Knightley Chivalry

Emma: "How fascinating that any discordancy between us must always arise from *my* being wrong."
Knightley: "Not fascinating, but true."

Knightley: "Emma, you didn't ask me to contribute a riddle."
Emma: "Your entire personality is a riddle, Mr. Knightley. I thought you overqualified."

Knightley: "He is her superior in sense and situation!"
Emma: "Hmm, you dismiss her beauty and good nature, yet I would be very much mistaken, if your sex in general, does not think those claims the highest a woman could posess!"

Knightley: "Vanity working on a weak mind produces every kind of mischief."

"Not one in a hundred men have 'gentleman' so plainly written across them as Mr. Knightley!"

Chinese food in the city is THE WORST. You'd think having China Town would produce all kinds of chinese deliciousness, but you'd be wrong. The food is so bad in fact, that I have actually stooped to craving Panda Express (another option not available in the city), with its 3000 calorie plates full of breaded shrimp (mostly bread), dried out rice and greasy low mein. Back when Szechuan in Park City ruled my dinner world, I would have sooner settled for Easy Mac than shovel in platefuls of calories by Panda Express. That was then. This is now. I ran into Mike on my morning subway commute, and he told me he has this *great* chinese place he loves. Whenever people say that, I always ask the question, Does it serve "American" style Chinese?? None of this soupy crap that looks like brothy dumplings.

So I asked Mike to send me the name of the Chinese place he claims is the "best", and I looked at the menu online. My first test of a "quality" chinese restaurant is to look for crab rangoon on the appetizer list. Under appetizers for this particular restaurant, I see (ranked by popularity, perhaps?): Ox Tongue & Tripe, Diced Rabbit & Peanut, Sliced Pork Belly, Poaches Chicken & Crispy Soy Beans (possibly the only indication this restaurant exists in America), Duck Tongues, Thin Sliced Conch, Julienne Jelly Fish, Thousand (??!!) Years Old Egg,.....and then of course there's your pot stickers and tofu crepes. See?? All of my favorite dishes. Stay tuned on whether I dare risk the sesame chicken from this place. For now I'll stick to crepes and tacos, which NYC seems to have no shortage of.

Way back, before race car drivers, matadors, cowboys, revolutionary heroes and conquering discoverers...men were known simply as "chevaliers." I know this of course, thanks to that minor in French that I thought would come in real handy. Truth be told, those years of French are great for eavesdropping on conversations among european tourists, but that's about the extent of my usage at the moment. Speaking of which--the Sorbonne--Needs to get with the 21st century. How can one of France's most prestigious universities not offer online courses?? I only spent two hours online this morning, deciphering lots of academic words from French to English, to reach this conclusion. There has to be some kind of online French course out there.

For one of my French classes in college, we had to read a bunch of medieval literature books (in French of course). I remember thinking this was the biggest waste of time in terms of perfecting my grasp of language. These medieval books were stories of "chevaliers," the french word for knights. I read and analyzed King Arthur, Lancelot, and the intensely long and drawn out love story of "Erec and Enide" that reads much like a year of General Hospital episodes. For one of our finals, I had to write this 16 page (fine, somewhere between 10-16 pages) paper, defining "l'amour courtois"; AKA the meaning of love in the 16th century. It actually wasn't as bad as it sounds...relationship analysis is one of my fortes. Safe to say that final was a total homerun.

Fast forward to the world right now full of self-advice books, ranting columnists, self-professed authors and all different forms of media articles/reports/studies on the male-female co-existence. You have women yelling at other women to "lean in" to a role of both champion career-woman and mother. You have articles written by women on the perils of 21st century dating in a world dominated by "lazy" men that by appearances have all but given up on the extra work it takes to romance a woman "the right way." (For the record I'm as clueless as men are as to what this ultimate "perfection" is). You have the elderly wondering why the younger generation can't seem to "get it together", divorce rates still on the rise, and words such as "playing the field", "man-eater", "gold digger", "baby mama", "bromance" and "hit it and quit it" have re-defined what was once the medieval romance scene.

In the midst of all this noise, it's caused me to think a lot about this phrase I've often heard invoked in the 21st century:

Is chivalry dead?? Some argue that it is. That people (mostly accusing men, since I think the majority are afraid to invoke the wrath of women) have become too self-absorbed and selfish.

My favorite movie of all time is Emma. The version with Gwyneth and Jeremy...if you watch any other version I daresay you will NOT be filled with the same sense of love, battle of wits and explosive chemistry. You don't see Mr. Knightley showering Emma with gifts, asking her out on creatively fun dates or getting up to sing with her at social gatherings (that's Frank Churchill). He, in fact, DOES call Emma out on being too self-absorbed and concerned with what other people think of her, in addition to meddling. I can't even imagine the backlash and name-calling that would emerge today if a guy tried those same tactics on a female.

Living in NYC has led to a lot of observations of humanity and my conclusion is: Whoever said chivalry is dead, is in my opinion, Dead Wrong. At least every day, I'm reminded that men are chivalrous all day long, to women that are complete strangers. They hold elevator doors, they wait until all of the women have exited the elevator before stepping off, they let you take the first cab even if they've been waiting longer, they hold open doors (car doors, subway doors, building doors, every type of door); if a pregnant woman steps on the train no less than two men jump up simultaneously to offer up their seats. I can't tell you how many times a man has offered me his seat on the bus or subway. Or how many random strangers (always men, never women) have offered to carry my luggage for me up the subway stairs. Women never stop to help! It's almost always the men.

While it may not be as visual as throwing on armor and going to battle to defend women's virtues or jousting wearing women's scarves wound around their necks, or even penning poetic sonnets... chevaliers are still alive and well amongst our modern day society, spreading chivalry wherever they go.

Keeping it steamy in 90 degree NYC humidity,

Lo