky reference, btw. I recently watched Rublev with my son, who is a freshman in high school, over winter break. To give you some sense of what an evil parent I am, when the bell segment started, he got excited and exclaimed: "that's Ivan!" And he knows who you are from attending a few of your screenings at the BPL. When I tortured him by taking him to see Nostalghia, he recognized you in the hallway. I'm doing my best to turn him off from his interest in filmmaking but so far it's not working. Maybe it's time to pull out "Stalker."

Regarding the gravy thing, is that some kind of regionalism? Everyone I know would call what goes on lasagna "sauce."

[Kurzleg]

"Universal Outrage Machine" I'm totally stealing that, Joel.

[Glenn Kenny]

MW: "Gravy" regionalism: New Jersey Italian. See also Lidia Bastianich: http://blog.lidiasitaly.com/2014/02/sauce-or-gravy.php

[Gareth]

I liked that said library and archive got name-checked during the ceremony: I spent a week there last year doing research for my PhD and it really is an amazing repository.

[Petey]

"Gravy" regionalism: New Jersey Italian."

It's not a regionalism. It's correct usage.

(BTW, was I correct to take your haphazard gravy-making post as a coded reference to the fact that you thought American Hustle was the Best Picture?)

[Chris L.]

It's undoubtedly a symptom of having spent too much valuable time reading those dreaded awards sites, but I did experience a wave of relief when the last envelope was opened. Whether the outcome arose from legit admiration or a public shaming doesn't change that, because it seemed to me that, more than in any recent year, this particular movie just *needed* to win. Something greater was at stake than merely reversing a trend of honoring mediocrity. (Of course, if they had seen fit to nominate Inside Llewyn Davis, that would have split my loyalties.)

All in all, your approach to this stuff is healthier and more sensible (and looks delicious). Maybe I'll try it next year.

[JREinATL]

unfortunate reiteration of a Wolf of Wall Street four-hour-director's-cut myth

Has this been discussed somewhere? Is the "myth" that there was a four-hour cut, that it might be released, that it is a "director's" cut, somewhere in between?

[Jeff McMahon]

I would also like to add, for no good reason, that this is the first time I've ever seen a tomato sauce referred to as "gravy" which I've always thought of as basically a meat-grease-based liquid, so I guess you learn something every day.

[Lascauxcaveman]

I wasn't shocked or dismayed at Bob Dylan's Chrysler commercial, but I found his previous work with Cadillac, while less ambitious Cinematically, to be more more cohesive in terms of visuals resulting in a more naturalistic narrative flow. It strained less and was more believable.

But what do I know, I drive a 22-year-old Subaru.

[Claire K.]

I myself still do have a difficult time with this "gravy" business, but I feel that in our house, if you make it, you get to decide what to call it. And the alternative (you never making the gravy) would just be too dreadful to contemplate.

[Petey]

Why do I get the feeling that everyone commenting on this was brought up eating egg noodles and ketchup?

(Everywhere I've travelled in the Italian-American belt, from Philly to NYC to New Haven to Providence, folks speak of gravy. It's the word.)

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"I feel that in our house, if you make it, you get to decide what to call it."

Meh. The soft bigotry of low expectations. If he DIDN'T call it gravy, you'd be wantonly enabling bad behavior if you didn't retaliate by calling him Gwynn.

[skelly]

Petey - how is gravy's usage in the Italian-American belt not "regionalism" (although somewhat broad). There are over one million people of Italian heritage in the Province of Ontario, Canada where such usage is not at all common. In fact, if you'll forgive the anecdotal evidence, I just asked a Italian work colleague if he hears the term used and he said "only on the Sopranos".

[Petey]

"There are over one million people of Italian heritage in the Province of Ontario, Canada where such usage is not at all common."

But, c'mon. You're Canadian. Your entire language is a pretty weird regional dialect.

(Sans facetiousness, I'd argue that the Italian-American belt gets to define proper semantics for pasta toppings in North America.)

[Jeff McMahon]

If it's not in Merriam-Webster's (or urbandictionary.com) it's not correct.

[Ian W. Hill]

Gravy is correct throughout the Italian-Americans of southern Connecticut, in my family and outside of it, most of whom would have little use for Merriam-Webster's, let alone urbandictionary.com. I'm pretty sure Catherine and Charles Scorsese also use the term in their son's documentary about them.

