Stylin' Aslan's Mane
In her review of the new Narnia illustrations, I'd say Jessica Crispin gets it right.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Kitchen Tech.
In preparation for my older sister’s baby shower this Sunday, I’ve been envisioning possible dishes and recipes: a fruit salad of blackberries and fresh pepper, mini-lemon cakes and smoked salmon canapes, and even a fussy, flaky biscuit recipe I once made that calls for frozen, stamp-sized pieces of butter to be pressed one by one between thumb and forefinger.
Food has also been figuring into my research lately. (It's a rough life, I tell ya.) I’m preparing a paper on 19th century American mourning rituals for a conference this fall, and I've let the cultural net lazily drift to include Victorian shopping, reading, eating and just about every other ritualized 19th century activity I can think of. Everything I've read this summer about early American cooking discusses the changes mass production brought to the kitchen. The marketplace of the late 1800’s was flooded with more home goods than any cook really knew what to do with. Housewives of the previous century would have ordered select iron utensils from the local blacksmith, but a new wealth of factory-made shiny peelers, trimmers, and graters promised to simplify the Victorian woman's work and make her kitchen sassy and modern.
Some of these products came with names that just beg to be read aloud:
Heads and eyes, shakers’ swifts, beefsteak pounders, faucets and bungstarts, bootjacks and leg-resters, salt and spit-boxes, Chinese swings, Chinese punk in boxes, sillabub-sticks, oven peels, allblaze-pans, ice cream pagodas, paste jaggers and cutters. (The World of Antiques of Victorian America).
I don't know what they are either, but I want them.
My own grandmother, like her Victorian mother before her, was concerned with culinary correctness and the use of appropriate dishes and utensils. Her cabinets boasted cups for soft boiled eggs and fine china cups for our milky, sweet Earl Grey. At the end of dinner she'd open a rectangular box of Borden’s Neapolitan ice cream, overturn the brick onto a gilded platter and slice off servings for her rows of impatient grandchildren). When I was little, I saw this refinement as a natural expression of her gentle and decorous love for us. In studying Victorian culture I better see the threads that connect this way of life to one that thrived in dining rooms a century before.
Now a word about Victorian food molds. As someone who has never really seen the point of jello, I was fascinated to discover the Victorian rage for these odd metal structures. At the height of their vogue, they were regularly stuffed with jellied veggies, meats, and fruit and overturned onto serving plates (the ancestor of my grandmother's ice cream brick). Cooks embraced these food-contouring devices so zealously that a fancy dinner may well have featured all three courses— appetizer, entree, and dessert—served in molds. While Victorian etiquette manuals warned against such basely sensual displays as remarking on the tastiness of the meal, it was thought perfectly acceptable to marvel at the sculptural heights of the dessert jelly (or, for that matter, the appetizer, the salad, or the entree jellies).
Writing this, it occurs to me that by reducing many different foods to a single texture, the mold represented a very specific way of flaunting abundance. The diet of frontiersmen and early American pioneers rested on one key task— deriving as many recipes as possible from a single food: corn. Corn cakes, popped corn, corn bread, etc. The mold goes in the other direction, flaunting plenitude by homogenizing it into smooth, wobbly uniform shapes.
What would 19th century cooks have thought about this great old American recipe?
“Indian Pudding”
From The Plimouth Colony Cookbook (1964), a collection of 17th and 18th century cooking lore
Take the mornings milk and throw into it as much corn meal as you hold in the palm of your hand. Let the molasses drip in as you sing “Nearer My God to Thee,’ but sing two verses in cold weather.
I have no access to “mornings milk," but I like the idea of timing recipes by song. The closest I can recall to this is singing all the verses of “American Pie” while doing dishes with Em back in the day!
In preparation for my older sister’s baby shower this Sunday, I’ve been envisioning possible dishes and recipes: a fruit salad of blackberries and fresh pepper, mini-lemon cakes and smoked salmon canapes, and even a fussy, flaky biscuit recipe I once made that calls for frozen, stamp-sized pieces of butter to be pressed one by one between thumb and forefinger.
Food has also been figuring into my research lately. (It's a rough life, I tell ya.) I’m preparing a paper on 19th century American mourning rituals for a conference this fall, and I've let the cultural net lazily drift to include Victorian shopping, reading, eating and just about every other ritualized 19th century activity I can think of. Everything I've read this summer about early American cooking discusses the changes mass production brought to the kitchen. The marketplace of the late 1800’s was flooded with more home goods than any cook really knew what to do with. Housewives of the previous century would have ordered select iron utensils from the local blacksmith, but a new wealth of factory-made shiny peelers, trimmers, and graters promised to simplify the Victorian woman's work and make her kitchen sassy and modern.
Some of these products came with names that just beg to be read aloud:
Heads and eyes, shakers’ swifts, beefsteak pounders, faucets and bungstarts, bootjacks and leg-resters, salt and spit-boxes, Chinese swings, Chinese punk in boxes, sillabub-sticks, oven peels, allblaze-pans, ice cream pagodas, paste jaggers and cutters. (The World of Antiques of Victorian America).
I don't know what they are either, but I want them.
My own grandmother, like her Victorian mother before her, was concerned with culinary correctness and the use of appropriate dishes and utensils. Her cabinets boasted cups for soft boiled eggs and fine china cups for our milky, sweet Earl Grey. At the end of dinner she'd open a rectangular box of Borden’s Neapolitan ice cream, overturn the brick onto a gilded platter and slice off servings for her rows of impatient grandchildren). When I was little, I saw this refinement as a natural expression of her gentle and decorous love for us. In studying Victorian culture I better see the threads that connect this way of life to one that thrived in dining rooms a century before.
