David Kirby
My Heart Belongs to Halifax
Halifax, I didn’t know you existed until I did.
A friend of mine had just visited and started
to tell me about you. “Quiet!” I shouted.
What if I’d flipped my lid, lost my marbles, had a cow,
lit up like a Christmas tree, gone nuts,
gone over the moon, gone bananas, gone out
of my mind with mental joy only to fly to you
on gossamer wings and learn too late that
it was just one of those things, that we weren’t suited to
each other at all, not one jot, tittle, or iota?
What if I checked into one of the spacious,
well-appointed rooms at the Prince George Hotel
and had dinner at Bar Kismet, a cozy spot celebrated
for its fresh seafood and inventive cocktails, and got up
the next day and strolled down to the Halifax Citadel
and enjoyed its interactive exhibits and stunning city
views and then went back to take advantage
of the Prince George’s indoor pool and fitness center
only to find myself homesick? Huh? I love your name, though:
it comes from halig (holy) and feax (hair),
Old English words tied to a medieval legend that says
a strand of St. John the Baptist’s hair was brought
to West Yorkshire where a town called Halifax
was established and then another was named after it
in Canada. Wait, wait, I get it. Now I know why
you’re so excellent: you’re the second-generation Halifax!
New and improved model! Just like the old Halifax
but with all the wrinkles ironed out and many additional
improvements, I’m so sure. That’s why Cole Porter
wrote that song about you. You’re the top! said Cole Porter.
You’re the Coliseum! You’re the top! You’re the Louvre
Museum! Say I was in the market for a picturesque
lighthouse and rugged coastal scenery—why,
Peggy’s Cove is only a short drive away from
the Prince George, though I’d probably just peddle over
on my unicycle and, should I feel peckish on the way back,
stop for a bite at The Bicycle Thief, a waterfront
restaurant known for its lively atmosphere and extensive
wine list. That’s actually its real name, by the way,
The Bicycle Thief, but then you know that—you know
everything. You’re Halifax! You’re the Tower of Pisa,
you’re the smile on the Mona Lisa. Actually,
Cole Porter never said “You’re the Top” was about you,
but then again he never said it was about anybody
or anything in particular, just someone or something
or some place that’s bodacious, audacious, rumbustious,
procacious, stunning, stellar, stupendous, tremendous,
and transcendental. Whew! That’s you all over.
If you were a term paper, you’d get an A. If you were
an Ed Wood movie, you’d get five stars, which is saying
a lot since any Ed Wood movie would be lucky
to get even a single star. If you were a Maltipoo,
Cockapoo, Labradoodle, or Chiweenie, you’d be
Best of Show. If you were an American Shorthair cat,
you wouldn’t have a rating at all because no one can
get a cat to hold still long enough to rate it, but you’d be
fine with that: your disdain for me and the entire rest
of humanity is part of your allure. If I were in Halifax
right now instead of sitting here happily at home,
I’d definitely pay a visit to St. Paul’s, the oldest
surviving Protestant church in Canada—hold on, Halifax,
what about your synagogues, cathedrals, mosques,
stupas, and fire temples? Where do your Jews, Catholics,
Muslims, Buddhists, and Zoroastrians worship?
Wait, I know: anywhere they want. It’s Halifax!
Who needs to go into some stupid building to address
a higher power, express gratitude, ask for help,
confess sins, and deepen one's relationship with the divine?
Most alluring building in these parts is that Halifax Citadel
I mentioned earlier with its distinctive star shape
that gave the garrison sweeping arcs of fire, for which
reason no enemy force has ever dared to attack it.
Put ‘em up, world! Pow, right in the kisser—
Halifax 1, World 0! Speaking of Buddhism, how about
another lunch or dinner, this time at Studio East,
an Asian fusion gastropub offering a diverse menu
in a relaxed setting. Relaxed . . . who am I kidding?!
How could anyone possibly not be relaxed in Halifax?
Unless they’re me, of course, who’d rather be here
in Tallahassee thinking about Halifax instead
of making hotel and restaurant reservations and rolling up
socks and counting out pills and shoving everything
into a suitcase that’ll be too big for the overhead bin anyway
and sitting next to someone with a hacking cough
before landing at Halifax Stanfield, Atlantic Canada's
premier full-service airport connecting passengers
and cargo customers to markets around the world.