[Petey]

"Gravy is correct throughout the Italian-Americans of southern Connecticut, in my family and outside of it..."

My point is even broader. Gravy is correct in the Italian-American belt, among both Italian-Americans AND non-Italian-Americans.

This cross-ethnic hegemony allows naming rights throughout the English-speaking parts of the hemisphere.

(Same rationale for correctly saying that the Tomato Pie they cutely enjoy in Chicago is not "pizza".)

[jbryant]

Tangentially: I've never heard anyone but Danny Aiello in DO THE RIGHT THING pronounce "pizzeria" the way it looks (i.e., "PIZZ-uh-REE-uh"). I've always heard it as "PEET-zuh-REE-uh." I'm from Kentucky, have lived in Indiana, Illinois, California. I'm not Italian, and Danny Aiello is, so I assume he's right. But again, he's the only person I've ever heard say it that way. Anybody else?

[Cadavra]

The problem is the perpetual misunderstanding of what a "cut" is. The "four-hour version" of WOLF is undoubtedly the first rough assembly, before they began editing it in earnest. (Marty's first assembly of NEW YORK, NEW YORK was over 5 1/2 hours, with the ballroom sequence alone running around 90 minutes.)

I've been recently enduring this myself with MAD MAD WORLD, with both Karen Kramer and Barrie Chase claiming the first "cut" ran five hours and that it was actually shown to audiences. The record shows it was first previewed at 210 minutes and tightened to its premiere length of 192 (both figures minus overture and such). It may have SEEMED like five hours to Chase (Karen wasn't even there at the time; she didn't meet Kramer until the following year), but it's still nonsense.

[Jeff McMahon]

I'm glad I don't have any contacts with the Italian-American belt of the hegemonic northeast, so I don't have to embarrass anybody by correcting their incorrect usage.

[Petey]

"I'm glad I don't have any contacts with the Italian-American belt of the hegemonic northeast, so I don't have to embarrass anybody by correcting their incorrect usage."

It won't stay that way for long. We're planning on using our hegemony to go door to door throughout all 50 states to first try to educate the nescient, and if that doesn't work, then we'll send in the vocabulary police to enforce proper usage under penalty of law.

Enjoy your incorrect usage while it lasts. And good gravy to you, sir.

[That Fuzzy Bastard]

The really odd thing is that the Northeast Italian-American use of "gravy" to refer to a sauce made with tomatoes is mostly restricted to the Northeast. Italian-Americans in the Northwest, the South, and on the West coast all call it "sauce", and use "gravy" to refer to sauces made from meat grease. Perhaps this is some Italian regional pattern asserting itself?

[Mark T Lancaster]

Late to this party, catching up after some time away.
Regarding sauce vs. gravy, I Googled "spaghetti sauce" (in quotes) and got 748,000 results, whereas "spaghetti gravy" got 12,800 results. To me, the big number wins. I've lived my 58 years in Baltimore, MD and have never heard gravy refer to anything but the meat-grease delight that we pour into the crater of our mashed potatoes. Until today.

[Petey]

"The really odd thing is that the Northeast Italian-American use of "gravy" to refer to a sauce made with tomatoes is mostly restricted to the Northeast. Italian-Americans in the Northwest, the South, and on the West coast all call it "sauce"

(Parenthetically, to repeat myself from above, it's not JUST Italian-Americans. I'm a non-Italian-American who was born, raised, and has spent half of his adulthood in the Philly / NYC / New Haven / Providence corridor, and I use "gravy", as do other non-Italian-Americans in the corridor I've known.)

As to your larger point, of course Italian-Americans outside the corridor aren't going to use "gravy". They fear pogroms.

But back onto the actual topic, I don't think it's odd. You need to have a certain DENSITY of Italian-Americans, which creates non-Italian-American who've been immersed, in order to get acceptable standards for both semantics and food. And that's why the corridor is different.

For example, I don't think it's a coincidence that it's only inside the corridor that you can reliably get decent pizza. The density raises standards. Or think how in Philly, even the junky industrial Amoroso roll-making concern produces good enough stuff to enable the robust hoagie / steak sandwich culture.

Of course there are oasis-like exceptions to the rule. I hear Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix is nice. But inside the corridor mediocre pizza joints make good pies, good pizza joints make excellent pies, and the number of excellent pizza joints that make sublime pies is enormous. All about density and raised standards.