Notes from the Olive Garden
Lileks, James
"Notes from the Olive Garden" In which we plumb the exotic depths of Euro-think BY JAMES LILEKS Americans are easy to figure out.We're as complex as pasteurized cheese. If ever a diligent European...
...Where-as this joint is so big our senior citizens retire, buy moving houses and devote themselves to visiting each of the 50 states...
...The discreet hint of-Tuscan decor and the passable wine list disguise the fact that there are 476 other Olive Gardens across North America, all with precisely the same menu...
...Austin Powers...
...Web site has zero paragraphs from any-where else on its front page, but does have headlines like "Neu, Heart for Katie" and "Rover Tries to Curry Favor...
...Grandpappy was gassed in the Quarrels...
...educated...
...James Lileks, a columnist at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, also publishes www.lileks.com, where this commentary first appeared...
...One influential senator (not from Alabama) was musing the other day: "Sure, we can invade Iraq without at least British support...
...They responded very readily to Britain and the British: "Tea...
...ceased almost two generations ago...
...From his window seat, he concludes thatAlabama stretches in all directions...
...Prince William...
...His name is Steve Mitchell and he's in the satellite TV business...
...But understand that if Iraquis fly planes into Big Ben, we'll take out Saddam, because we understand that an attack on you is an attack on us...
...That's about it...
...The Birmingham papers may not have fully reported the reaction of Europe's foreign ministers...
...One suspects the European geography of many people here goes no further than the playground rhyme: "I see London, I see France, I see...
...S just talking to m'sel And bring me a fooking Newcastle...
...The hot soft kind, too...
...And he's right...
...Let's look at how a writer from Britain's Guardian handled the assignment in a recent report: He's got our nmber: the wretched psychic effect of "standardization...
...You got that, you wobbly sacks stuffed full of television sugar and Hollywood spite...
...Lost me dad in the Quarrels...
...I ask Steve...
...Indeed, major disasters aside, foreign news generally consists solely of the U.S.'s interactions with other countries...
...Of course, Birmingham has an elite who travel all over Europe...
...In all of them, a European visitor can expect a warm welcome, because Alabama is like that...
...Imagine that: Immigrants adopt the civic culture of their new home and don't cling to the tribal distinctions Grandpa left behind in disgust...
...My grandmother's from the Finland side...
...Around Birmingham, there is nothing but miles and miles of Alabama...
...That morning, the Birmingham News has one paragraph from Europe...
...Well, Jack Straw has your number...
...Militarily, the U.S...
...But only one-sixth of all Americans possess a passport...
...One could easily say that Europeans are determined to be late for the next world war because they're still feeling guilty about the last time some nutcases wanted to slaughter all the Jews...
...If Tony Blair appeared to condemn the tear, he would be booed—if anyone was paying attention to what he said...
...When it comes to it, would they really launch a full-blooded assault without Powell holding hands with Hubert, Joschka and Jack...
...s underpants...
...Could it be a flood of pissy hissing from professional concern-sharers, like the French ambassador who called Israel "a sh***y little country," or the others who tore therrtseh'es asunder because Uncle Sam didn't zip up his bomb doors during Ramadan...
...If 'rt you don't mind...
...Apparently around Birmingham England, there is nothing but miles and miles of Belgium, Thailand and the Antarctic Ice Shelf "Where do most people round here come from...
...Number...
...Waiter...
...asteroid belt...
...Jane Eyre...
...Sure, it makes it logistically possible to run chains that span three thousand miles and simultaneously depend on local suppliers and national ad campaigns...
...Also seven sports-story links...
...Washington politicians are especially conscious that their armies had to come across the Atlantic twice in the 20th century to settle Europe's quarrels...
...comets...
...Mass European immigration to the U.S...
...I talked to some [students] the other day and asked them to play word association...
...The one chap he has engaged has been able to name three European countries, and has a job piping satellite TV (The BBC channel is included in Birmingham Dish TV's first upgrade package...
...Hubert Vedrine of France said it was "simplism...
...old...
...Hnuntn...
