Love Letters
An artist’s suggestive sculptures are causing debate in Ellicott City, Maryland, and are raising questions about permits.
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The news cycle is bleak.
Which, perhaps, is why I’m very focused on a story out of a community near where I grew up in Maryland.
May I offer you some counterprogramming – in the form of a controversy about an eggplant and a peach in Ellicott City, Maryland.
We know the eggplant and peach emojis, and what they stand for in messages. (If you don’t know, please google. But think: body parts.)
The short version of the tale: In Ellicott City, sculptures of an eggplant and peach, by artist Jan Kirsh, are causing a stir. Maybe because they are suggestive, but also because there are questions about what permits one needs to put up a statue in town.
Apparently the peach is quite large. The eggplant seems … average-sized to me. But to be fair, I have not seen as many eggplants as others have.
🙂
Regardless, there are “save the peach” signs, and now zoning people have to argue about eggplants and peaches, and the scope of them, at public meetings.
I do love reading about this town debate because I love art and innuendo, but also because Ellicott City is special to me. For those who don’t know, it’s a very old-timey downtown – a Maryland version of the cobblestone, stuck-in-time streets I’m used to in Boston. It’s something like Salem, Massachusetts in that it’s also … witchy.
When I was growing up, Ellicott City was magical and mystical. I frequented a store called The Forget-Me-Not Factory, which had multiple floors of magic wands and fairy-related items (this was pre-Harry Potter, and the owner was also all-in on wizards). There were also many crystal shops and places to get psychic readings.
It was the kind of place where a peach and eggplant emoji should live, as long as they are made by an artist with dreams.
In my teens, I worked at a store across from the fairy shop called Discoveries. They sold jewelry, pottery, and oversized dresses one might wear to a Lilith Fair concert. The women who worked at the store, managing my shifts, would talk about their divorces, sometimes with wine under the counter. They were interested in love – and how to find it without losing too much independence. Perhaps they trained me to write Love Letters, just a little.
I am rarely homesick for Maryland (too steamy in the summer), but the eggplant and peach debate has brought me back to a simpler time, and to a place where I learned about people.
This is a long way of saying: If you need escape, dive into this ongoing saga that involves suggestive produce. I’ll keep tabs on the drama, too.
SMBY (Single Mother By Choice)
Today’s new podcast episode is about a woman who has a kid with a partner, then has a breakup, then decides she wants a second child on her own.
Her mother wonders, if you have another child by yourself, will you render yourself … undateable? Would it be better to try to meet a partner and then try for a second kid?
The episode is really about timelines, and what it means to do things “out of order,” compared to your original plan. Even though I don’t have kids, I related so much to figuring out how to do things on your own schedule.
Cheers to this
The Boston Globe has a new TV critic, Chris Vognar, and I am so happy about that because I watch a lot of TV and need someone to talk to about it. He has a feature called AUTOPILOT, about TV pilots, and for this one, he gets into the literary sexual tension in “Cheers” – just how beautifully that show set up tone, relationships, and hot Ted Danson. Please enjoy and follow Chris’s work.
When I saw our new TV critic in person last week in the office, he was wearing this cardigan. Which reminded us all of the carpet in “The Shining.” What a great thing for a pop culture writer to wear.
Apps and intentions
In Rhode Island, they’re using an app to help teens figure out sex. I’m going to see what went into it, and whether there’s much on it about relationship health. But I’m interested in apps meant to give people good information.
In Love Letters, we had a conversation about “intentional dating,” which is great … but maybe gets in the way of just … dating to meet people. Read about how dating with goals might make it hard to get what you want.
MOO.
Over the weekend, I was at the New Hampshire wedding of two people who have worked on the Love Letters podcast, both of whom had a great influence on the tone and design of the show.
They are wonderful sound experts who spent years making sure my asthma-breathing and nose-blowing didn’t make it onto episodes.
I thought it was fitting that during their vows, a nearby cow decided to get very noisy. It sounded like the cow was giving birth – or at least wanted to make a statement.
I imagine that Amy and Ned (the couple) were thinking, “what a great, authentic New Hampshire sound effect … we should get tape!”
I’ll leave you with a picture of one of the signature drinks at their wedding – the Blood Orange Rosemary Margarita. If you want to make it at home: Espolon Blanco tequila, fresh blood orange, fresh lime, rosemary simple syrup, dehydrated blood orange wheel garnish.
— Meredith
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