Nopa Number 2 (or why do the Eskimos have so many words for snow and we only have one for "fuck"?)

foodwinesex. Back at Nopa again. It could become a regular Friday thing. I arrived around 7pm and was greeted at the door by plumes of estrogen fanning out onto the street. Chemistry again. The place was packed with women and they skewed a bit older. Nice. I stood behind the bar-diners waiting for an opening. Couples got up and other couples took their place. I couldn't see my way to breaking up a perfectly good pairing so I stood with a very dry Belvedere martini and heard "Hi G". I turned around and NR and his beautiful wife MR (amazing smile and eyes) stood there grinning at my surprise. They live in the area and noticed me through the window as they were walking by. In quick succession they ordered glasses of wine, a seat opened and I grabbed it, we chatted a bit, they took off for dinner at another place nearby (I have to ask about it...they have great taste) and I got down to the business of ordering dinner.

I hadn't eaten all day and felt it. I went with the Baked Goat Cheese, Crostini, Frisee and Pickled Beets as the appetizer. This has got to be one of the best openers in the city. It all works together. The sweetness of the beets offers the perfect counter to the pungency of the goat cheese. The crostini supplies the right counter texture to the soft cheese and beets. Can't recommend highly enough. I ordered a glass of the Roessler Red Label Pinot Noir. Good but only good. (Ordering by the glass really doesn't offer enough of a sample to go into deeper descriptions so I'll hold this to bottles only.) I narrowed the main course between the lamb and the pork chop. My waiter (who I believe I remember seeing at Chez Nous) steered me to the pork chop. The pork turned out to be just good...nothing great. It was just a tiny bit dry and the cut was thin...nothing like the chop at Town Hall. It may have been prepared in the Korean style (marinated in 7-up). Desert was a selection of berry sorbets which was excellent.

Throughout dinner I pondered the role chemistry plays in our relationships and the meaning of "fucking". My time with B has been based almost solely on chemistry (she likes Celine Dion for god's sake). A lover's appearance changes quickly depending on chemistry. We've all been with somebody and our subjective opinion of their appearance changes forever after spending a short time with them. Chemistry plays or maybe I should say chemistry is the magic in sex. B and I got there quickly and with abandon. Every inhibition was shed from the first and in our dizziness we went everywhere. Between rounds I heard "European men don't do that" and so we did it again. Eyes rolled back into her head, mouth barely open, whispering slowly - semiconscious mantra in a tiny french voice - "I love it". This is one description of "fucking".

The fact is, we have little else in common. Two weeks earlier I met MaryAnn. Very attractive...medium height, dark brown hair, great smile, nice figure. We had a drink at the bar and then dinner at Ristorante Capellini (don't get me started) in San Mateo. After dinner I walked her to her car. There was a lot of kissing, groping, etc. but no chemistry. Her car door shut, my heels hit the pavement and despite the fact that another date could have had us flying across her room like the Flying Walendas I had no interest. No chemistry. Could have easily "fucked" her but it would have been a totally different experience than what I had with B.

It's obvious that there are different types of "fucking" but we don't have a language rich enough to describe the nuances. We have synonyms but the language goes broad rather than deep. Eskimos have hundreds of words for "snow". It seems that our contemporary culture is as based in sex as the Eskimo's culture is based in snow and ice. Why is our language so lacking?

g.

Comments

[Mrs. Dug]

I had dinner with friends at Nopa a few weeks ago, and also had nothing but raves for the goat cheese/beet starter (a combo I originally discovered at The Blue Hour in Portland's Pearl District). I had the burger as a main course and it was awesome. The place is a little loud, with those high ceilings, but the staff was on point and the cocktails were interesting. They brought us fresh radishes with butter and salt to nosh on before our orders started arriving--yum.

One of my dining companions knew our waiter, and he hooked us up with the dregs from the wine tasting the staff had had earlier in the evening--it's definitely always good to know people, as we tasted some interesting wines that weren't yet officially available.

[GNP]

You raise a really interesting question at the conclusion of this post – one that I've been thinking about since last night. I agree that we lack sufficient richness in our language for describing different types of "fucking". In many ways, this isn't that dissimilar from music and art. It’s challenging to explain in words why one piece of music or art touches our soul while a similar piece (even by the same artist) only makes a glancing blow. One clue could be the fact that each of these things (including fucking) represents a creative act and that involves the interplay of two people – not just one of the participants. As Marcel Duchamp put it, "the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualification and thus adds his contribution to the creative act." He also introduced the concept of an "art coefficient" - specifically, "the personal 'art coefficient' is like a arithmetical relation between the unexpressed but intended and the unintentionally expressed." Perhaps there is a similar interplay at work between people in which each person has a role to play in the “fucking act”. And perhaps there is a personal "chemistry coefficient" that relates what is unexpressed but intended by each lover to what each unintentionally expresses.

The other thing that comes to mind here is that people often have to resort to use of metaphors and analogies to describe their feelings. We say things like “I feel like I just got punched in the stomach” or “I feel like I’m floating on air” to make up for the lack of individual words to express these emotions.

[Alandra Fox]

It is it painfully clear how pretentious, pseudo-refined, boastful and shallow you are. You do an impressive job demonstrating, both in word and deed, that you are thoroughly committed to proving your worth one overpriced entree and meaningless fuck at a time. In short: you sound like a serious dick.

[g]

Well at least you call me serious.

[GNP]

Alandra, I suspect you're jumping into this blog mid-stream. If you read through the rest of the thread and take some time to think about what G is talking about, I suspect you may (or may not) form a different opinion of him. That's one of the challenges with blogs - and real life - in my opinion. We form snap judgments of people based on very limited information rather than putting aside our assumptions or preconceptions and spending the time to really get to know people and listen to what they're saying. In some situations, snap judgments are actually very helpful (see the book "Blink" for example) but in other situations (like this one), I think they're a little dangerous. Or, at least, it would cause you to form an opinion of someone which isn't (in my humble opinion) reflective of reality.