Now a word about Victorian food molds. As someone who has never really seen the point of jello, I was fascinated to discover the Victorian rage for these odd metal structures. At the height of their vogue, they were regularly stuffed with jellied veggies, meats, and fruit and overturned onto serving plates (the ancestor of my grandmother's ice cream brick). Cooks embraced these food-contouring devices so zealously that a fancy dinner may well have featured all three courses— appetizer, entree, and dessert—served in molds. While Victorian etiquette manuals warned against such basely sensual displays as remarking on the tastiness of the meal, it was thought perfectly acceptable to marvel at the sculptural heights of the dessert jelly (or, for that matter, the appetizer, the salad, or the entree jellies).
Writing this, it occurs to me that by reducing many different foods to a single texture, the mold represented a very specific way of flaunting abundance. The diet of frontiersmen and early American pioneers rested on one key task— deriving as many recipes as possible from a single food: corn. Corn cakes, popped corn, corn bread, etc. The mold goes in the other direction, flaunting plenitude by homogenizing it into smooth, wobbly uniform shapes.
What would 19th century cooks have thought about this great old American recipe?
“Indian Pudding”
From The Plimouth Colony Cookbook (1964), a collection of 17th and 18th century cooking lore
Take the mornings milk and throw into it as much corn meal as you hold in the palm of your hand. Let the molasses drip in as you sing “Nearer My God to Thee,’ but sing two verses in cold weather.
I have no access to “mornings milk," but I like the idea of timing recipes by song. The closest I can recall to this is singing all the verses of “American Pie” while doing dishes with Em back in the day!
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Funny Little House in the Big Woods
I decided a month ago or so that I needed to hide out in the woods for a few days. Not to escape the law, do yoga, or anything like that. I just felt, like my fellow poseur Thoreau, that I’d gone too long without laying eyes on a woodland trail. But sifting through dozens of Adirondack rental websites just left me faintly depressed. It’s an unfortunate truth that people who own vacation properties tend to be very aware of their value (either that, or they considerably overestimate them). It’s a rare thing to find an owner who thinks, “You know, I could charge market rate for my amazing mountaintop bungalo, but you know what? I’ll just ask $12 a night. No, I like the sound of $10 better. It’s a nice, tidy, round sort of number. Let’s go with that.” Maybe there are people like that, but they don’t live in the state of New York.
But it’s more than just the prices. The presentation at most hotels, and even budget B&B’s and cottage rentals feel too self-conscious. The websites promise and purr about serenity. From the potpourri to the towels, you are guaranteed to love it. And while you are there, you obligingly gush about how great the place is, and usually that gushing is in direct proportion to how much you're forking over.
Then I discovered this cool cabin. The website made no extravagant promises. It didn’t call to me by my given name or sing out in velvety tones. In fact, with its manic fonts, it reminded me of the side of a Dr. Bronner’s soap bottle. So of course we had to take it.
It’s up in the Adirondacks Mountains, five hours north, where the time between towns starts to stretch. There aren't many cars passing, and the mountains perform that slow dance with the highway, rising directly ahead and then stepping aside just in time to let you pass. With the windows down, we exclaimed several times about how good the air smelled. I do this without fail whenever I set foot outside New York. I even started to do it in Newark recently before I caught myself! We ate pistachios and and listened to a reggae mix that Steve gave us for our Jamaica trip last year. The music clashed with the geography, but I kind of liked that. Hey, Adirondacks. Meet Bob Marley.
When we were nearing our destination, I dug out the detailed directions that had been provided for “checking in” to our cabin. We were to turn off the quiet highway onto the owner’s property—a swath of land about as big as Central Park and home to two mountains, a handful of rental cabins, including the one where he resides with his dog and the one that would be ours for a few days. We were then to pull up to a small, rusty trailer by the roadside where we would locate a telephone, which we would use to call the owner and receive further instructions. Finally, we were to drop off our bags at our cabin and then head over to the owner’s place to check-in. It was fun—like wilderness espionage.
When we were too slow to perform that last step (heading over to the owner's cabin), he came to us. He was somehow just what I had expected—a man who had transcended the pettiness of mirrors and sworn off the society of shampoo. With one sleeve rolled up and other down and bellowing for his sociable golden retriever to get back in the car, he squinted into a small stack of 3X5 card and proceeded to grumble the instructions for lighting the gas lights, locating the outhouse (no!), and otherwise laying to rest our city slicker ways for a few days. Then he eyed us doubtfully and demanded whether we had any questions. We didn't.
Later that day, Justin was looking over the bookshelves in our cabin (there were several) and noticed a narrow yellow spine bearing the owner’s name. It was a book of his own poetry, dedicated to his two daughters, who were depicted in a photo on the first page as two grinning teenagers. I steeled myself for the poems, but they turned out to be good— melancholy and prosy. They revealed that the owner had spent his early years in Manhattan. There was also a blunt publisher’s note on the flap explaining that the book was priced at just $5 because readers shouldn’t be expected to pay $12 for a book by someone they aren’t sure about. Deeply impressed by this logic (and pretty sure it was written by the author himself), I resolved to leave a five dollar bill on the kitchen table the next day and take the book when we left.
But for some reason, which I can’t seem to pinpoint, I didn’t end up doing this. Maybe I was embarrassed to claim I had been reading the man’s poems, even though he was so obviously inviting us to do just that. Or maybe I was afraid that they wouldn’t stand up if I brought them back into my world and put the book side by side with my other books. Or maybe—I swear this will be the last maybe—I was disappointed to learn that the owner is an ex-New Yorker. I had expected his poems to be folksy knock-offs of “Mending Wall” and “Apple Picking.” Instead, they suggested that he was someone who had led different lives, who had ended up in the woods not simply by birth or romantic accident, but by choice.
