Open Carry in Ohio
And sex as a crucible for humanness
Last week, I joined the New York Yankees in Cleveland, Ohio. Well, really the Yankees were there to win the MLB playoffs, and I was presenting at a conference on Jane Austen, but let’s just say New Yorkers were doing big things in “Believeland” (a nickname I gleaned from a Guardian fan’s sign during Saturday’s game broadcast; at least it’s better than “The Mistake on the Lake,” another moniker I found online).
My Uber driver from the airport chatted to me about Ohio’s gun laws: no license needed to own or carry. “We’re just like Texas,” he said, squinting into the sunshine. “This isn’t New York.”
I agreed that it wasn’t New York, and we discussed other features of Cleveland –– the best sushi restaurant and the free admission at the art museum. As we pulled up to the downtown Hilton, he suggested spots for nightlife, which I said I probably wouldn’t be exploring that weekend. “Fentanyl is real here,” he warned, as I disembarked and glimpsed a pair of women in Regency gowns.
I set out to find some lunch, mapping to a fast-casual bowl place on a gray and grassy plaza. My hunger prompted some hasty decisions at the build-your-own counter, resulting in the recriminatory flavors of guacamole and goat cheese. Outside the restaurant, a dozen cops stood around a van, joking with crossed arms and police dogs at their feet. Some were in uniform, others wore jeans and Patagonia quarter-zips, all had guns clipped to their hips, and wide, casual stances.
Back at the Hilton, I attended an orientation for speakers and ran at the hotel gym. The next day I delivered my talk and answered questions from the audience. I was congested and couldn’t hear myself well, but the words came out and the attendees I spoke to after seemed to have understood.
The hotel was abuzz from a third major Cleveland event: a mass induction at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. At the hotel gym I encountered the rapper Common, whom I once saw skating at Wollman Rink with Serena Williams and whose acting I studied in a college seminar on media and masochism (if you want a bizarre rom-com about physical therapy, try his 2010 film Just Wright co-starring Queen Latifah). I watched him perform a full-body workout in the reflection of the window as I ran on the treadmill, each of us coughing intermittently.
In the elevator back to my room, I was joined by Sharon Osbourne and an assistant carrying a Loro Piana bag. I kept my eyes on Osbourne’s sparkly black heels, marveling at the Cleveland Hilton’s star power.
I took myself to a solo dinner at Zhug, a Middle Eastern restaurant near Shaker Heights. It was high-ceilinged and dimly lit, with frosty carafes of water on each table. I enjoyed pita, lamb, and brussels sprouts topped with pomegranate seeds, as I listened to the conversation of three medical residents in scrubs at the table beside me. My Uber back to the hotel had a Minnie Mouse–themed interior, and my driver had a fresh pack of Marlboros poised in her cup holder.
My flight home was overrun with Oberlin students. They all had uneven haircuts and loafers that looked like they’d been kicked into multiple door frames. Many of them volunteered to gate-check their carry-ons when the flight attendant announced a full flight.
On Thursday I heard my professor
speak with his friend the photographer Mark Armijo McKnight at the Whitney Museum.They discussed sex as a crucible for humanness, a space where the most selfish and most generous actions coincide, the most animal and the most socially mediated. I showed up hungry and stole leathery pieces of beef jerky from my bag.
After the talk, we toured Armijo McKnight’s exhibit “Decreation,” on show just off the museum lobby. He photographs figures having sex in lush landscapes or the spindly arms of a petrified tree trunk with the black-and-white majesty of Ansel Adams. Greenwell describes the photos as “operatic.”
This photo gave me goosebumps, the textured stone reminding me of the dimpled bodies of elephant seals on a beach near Hearst Castle. My family visited San Simeon back in 2010, and my little brother became obsessed with a semi-acted documentary from the Hearst Castle gift shop, where a young William Randolph Hearst develops a taste for terra cotta. Who even needs Citizen Kane?
My favorite medicine ball at the gym is dead weight. The other day I realized that with each slam, a little sand escapes it through a slit at the bottom. Pretty soon there will be no weight left.