...Except, of course, they're not guilty at all...
...I'm sitting here in this comfy chair, looking atthis fabulous bird at the bar with a great set of knockers, really, justAnterican knockers y'knou...
...That was all Hitler's fault...
...Yes, that's what the call the wars over here:The Quarrels...
...hairy...
...On the other hand, screw it...
...Joschka Fischer of Germany said alliance partners would not be reduced to obedient satellites...
...That's the extent of your Birmintgham-based insight?Ybu ground all the gears on that transition, and don't think we didn't hear the teeth ping all over the place.Again, to recap: From a suburban restaurant, a British reporter deduces thatAmerica is not particularly interested in Europe—quel horror...
...Well, Denmark, actually...
...What a country...
...dry and witty...
...Traitors...
...castles," Someone added,"They enjoy life more," then the answers petered out...
...That's because our nation is HUGE, pal...
...proper...
...Diners in Maine often put down their Olive Garden menus, stare into the middle distance, haunted by the suspicion that the exact same alignment of foodsti ffs is also offered in San Diego...
...America may not care about Europe...
...he says...
...Concern-sharing.They re chauffeured around to meetings in palaces, where concerns are shared, though sometimes rnterly aired.Then again, maybe President Bush learned a little about China from his pop, and maybe Rummy learned a little about the world when he was evac'd out of Beirut in the bad old days...
...For-give us for believing that facism's side ought to lose...
...Today, as I write, the Birmingham Post (U.K...
...The West is a set of ideas that needs defending...
...My mother's father came from over there...
...that's their job...
...You're from England...
...Waaaait a minute, pal—that it...
...good food...
...and none of these laughing bumpkins has a clue...
...They've burned out every available domestic vacation option by the time the kids are six...
...Damned witty...
...nationalism...
...the whole messy and diverse concept of Europe seems very distant...
...Our souls, of course...
...soccer hooligans...
...In Birmingham, there is as little to remind the white population of its European roots as the black population has to remind it of Africa: European Hair and Nails, the Parisian department store and La Paree Steaks and Seafood, where each table has a miniature stars and stripes nestling between the ketchup and the mustard...
...Damned witty, Wilde...
...If ever a diligent European wants to parse the yawp of deep, dark America and find the source ofWashington's new chilliness towards its allies, the destination is obvious: a chain restaurant.Talk to a guy eating supper...
...He had that big shiny hypnotism coin, and everyone just fell in his power...
...I wuzn't loud...
...Round here, I guess...
...I mean, if you ask for ten, you get ten...
...MARCH/APRIL 2002 • THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 75...
...The incoherence of this exchange makes you wonder who's been hitting the passable wire If it's meant to castigate poor Steve for geographical errancy, well, it's clear what he meant by "there": Europe...
...Let's recap: Our correspondent is sitting in an Olive Garden chain restaurant—a successful chain devoted to celebrating the cuisine of old Italia...
...Of course they do...
...If more than 100 million had died, perhaps he'd have called it "Europe's dust-ups...
...And Birmingham is a chunky-sized city, far more worldly than the other towns along Interstate 20, such as Leeds, Lincoln and Oxford...
...And if we seem arrogant when it comes to beating fascism, forgive us once more, for we have some-They might be likewise unable to come up_for thing you don't...
...Jack...
...The Rest is not defined by Belgian edicts on acceptable levels of tomato sauce viscosity...
...Thus the importance of Europe revealed: When it conies time for war, we will send someone to hold their hands and explain that the thunder they hear on the CNN Baghdad feed is just angels bowling...
...But people still think of Winston Churchill...
...smokers...
...Look: HVe were "late" for the last world wars like a policeman is usually late for a murder...
...They shake it oft-and get back to ordering, but the feeling that their veal's seasoning has been predetermined in afar-off corporate o ice gives the meal a false and hollow taste...
...Or Canada...
...But the locals might be just as charming to a visitor from outer space, who would be only a fraction more exotic...
...Britain's own Jack Straw said the speech had more to do with the mid-term elections than international politics...