Later when the owner told us that the land on which our cabins stood was the size of Central Park, I was pulled again into that inevitable comparison of Home and Away. I imagined the mountainous Adirondacks property going head-to-head with that orderly park in the middle of Manhattan. I don't have to tell you who'd win.
I decided a month ago or so that I needed to hide out in the woods for a few days. Not to escape the law, do yoga, or anything like that. I just felt, like my fellow poseur Thoreau, that I’d gone too long without laying eyes on a woodland trail. But sifting through dozens of Adirondack rental websites just left me faintly depressed. It’s an unfortunate truth that people who own vacation properties tend to be very aware of their value (either that, or they considerably overestimate them). It’s a rare thing to find an owner who thinks, “You know, I could charge market rate for my amazing mountaintop bungalo, but you know what? I’ll just ask $12 a night. No, I like the sound of $10 better. It’s a nice, tidy, round sort of number. Let’s go with that.” Maybe there are people like that, but they don’t live in the state of New York.
But it’s more than just the prices. The presentation at most hotels, and even budget B&B’s and cottage rentals feel too self-conscious. The websites promise and purr about serenity. From the potpourri to the towels, you are guaranteed to love it. And while you are there, you obligingly gush about how great the place is, and usually that gushing is in direct proportion to how much you're forking over.
Then I discovered this cool cabin. The website made no extravagant promises. It didn’t call to me by my given name or sing out in velvety tones. In fact, with its manic fonts, it reminded me of the side of a Dr. Bronner’s soap bottle. So of course we had to take it.
It’s up in the Adirondacks Mountains, five hours north, where the time between towns starts to stretch. There aren't many cars passing, and the mountains perform that slow dance with the highway, rising directly ahead and then stepping aside just in time to let you pass. With the windows down, we exclaimed several times about how good the air smelled. I do this without fail whenever I set foot outside New York. I even started to do it in Newark recently before I caught myself! We ate pistachios and and listened to a reggae mix that Steve gave us for our Jamaica trip last year. The music clashed with the geography, but I kind of liked that. Hey, Adirondacks. Meet Bob Marley.
When we were nearing our destination, I dug out the detailed directions that had been provided for “checking in” to our cabin. We were to turn off the quiet highway onto the owner’s property—a swath of land about as big as Central Park and home to two mountains, a handful of rental cabins, including the one where he resides with his dog and the one that would be ours for a few days. We were then to pull up to a small, rusty trailer by the roadside where we would locate a telephone, which we would use to call the owner and receive further instructions. Finally, we were to drop off our bags at our cabin and then head over to the owner’s place to check-in. It was fun—like wilderness espionage.
When we were too slow to perform that last step (heading over to the owner's cabin), he came to us. He was somehow just what I had expected—a man who had transcended the pettiness of mirrors and sworn off the society of shampoo. With one sleeve rolled up and other down and bellowing for his sociable golden retriever to get back in the car, he squinted into a small stack of 3X5 card and proceeded to grumble the instructions for lighting the gas lights, locating the outhouse (no!), and otherwise laying to rest our city slicker ways for a few days. Then he eyed us doubtfully and demanded whether we had any questions. We didn't.
Later that day, Justin was looking over the bookshelves in our cabin (there were several) and noticed a narrow yellow spine bearing the owner’s name. It was a book of his own poetry, dedicated to his two daughters, who were depicted in a photo on the first page as two grinning teenagers. I steeled myself for the poems, but they turned out to be good— melancholy and prosy. They revealed that the owner had spent his early years in Manhattan. There was also a blunt publisher’s note on the flap explaining that the book was priced at just $5 because readers shouldn’t be expected to pay $12 for a book by someone they aren’t sure about. Deeply impressed by this logic (and pretty sure it was written by the author himself), I resolved to leave a five dollar bill on the kitchen table the next day and take the book when we left.
But for some reason, which I can’t seem to pinpoint, I didn’t end up doing this. Maybe I was embarrassed to claim I had been reading the man’s poems, even though he was so obviously inviting us to do just that. Or maybe I was afraid that they wouldn’t stand up if I brought them back into my world and put the book side by side with my other books. Or maybe—I swear this will be the last maybe—I was disappointed to learn that the owner is an ex-New Yorker. I had expected his poems to be folksy knock-offs of “Mending Wall” and “Apple Picking.” Instead, they suggested that he was someone who had led different lives, who had ended up in the woods not simply by birth or romantic accident, but by choice.
Later when the owner told us that the land on which our cabins stood was the size of Central Park, I was pulled again into that inevitable comparison of Home and Away. I imagined the mountainous Adirondacks property going head-to-head with that orderly park in the middle of Manhattan. I don't have to tell you who'd win.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Look Ma, I edited Wikipedia!
I knocked boldly at the gates of the Wiki gods, and they let me in. Or, more accurately, I exercised my democratic right to make stuff up, take stuff out and potentially alter the research papers of legions of undergraduates (more another day on how freshmen looove to quote Wikipedia and assume their professors are incapable of using google).
Anyway, I changed an entry. And it felt very good. You should try it sometime.
I was checking out a page on the little known 19th century journalist Nelly Bly and noticed that preceding a section on Bly's career were three mystifying sentences: "Doughnuts were popular in Bly's day. She was a reporter. So she reported about doughnuts." Despite their compelling, syllogistic reasoning, the sentences had no relationship to the paragraph that followed, nor to anything I know about Bly's career (as a journalist she went undercover to expose conditions at a mental hospital, and was not, to the best of my knowledge, a doughnut reporter. But it gives me shivers of happiness even to imagine that such a career might exist).
Because the sentences were so obviously a prank, I clicked the edit button and deleted them. It was very satisfying and took all of ten seconds. Now I'm a little sad that they're gone, but I'm not about to put them back in. Take a look at the entry. The sentences used to appear directly under the section head, "Asylum expose." That section (now freshly delivered of doughnut references) still needs work. It appears to be missing a transition sentence or two; more than likely they were deleted by The Vandal.