Byron said he went to the island of San Lazzaro
to learn Armenian from the monks who lived there
because “my mind wanted something craggy to
break upon,” but don’t feel bad, Halifax—Byron couldn’t
have known about you as you’d only been founded
a few decades earlier and hadn’t had time to establish,
much less develop, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia,
where visitors can explore works by local sculptors
and painters including folk artist Sophia Upshaw,
as well as Good Robot Brewing Company, a quirky brewery
known for its unique beers and vibrant atmosphere.
If Byron had visited you, I bet his mind would have broken
into a gajillion pieces. No, no: you’re a turkey dinner,
Halifax. You’re the time of a Derby winner. You’re
an O’Neill drama! You’re Whistler’s mama! You’re
romance, you’re the steppes of Russia, you’re the pants
on a Roxy usher, and I’m a lazy lout who’s just about
to stop, but baby, if I’m the bottom, you’re the—okay,
okay, you’ve talked me into it. On my way, Halifax!
But now I’m thinking that instead of flying to you
in some dumb airplane I’ll just sail my skiff or catamaran
out of Jacksonville and up past Savannah and Wilmington
and along the Eastern Seaboard until I reach Nova Scotia,
of which you are the capital and most populous
municipality, although I’m just now realizing that
Nova Scotia means “New Scotland,” if I’m remembering
my two years of high-school Latin correctly, and I haven’t
been to the old one yet. Shouldn’t I go there first?
Why I Love Curtis Sittenfeld
Everybody will laugh at you if you bring that holiday standby
called “ambrosia salad” to a potluck, but they’ll gobble it down
anyway. Recipes differ, though it’s pretty much a cup each of five things:
mandarin orange slices, pineapple chunks, sweetened coconut flakes,
sour cream, and marshmallows. “Haw, haw!” they’ll say.
“Look what Meemaw brought! Somebody hand me a bowl.”
Don’t believe me? Look up the recipe: actual online comments include
“it looks nasty but it’s really tasty,” “you would have thought
I brought barbecued babies from the looks I got but I didn't
take home any leftovers,” “that’s the stuff I threw up in
a pool twenty years ago,” “I’m getting the sense from these posts
that the word ‘salad’ is a vaguely defined term for many Americans,”
“sometimes I joke about the British eating as though there are still
German planes overhead but then I see ambrosia salad and feel like
the biggest hypocrite in the world,” “if you mix the whipped cream
in with the fruit juices then it doesn't look like vomit,” “served
at every potluck I’ve ever attended where there are Mormons,”
“I wonder why Americans eat as if they have free health care,”
“my mother-in-law called it Idiot Salad but never took home
any leftovers,” “my ex-mother-in-law made this one year
and it was actually pretty good.” Apparently there’s no litmus test
for ambrosia salad. Actually there are very few litmus tests
for anything except litmus: think Taylor Swift vs. death metal,
Jane Austen vs. Hemingway, The Godfather vs. Goodfellas.
During movie shoots, Mel Brooks would hand out handkerchiefs
to the cast and crew to stick in their mouths if they were going
to laugh when a funny scene was being filmed, and he knew
the scenes were funny when he turned around in the director's chair
and saw a sea of white handkerchiefs. That’s why I love
novelist Curtis Sittenfeld, who was once asked what her audience was
and replies that there’s this HBO show called Somebody, Somewhere
starring a plus-sized actress who is having a conversation with
the actress playing her petite sister about the so-called pencil test
in which a woman puts a pencil under her breast, and if it falls out,
that means she has perky breasts, but then the plus-sized actress
picks up this big bottle of salad dressing and wedges it under one
of her enormous boobs. “That’s the tone of the storytelling I want
to do,” Curtis Sittenfeld says. “It’s not the person with the pencil falling out,
it’s the one who puts the bottle of salad dressing under one of her
enormous boobs, and it stays there.” Ha, ha—you’re not the only one
who feels that way, Curtis Sittenfeld! Later in the interview, Curtis
Sittenfeld says, “Isn’t it so weird and undignified to be a person?”
David Kirby teaches at Florida State University. His latest books are a poetry collection, The Winter Dance Party, Poems 1983-2023, and a textbook modestly entitled The Knowledge: Where Poems Come From and How to Write Them. Kirby is also the author of Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll, which the Times Literary Supplement described as “a hymn of praise to the emancipatory power of nonsense.” Entertainment Weekly has called Kirby’s poetry one of “5 Reasons to Live.” Kirby has also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Florida Humanities, which called him “a literary treasure of our state.”
Banner Art:
Photographed by Hans Toom, Pixabay, 2022
