May 16, 2004
Soaking Our Heads In The Sylvan Embrace
Someone tonight mentioned this NY Times restaurant review from this past Friday which opens with the following pair of parapgraphs:
There are times in this city when the pulse rate quickens and sweat breaks out on the brows of the citizenry and it seems for one horrible moment as if everyone in sight is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It's just you, though.
In another place -- in the cool sylvan embrace of Portland, Ore., say, or under the dappled sun of Charleston, S.C. -- people so suffering would go home and soak their heads. In New York City, they go to restaurants. Restaurants of a particular sort, that is. New Yorkers are nothing if not precise in their self-medication.
Mainly, we pass this along because we're hoping that someone possesses the proper decoder ring required to understand this. And we're not speaking of the "sylvan embrace" part, even though we're not exactly living in the middle of a forest.
Rather, what is the "people so suffering would go home and soak their heads" remark supposed to mean, exactly?
Comments (1)
Bob R. on 17 May 2004
Don't you soak your head routinely?
I do, in the shower every day.
I have visited New York on one of those hot, muggy, stinky days and have always suspected that a bit more head soaking needed to be going on.
(PS: I love NY. Just not on hot stinky days. I guess what makes a true New Yorker is a love for the city even on those days. For me, I'm a true Oregonian, loving this place even on the dark, rainy days/weeks/months.)
- Bob