What kind of doughnuts did Bly investigate?
This morning I was still wondering why anyone would bother to "doughnut bomb" an obscure Wikipedia page, and I just so happened to click over to my favorite food blog and discovered that Friday was--drum roll--National Doughnut Day!
Of course! What better way to celebrate the day than by sprinkling (I can't help it-- I'm picturing rainbow sprinkles) random doughnut references all over Wikipedia.
Actually, I can think of one way, and it usually sets you back 50 cents and 300 odd calories. Yum.
I knocked boldly at the gates of the Wiki gods, and they let me in. Or, more accurately, I exercised my democratic right to make stuff up, take stuff out and potentially alter the research papers of legions of undergraduates (more another day on how freshmen looove to quote Wikipedia and assume their professors are incapable of using google).
Anyway, I changed an entry. And it felt very good. You should try it sometime.
I was checking out a page on the little known 19th century journalist Nelly Bly and noticed that preceding a section on Bly's career were three mystifying sentences: "Doughnuts were popular in Bly's day. She was a reporter. So she reported about doughnuts." Despite their compelling, syllogistic reasoning, the sentences had no relationship to the paragraph that followed, nor to anything I know about Bly's career (as a journalist she went undercover to expose conditions at a mental hospital, and was not, to the best of my knowledge, a doughnut reporter. But it gives me shivers of happiness even to imagine that such a career might exist).
Because the sentences were so obviously a prank, I clicked the edit button and deleted them. It was very satisfying and took all of ten seconds. Now I'm a little sad that they're gone, but I'm not about to put them back in. Take a look at the entry. The sentences used to appear directly under the section head, "Asylum expose." That section (now freshly delivered of doughnut references) still needs work. It appears to be missing a transition sentence or two; more than likely they were deleted by The Vandal.
What kind of doughnuts did Bly investigate?
This morning I was still wondering why anyone would bother to "doughnut bomb" an obscure Wikipedia page, and I just so happened to click over to my favorite food blog and discovered that Friday was--drum roll--National Doughnut Day!
Of course! What better way to celebrate the day than by sprinkling (I can't help it-- I'm picturing rainbow sprinkles) random doughnut references all over Wikipedia.
Actually, I can think of one way, and it usually sets you back 50 cents and 300 odd calories. Yum.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
I'm done my semester!
So: apropos of nothing (since when does anything on a blog need to be apropos of anything?)-- how about a little post about music?
1. Here are the songs that saw me through a marathon of paper writing. Each one deserves special thanks, and if you haven't met them yet, you should. Thanks, friends.
Gravity, The Handsome Family
So Much Wine, The Handsome Family
Loves Comes to Me, Bonnie Prince Billy
By My Car, My Morning Jacket
Monster Ballads, Josh Ritter
Belle Star, Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris
Black Wave/ Bad Vibrations, The Arcade Fire
Hard to Find, American Analog Set
Low, Cracker
Cold Cold Water, Mirah
She's a Jar, Wilco
Baby in Two, Pernice Brothers
Our Anniversary, Smog
Moonshiner, Cat Power
Heart of Gold, Cash
2. Here are the far cooler songs that will be the soundtrack of my summer:
Brother John
Good King Wenceslas
Tisket, a Tasket
Mexican Hat Dance
Cockles and Mussles
On Top of Old Smoky
A Friend Like You!
Thumbs on C!
Rockin' Intervals
That's right. I'm teaching myself to play piano using this book. Look past the aristocratic cover-- it's kind, welcoming and encouraging, and the first lesson even contains a diagram with arrows explaining--were you aware of this?-- that keys on the right side of the keyboard create progressively higher sounds and notes on the left produce lower sounds. Wild!
3. Check this enlightening article at the Times about musicians and blogging. I heard a radio interview not long ago with the chap who's discussed at the top of the piece. His music isn't exactly my cup of tea, but he does have a very funny song about zombies.
4. Do u any music recommendations for me?
So: apropos of nothing (since when does anything on a blog need to be apropos of anything?)-- how about a little post about music?
1. Here are the songs that saw me through a marathon of paper writing. Each one deserves special thanks, and if you haven't met them yet, you should. Thanks, friends.
Gravity, The Handsome Family
So Much Wine, The Handsome Family
Loves Comes to Me, Bonnie Prince Billy
By My Car, My Morning Jacket
Monster Ballads, Josh Ritter
Belle Star, Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris
Black Wave/ Bad Vibrations, The Arcade Fire
Hard to Find, American Analog Set
Low, Cracker
Cold Cold Water, Mirah
She's a Jar, Wilco
Baby in Two, Pernice Brothers
Our Anniversary, Smog
Moonshiner, Cat Power
Heart of Gold, Cash
2. Here are the far cooler songs that will be the soundtrack of my summer:
Brother John
Good King Wenceslas
Tisket, a Tasket
Mexican Hat Dance
Cockles and Mussles
On Top of Old Smoky
A Friend Like You!
Thumbs on C!
Rockin' Intervals
That's right. I'm teaching myself to play piano using this book. Look past the aristocratic cover-- it's kind, welcoming and encouraging, and the first lesson even contains a diagram with arrows explaining--were you aware of this?-- that keys on the right side of the keyboard create progressively higher sounds and notes on the left produce lower sounds. Wild!
3. Check this enlightening article at the Times about musicians and blogging. I heard a radio interview not long ago with the chap who's discussed at the top of the piece. His music isn't exactly my cup of tea, but he does have a very funny song about zombies.
4. Do u any music recommendations for me?
Sunday, May 06, 2007
Skype Rhymes with Hype. But it's actually cool.