...Last month, the president coined the phrase "ads of evil" for his unholy trinity of Iraq, Iran and North Korea...
...proud...
...Wliadda mean, you're going to get the manager...
...I think it would be politically difficult and perhaps impossible...
...We go there because my family likes it, and because the salad comes in bowls the size ofJayne Mansfield's bra cups.There's one dish I like—an angel-hair pasta with olive oil, diced tomato and seasoned chicken...
...So the veal is decent but unfriendly...
...Cold...
...punctuthe parts of Europe are still greater than the whole...
...But at what cost...
...phrases about the solar system...
...Oh, it would go down badly, all right...
...not huggy...
...Should war with Iraq come, the bar TV will be tuned to the netvs.And much though it may pain the souls at the Guardian, not a single North Dakotan watching that war begin would wonder what Europe thinks...
...Another passable bottle, I'm really on a roll...
...Has!ibur...
...closed society...
...cultural snobs...
...Notes From The Olive Garden In which we plumb the exotic depths of Euro-think BY JAMES LILEKS Americans are easy to figure out.We're as complex as pasteurized cheese...
...At times over the past few weeks, Washington has seemed almost like an enemy capital, certainly less comfortable for a European than Birmingham, where people do not follow the nuances of international diplomacy...
...He has deduced that the food is generous, filling and does not vary from outlet to outlet...
...But the psychology is different...
...Downright European, then...
...It might, in short, go down badly at all 477 branches of the Olive Garden...
...One of these branches is in my hometown of Fargo, North Dakota...
...Meanwhile, the people who DO pay attention—the sophisticates in Washington, culled from the strange and varied-named, yet culturally un form states—are acting like the enetny.And why might that be...
...and in Alabama the proportion is much lower...
...Nothing special—I can make it at home, but whenever Ifind myself at an Olive Garden I know there's one dish I'll enjoy...
...The difference being that a visitor from outer space might unleash one'a them death-rays, so we'll keep our hand right here on our holster The Olive Garden Italian restaurant looks a little more promising than the dozens of other eating places along the strip mall just off Interstate 20 in Birmingham, Alabama...
...His conclusion: One "suspects" that the locals know nothing more of Europe than a children's ditty...
...you get as many breadsticks as you want...
...Discern the Pulse of the Culture...
...trousers...
...of course Belgians all have passports;their country is the size of an average American rumpus room...
...Forgive us our passable wines...
...Monty Python...
...From the Olive Garden...
...Europe's wonderbut sometimes when you think "vacation" you're not in the mood for rain and indifference, no matter how much aristocratically commissioned beauty comes with it...
...Forgive its our simple-mindedness, for we—from Alabama to outer, distant Alabama and beyond—have a gut feeling that "quarrels" usually boil down to two sides...
...can now take on whomever it chooses...
...My great great grandfather fought in the Debate Between the States, and family history says we had a distant relative who fought in the Revolutionary Argument...
...But until the check you for scales and antennae...
...snob-by...
...You may not feel comfortable with the fact that the future of the planet should be decided by the representatives of voters who know so little about it.A good many senior European politicians share that concern...
...small...
...Most Olive Gardens also have a bar, outfitted in Italian—i.e., European—motifs...
...They were just as quick shouting out about France and the French: "Wine...
...They also did not report what the weather was like on Mars, or whetherWinona's legal troubles are impacting her complexion...
...But they seemed almost Alabama-vague when asked about Europe and Europeans as a whole: "Culture...
...Many long paragraphs of non-Olive Garden Euroweenie quotes snipped...
...Europeans are inclined to think that the Americans, having been late for the last two world wars, are determined to be early for the next one...
...Practice...
...And my half-sister lives in France...
...The diner at the next table turns out to be friendlier and, indeed, more cosmopolitan, than the food...
...Straw...
...Plus, we don't need passports to go to Mexico...
...forgive us our standardized veal...
...74 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR • MARCH/APRIL 2002 ated by the occasional rocky sphere...
...Here's the deal: We don't need your support...
Vol. 35 • March 2002 • No. 2
