In honor of Udgewink, I am re-posting this from two years ago. Udgewink was the first person I didn’t know who commented on my blog (I was on blogger then). We keep up with each other’s blogs. I even got him a piece of orange fabric from The Gate’s in Central Park. He thanked me with a delightful package of European chocolate.

A blogger in Stuttgart has been reading Smartmom’s blog. As far as she
knows he’s the only person in Europe who actually reads Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn. He’s certainly the only European ever to leave a comment:

Hey
Smartmom, just wanted to say a quick "hello, yes, there is somebody out
here" and we are listening. I like your writing, especially your knack
for picking good anonyms. You could offer that as a service!

And yes, I know and love "next blog." I spend far too much time in the blogger universe.

Smartmom visits the blogger from Stuttgart on a regular basis(udgewink.blogspot.com)
He writes nicely and seems to have a lyrical and eccentric take on the
world. In his blogger profile, he lists favorite movies (To Have and Have Not, Apocalypse Now, Stardust Memories), books (The Great Gatsby, Proust, The Alexandria Quartet) and music (Steve Reich, Sam Cooke, Brian Eno and Robert Johnson).

Smartmom is fascinated to learn how Udge discovered OTBKB
in the first place. There are apparently tens of thousands of blogs on
Blogspot. Clearly, Udge spends a good deal of time browsing the Blog
Universe. Smartmom has also done a bit too much exploring herself and
has discovered that there’s mostly crap out there. But Udge is
different — he seems to have interesting things to say.

Recently, before Udge went on vacation to Venice, he wrote a few words about that city:

I’m
off to Venice (and I don’t mean California), call it my summer holiday.
Seven whole days in the Pearl of the Adriatic (well, OK, two of them
spent mostly on trains) sucking down the Campari Soda and the Dolce
Vita in dizzying doses. Oh, and not to forget the cappucino, and the
restaurants. Ah, and the beach at the Lido. And the Biennale, of
course. Architecture this year, can’t be helped.

I love Venice.
I’ve been there almost every year since moving to Europe twenty-seven
years ago. At a dinner party recently, a pretentious Parisian poseur
proclaimed that one cannot "love" Venice, no no, the city is so
terribly touristic and those tourists are such awful people (meaning:
not like us). But he was wearing yellow shoes and no socks, so we may
safely discount his opinion.

Smartmom admires that city as well and swiftly sent Udge a response:

I
have always had a rather sentimental feeling for Venice because I was
conceived there. Yes, it’s true, my parents lived there for a few
months many (I won’t say exactly how many) years ago. In 1990 when my
husband and I visited there I just fell in love with the place as I
knew I would. You can tell that poseur with the yellow shoes to stay in
Paris and leave Venice for those who deserve it. And those who began
life there.

To which he responded:

Being conceived in Venice has a certain cachet which even Brooklyn cannot top. You clearly chose your parents well.

In a post called "Starry Morning," Udge wrote poetically about the change of seasons in Stuttgart:

Ezra Pound said it best:

Winter is icumen in
Lhude sing Goddam!
Raineth drop, and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm!

The
most obvious sign of impending winter is the darkness. As I began
blogging, the sun would be shining brightly at this time of day. This
morning, the sky is full of stars: Orion hangs low over the drugstore
on the corner.

Talk about lofty — he even quoted Ezra
Pound. Smartmom is quite impressed. Clearly, there’s a qualitative
difference between Udge and many other bloggers on Blogspot. Udge’s
post inspired Smartmom to write her own (more pedestrian) reflection on
the coming of winter in Brooklyn which she sent Udge’s way:

The
mornings are dark in Brooklyn these days. Steam hisses up the radiators
to our apartment as we pull our blankets up to our chins feeling cold
and not much like getting out of bed. We walk the kids to school
wrapped in long-forgotten coats, even gloves. None of us are pleased to
admit that winter is close at hand, that life is bringing us something
new. Soon we will get out the bag of winter hats, the scarves. We
wonder if this winter will be as fierce as last — a string of urban
blizzards in January and February.

This Sunday or the next we
will set our clocks back. Fall Back, as they say. And we must accept
the changing of the seasons, the passing of time, the fact that even we
are aging. Saw the leaves yesterday driving upstate to see old friends.
The patterns of red, orange, yellow and green delighted us as we sped
up the New York State Thruway.

–written in October 2004