Ever notice that all the good user names are gone? Apparently, someone else using Skype also likes the name “Fennoscandia.”
Skype video, by the way, is weird. That’s my assessment to all you who have probably been using it happily and unfazedly for years now. But it is weird. When you’re finished staring at your husband’s pleasing, albeit grainy face (so far he’s the only person I’ve called, so I can’t imagine anyone else there) and the call ends, it’s so decisive. The face just zaps from the screen—poof. Fortunately, he was in the other room alive and well with his laptop during the call and was content that it all went according to plan, and strode out into the kitchen in a ho-hum-I-just-set-up-some-rad-new-technology-thing-and-it-works sort of way. Yeah, future!
Ever notice that all the good user names are gone? Apparently, someone else using Skype also likes the name “Fennoscandia.”
Skype video, by the way, is weird. That’s my assessment to all you who have probably been using it happily and unfazedly for years now. But it is weird. When you’re finished staring at your husband’s pleasing, albeit grainy face (so far he’s the only person I’ve called, so I can’t imagine anyone else there) and the call ends, it’s so decisive. The face just zaps from the screen—poof. Fortunately, he was in the other room alive and well with his laptop during the call and was content that it all went according to plan, and strode out into the kitchen in a ho-hum-I-just-set-up-some-rad-new-technology-thing-and-it-works sort of way. Yeah, future!
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
"Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard"
I don't know if it's just my inordinate stress level these days (even car commercials are seeming especially moving), but this New York Times article about ambitious high school students nearly made me cry.
I don't know if it's just my inordinate stress level these days (even car commercials are seeming especially moving), but this New York Times article about ambitious high school students nearly made me cry.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Anti-epic poems
Wars, calamity, ships a-sailin', Trojan horses, Grendel's mom, songs of yourself, cyclopses, burning cities, swords.
Ho-hum.
Don't get me wrong. Big poems on big themes are wonderful. But sometimes don't you just have a taste for a poem about something very small? Like a twig? A freckle? Or a cat's paw? How about an atom?
A fellow student just turned me on to these great atom-themed poems by Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673):
What Atomes Make a Dropsie
WHen Atomes round do meet, joyne in one Ball,
Then they swell high, and grow Hydropicall.
Thus joyning they come strong, so powerfull grow,
All other Atomes they do overflow.
The joyning of severall Figur'd Atomes make other Figures.
Wars, calamity, ships a-sailin', Trojan horses, Grendel's mom, songs of yourself, cyclopses, burning cities, swords.
Ho-hum.
Don't get me wrong. Big poems on big themes are wonderful. But sometimes don't you just have a taste for a poem about something very small? Like a twig? A freckle? Or a cat's paw? How about an atom?
A fellow student just turned me on to these great atom-themed poems by Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673):
What Atomes Make a Dropsie
WHen Atomes round do meet, joyne in one Ball,
Then they swell high, and grow Hydropicall.
Thus joyning they come strong, so powerfull grow,
All other Atomes they do overflow.
The joyning of severall Figur'd Atomes make other Figures.
Severall Figur'd Atomes well agreeing,
When joyn'd, do give another Figure being.
For as those Figures joyned, severall waies,
The Fabrick of each severall Creature raise.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Smokin’ Tomato Sauce
Justin is a cautious, yet deliberate cook. On the rare occasion that he makes dinner, all the clocks seem to grind to a halt as he measures and slices, tests and adds. Since I do most of the cooking, I have become very proficient in the quick meal. When I’m making something to eat, especially if it’s just for me, salad greens fly every which way, a pan of olive oil is invariably sputtering in the background, anticipating the burst and pop of a handful of mushrooms. One of the cats is likely dashing around the house, batting at a wayward green bean or redskin potato, while the other is lapping noisily from the faucet, baptizing the dirty dishes with water. I actually like the chaos and rush. I also do love to slow cook, but I know the difference between a weekday meal and a weekend one. Under pressure, I can whip up a breakfast burrito in four minutes flat and throw together a salad in seven (including homemade tahini dressing). Then again, on a Saturday, I like to shove my books off the counter and happily spend an hour slowly nestling layers of lasagna into a baking dish, listening to whatever happens to be wafting from NPR.
The other night I got home from my class and discovered Justin standing over the stove quietly stirring a pot of tomato sauce. He takes himself very seriously when he cooks and won’t abide uninvited sampling or cheerfulness. If I’m too upbeat or happen to burst into song--perhaps an innocent line or two from a Beyonce song that was blaring at gym that morning?—heaven help me, he narrows his eyes and returns to the slow, maestro-like work of stirring. Well, the other night, I took off my coat and threw down my bag, and he condescended to offer me a bite. The spoonful of tomato sauce looked like any ordinary marinara, but I was startled to discover one of the tastiest red sauces I’ve encountered in a long time—and that includes the sauces at Roberto’s, Frank, Palma, and some of the other beloved Italian restaurants in the city.
I managed to convince him to reveal the recipe. I think I'll call it...
Belgian Red Sauce (Come on, isn’t that better than “Flemish Sauce"?)
28 oz can Italian Style Peeled Plum Shaped Tomatoes in Juice (We love Tuttorosso brand)
good olive oil
sea salt
3 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp. truffle oil
1/4 cup sweet vermouth (or other white wine)
handful of yellow foot (or other variety) mushrooms
Add olive oil, tomatoes, garlic and salt to a medium heat saucepan. Cut tomatoes with a spoon or kitchen scissors into small chunks. Simmer for a few minutes and add truffle oil and vermouth. In a separate medium heat pan, warm olive olive oil and add mushrooms, stirring occasionally until they release any liquid (the amount will depend on the variety of mushroom). Salt and cook until lightly browned, but not crispy. Stir mushrooms into tomato sauce and simmer for a while, until sauce has a pleasant, even consistency.
Justin is a cautious, yet deliberate cook. On the rare occasion that he makes dinner, all the clocks seem to grind to a halt as he measures and slices, tests and adds. Since I do most of the cooking, I have become very proficient in the quick meal. When I’m making something to eat, especially if it’s just for me, salad greens fly every which way, a pan of olive oil is invariably sputtering in the background, anticipating the burst and pop of a handful of mushrooms. One of the cats is likely dashing around the house, batting at a wayward green bean or redskin potato, while the other is lapping noisily from the faucet, baptizing the dirty dishes with water. I actually like the chaos and rush. I also do love to slow cook, but I know the difference between a weekday meal and a weekend one. Under pressure, I can whip up a breakfast burrito in four minutes flat and throw together a salad in seven (including homemade tahini dressing). Then again, on a Saturday, I like to shove my books off the counter and happily spend an hour slowly nestling layers of lasagna into a baking dish, listening to whatever happens to be wafting from NPR.
The other night I got home from my class and discovered Justin standing over the stove quietly stirring a pot of tomato sauce. He takes himself very seriously when he cooks and won’t abide uninvited sampling or cheerfulness. If I’m too upbeat or happen to burst into song--perhaps an innocent line or two from a Beyonce song that was blaring at gym that morning?—heaven help me, he narrows his eyes and returns to the slow, maestro-like work of stirring. Well, the other night, I took off my coat and threw down my bag, and he condescended to offer me a bite. The spoonful of tomato sauce looked like any ordinary marinara, but I was startled to discover one of the tastiest red sauces I’ve encountered in a long time—and that includes the sauces at Roberto’s, Frank, Palma, and some of the other beloved Italian restaurants in the city.
I managed to convince him to reveal the recipe. I think I'll call it...
Belgian Red Sauce (Come on, isn’t that better than “Flemish Sauce"?)
28 oz can Italian Style Peeled Plum Shaped Tomatoes in Juice (We love Tuttorosso brand)
good olive oil
sea salt
3 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp. truffle oil
1/4 cup sweet vermouth (or other white wine)
handful of yellow foot (or other variety) mushrooms
Add olive oil, tomatoes, garlic and salt to a medium heat saucepan. Cut tomatoes with a spoon or kitchen scissors into small chunks. Simmer for a few minutes and add truffle oil and vermouth. In a separate medium heat pan, warm olive olive oil and add mushrooms, stirring occasionally until they release any liquid (the amount will depend on the variety of mushroom). Salt and cook until lightly browned, but not crispy. Stir mushrooms into tomato sauce and simmer for a while, until sauce has a pleasant, even consistency.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
A dark, brainy little thought
I recently heard a physicist discuss the role of unpredictability in science and life. He remarked that someone should do an MRI study in order to determine how the feeling of uncertainty is registered on the brain. His guess is that it is there and that it probably looks a lot like pain.
I've never thought of it this way before, but it makes perfect sense. Uncertainty is a kind a pain.
The trick now is to muse on this rather beautiful, melancholy observation, and not let your mind wander to the fact that it also happens to sound like fab material for a rock ballad.
Pain/Brain...
At least thankfully there isn't much out there that rhymes with "uncertainty."
And just as I type that, I've thought of one: "hurtin' me"
Indeed.
I recently heard a physicist discuss the role of unpredictability in science and life. He remarked that someone should do an MRI study in order to determine how the feeling of uncertainty is registered on the brain. His guess is that it is there and that it probably looks a lot like pain.
I've never thought of it this way before, but it makes perfect sense. Uncertainty is a kind a pain.
The trick now is to muse on this rather beautiful, melancholy observation, and not let your mind wander to the fact that it also happens to sound like fab material for a rock ballad.
Pain/Brain...
At least thankfully there isn't much out there that rhymes with "uncertainty."
And just as I type that, I've thought of one: "hurtin' me"
Indeed.
Friday, March 09, 2007
Back when "Pansy" was a Compliment
[This post is prefaced by a “Nerd Alert.” It's all about flowers, birds, and 19th century book-buying habits. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.]
Greetings and geraniums,
My dear Periwinkles and Zinnias!
Translation: Hey Friends. Fancy meeting you here!
No fooling. That’s me greeting you in flower language. For a fleeting period of history, flower language was real.
Not long ago in my 19th century American poetry class we discussed the immense importance of flowers to Victorian culture. Since it’s just too great to keep to myself, I want to try to reproduce from memory and a smattering of class notes some of that discussion.
We all know that roses mean love, and yellow roses mean something else (I can’t remember what) and that Lilies are for Easter. But, for the Victorians, flowers constituted a veritable language of feeling. Emily Dickinson was known for her extensive herbarium, a collection of pressed flowers, and she frequently mailed poems wrapped in flowers to friends and loved ones. The Victorians linked flowers to specific emotions, and some of the top book sellers of the day were flower anthologies that merged floral poetry and botany. The Lady’s Book of Flowers was typical of the genre, with a format featuring a hand-painted scientific illustration of a flower accompanied by its scientific classification and a poem about the flower. Indicative of their mass appeal, the anthologies featured writers from across the literary spectrum; poems by the mega-poetess of sentiment, Lydia Sigourney, appeared beside "serious" flower verse by such venerables as Edgar Allan Poe.
Besides a floral anthology, a necessary volume in any Victorian library was a floral dictionary, which listed hundreds of flowers, each with a corresponding sentiment.
Some of the definitions are familiar to contemporary ears:
Daisy = innocence
Rose = beauty/love
Some are less obvious:
Honeysuckle = inconstancy
Genetion = death
And some are just weird:
Kingcup= I wish I were rich
Learning the meanings of flowers expanded one’s sentimental range of expression, since the mere mention of a flower could serve as shorthand for a particular feeling. Flower language came in especially handy for writing racy love letters. For instance:
Dear Beloved,
Wormwood can do nothing against the real arcadia of our love! Think, dearest, of the mugwart of our next interview!”
(From The Flowers Personified)
So popular were flowers as stand-ins for human passions that some daring authoresses even went so far as to pen “floral liberation narratives.” These dramatic stories are just about what you'd expect. In one exciting account, a pair of flower sisters determine to leave their dull domestic life and find careers-- related to their floral natures, of course:
“I shall be an author!” said the rose.
“I a trinket vendor,” sighed the daisy.
(From The Flowers Personified)
The Victorian interest in flowers was part of a larger romantic fascination with nature. Books about birds and birding were also popular around mid-century. In fact, the same year Thoreau published his wildly-unpopular-at-the-time volume of ecological meditations, Walden, pop novelist Florence Merriam came out with a novel in the “bird western” genre called Birding on a Bronco. It, by contrast, was a big hit.
Poor Thoreau.
Birdies, flowers, and feelings. That was what grumpy guys like him had to contend with.
[This post is prefaced by a “Nerd Alert.” It's all about flowers, birds, and 19th century book-buying habits. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.]
Greetings and geraniums,
My dear Periwinkles and Zinnias!
Translation: Hey Friends. Fancy meeting you here!
No fooling. That’s me greeting you in flower language. For a fleeting period of history, flower language was real.
Not long ago in my 19th century American poetry class we discussed the immense importance of flowers to Victorian culture. Since it’s just too great to keep to myself, I want to try to reproduce from memory and a smattering of class notes some of that discussion.
We all know that roses mean love, and yellow roses mean something else (I can’t remember what) and that Lilies are for Easter. But, for the Victorians, flowers constituted a veritable language of feeling. Emily Dickinson was known for her extensive herbarium, a collection of pressed flowers, and she frequently mailed poems wrapped in flowers to friends and loved ones. The Victorians linked flowers to specific emotions, and some of the top book sellers of the day were flower anthologies that merged floral poetry and botany. The Lady’s Book of Flowers was typical of the genre, with a format featuring a hand-painted scientific illustration of a flower accompanied by its scientific classification and a poem about the flower. Indicative of their mass appeal, the anthologies featured writers from across the literary spectrum; poems by the mega-poetess of sentiment, Lydia Sigourney, appeared beside "serious" flower verse by such venerables as Edgar Allan Poe.
Besides a floral anthology, a necessary volume in any Victorian library was a floral dictionary, which listed hundreds of flowers, each with a corresponding sentiment.
Some of the definitions are familiar to contemporary ears:
Daisy = innocence
Rose = beauty/love
Some are less obvious:
Honeysuckle = inconstancy
Genetion = death
And some are just weird:
Kingcup= I wish I were rich
Learning the meanings of flowers expanded one’s sentimental range of expression, since the mere mention of a flower could serve as shorthand for a particular feeling. Flower language came in especially handy for writing racy love letters. For instance:Dear Beloved,
Wormwood can do nothing against the real arcadia of our love! Think, dearest, of the mugwart of our next interview!”
(From The Flowers Personified)
So popular were flowers as stand-ins for human passions that some daring authoresses even went so far as to pen “floral liberation narratives.” These dramatic stories are just about what you'd expect. In one exciting account, a pair of flower sisters determine to leave their dull domestic life and find careers-- related to their floral natures, of course:
“I shall be an author!” said the rose.
“I a trinket vendor,” sighed the daisy.
(From The Flowers Personified)
The Victorian interest in flowers was part of a larger romantic fascination with nature. Books about birds and birding were also popular around mid-century. In fact, the same year Thoreau published his wildly-unpopular-at-the-time volume of ecological meditations, Walden, pop novelist Florence Merriam came out with a novel in the “bird western” genre called Birding on a Bronco. It, by contrast, was a big hit.
Poor Thoreau.
Birdies, flowers, and feelings. That was what grumpy guys like him had to contend with.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Spines Realigned
You know how when you were little your stuffed animals used to wait until you'd leave for school to hop down from the shelf and lumber around the room, chatting it up?
For some reason I think of that when I see what this artist does with books. She clusters them into groups, and they quickly make friends, and before they know it they're finishing each others' sentences.
As far as I'm concerned, the coolest thing about this project is that it taps into an issue of great importance for bibliophiles, namely how do books feel about being stacked together, spine to spine. Do they prefer to hang with their own kind, or do they like diversity? Case in point: Overhead, Kate Chopin is rubbing shoulders with Oliver Sacks. Now that should be interesting.
Victor, who told me about the book project, notes that the artist has done other fascinating things, including recording the messages delivered in Morse code from popping popcorn!
Mmm... art.
You know how when you were little your stuffed animals used to wait until you'd leave for school to hop down from the shelf and lumber around the room, chatting it up?
For some reason I think of that when I see what this artist does with books. She clusters them into groups, and they quickly make friends, and before they know it they're finishing each others' sentences.
As far as I'm concerned, the coolest thing about this project is that it taps into an issue of great importance for bibliophiles, namely how do books feel about being stacked together, spine to spine. Do they prefer to hang with their own kind, or do they like diversity? Case in point: Overhead, Kate Chopin is rubbing shoulders with Oliver Sacks. Now that should be interesting.
Victor, who told me about the book project, notes that the artist has done other fascinating things, including recording the messages delivered in Morse code from popping popcorn!
Mmm... art.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Philly tofu steak
So what that I've drastically reduced my meat consumption and I now know more about preparing tofu than any mortal really should. That hasn't changed the fact that I still harbor a faint skepticism of the culture that surrounds vegetarianism. It hints at a certain fussiness--a wish to call attention to oneself for the things one doesn't do, instead of all the exciting things one gleefully undertakes. Another part of me knows that's just snobby crap and has happily exploited the carne deficit in my life to become really good at preparing delectable vegetable dishes (Want to know the secret? It's roasting pretty much everything).
Well, dinner at a vegan restaurant in Philadelphia last weekend pretty much put to rest my ambivalence about meatless eating. Horizons has the trappings you'd expect of a vegan place, including the funky decor. But the food was-- phenomenal.
To start, we ordered flaky empanadas filled with hearts of palm & truffle cream, and a fragrant edamame hummus paired with black sesame crackers. For the entrees, we tried grilled tofu with ginger lime butter, hearts of palm paella, and portabella kebabs. A sassy salt-rimmed margaritini with agave, lime and a little wheel of jalopeno was the perfect liquid accompaniment. It was all so scrumptious I briefly thought about moving to Philly. The money we save in rent could go straight to Horizons.
I've concluded that cooking minus meat can, in the right hands, be a little like writing formal poetry. Constraints that at first seem frustrating can actually lead to wonderful, unexpected results, e.g. edamame hummus.
----
Okay, I've just about had it with winter. With all the hard snow and ice on the ground, the bus ride to campus today was slow, and all the passengers in big puffy jackets jostled around like irritable planets tossed out of orbit. What I need right now is summer, and if that's not possible, then a poem about summer tomatoes. This one by Neruda praises the the simple romance of cooking supper as the guests arrive.
From "Ode to Tomatoes"
we
pour
oil,
essential
child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper
adds
its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism;
it is the wedding
of the day,
parsley
hoists
its flag,
potatoes
bubble vigorously,
the aroma
of the roast
knocks
at the door,
it's time!
come on!
So what that I've drastically reduced my meat consumption and I now know more about preparing tofu than any mortal really should. That hasn't changed the fact that I still harbor a faint skepticism of the culture that surrounds vegetarianism. It hints at a certain fussiness--a wish to call attention to oneself for the things one doesn't do, instead of all the exciting things one gleefully undertakes. Another part of me knows that's just snobby crap and has happily exploited the carne deficit in my life to become really good at preparing delectable vegetable dishes (Want to know the secret? It's roasting pretty much everything).
Well, dinner at a vegan restaurant in Philadelphia last weekend pretty much put to rest my ambivalence about meatless eating. Horizons has the trappings you'd expect of a vegan place, including the funky decor. But the food was-- phenomenal.
To start, we ordered flaky empanadas filled with hearts of palm & truffle cream, and a fragrant edamame hummus paired with black sesame crackers. For the entrees, we tried grilled tofu with ginger lime butter, hearts of palm paella, and portabella kebabs. A sassy salt-rimmed margaritini with agave, lime and a little wheel of jalopeno was the perfect liquid accompaniment. It was all so scrumptious I briefly thought about moving to Philly. The money we save in rent could go straight to Horizons.
I've concluded that cooking minus meat can, in the right hands, be a little like writing formal poetry. Constraints that at first seem frustrating can actually lead to wonderful, unexpected results, e.g. edamame hummus.
----
Okay, I've just about had it with winter. With all the hard snow and ice on the ground, the bus ride to campus today was slow, and all the passengers in big puffy jackets jostled around like irritable planets tossed out of orbit. What I need right now is summer, and if that's not possible, then a poem about summer tomatoes. This one by Neruda praises the the simple romance of cooking supper as the guests arrive.
From "Ode to Tomatoes"
we
pour
oil,
essential
child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper
adds
its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism;
it is the wedding
of the day,
parsley
hoists
its flag,
potatoes
bubble vigorously,
the aroma
of the roast
knocks
at the door,
it's time!
come on!
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Why We have Round Heads
So my latest quest (no, not for the perfect habanero sauce with which to pulverize my tastebuds; that one's ongoing) is to trace the 19th century literature I'm reading to possible source material in much earlier periods. That was the the idea behind my decision to sign up for Early Modern (otherwise known as "Renaissance") Bodies this semester. I feel kind of like an academic tourist in the class, but the material is proving fascinating. I find I can follow it just fine so long as I remember to shelve my modern prejudices, such as my tendency to assume that medicine is a secular discipline. Not so in ye olde days. Respected Medieval anatomy handbooks attributed, say, man's upright stature to his need to be close to the Heavens. Ideas that we assume were meant as metaphors simply weren't.
Since you've no doubt been lately thinking to yourself, "Self, why don't I devote more of my time to reading 17th century anatomy guides?" why not rememdy the situation by checking out this snippet from Helkiah Crooke's 1615 handbook, Microcosmographia. Or a Description of the Body of Man. In this passage Helkiah investigates the many ways that mankind is different from the brutes. One key factor, oddly enough, is the shape of the noggin:
Of all living Creatures, only Man hath a head made into a round and circular forme, as it were turned on a wheele, both that it might be capable to receive a greater quantitie of Braines and less apt to be overtaken with danger either from without or within; as also, for the more ease in mooving and turning about; and lastly, because it was to be the Mansion-house of Reason, that is, the Soule. Now we know, that the Soule was Infused into us from Heaven, which even to our sense is round and circular: Seeing then her heavenly habitation is round before she is infused, it was likewise requisite that her Mansion here below should be orbicular also.
A guy with braines
So my latest quest (no, not for the perfect habanero sauce with which to pulverize my tastebuds; that one's ongoing) is to trace the 19th century literature I'm reading to possible source material in much earlier periods. That was the the idea behind my decision to sign up for Early Modern (otherwise known as "Renaissance") Bodies this semester. I feel kind of like an academic tourist in the class, but the material is proving fascinating. I find I can follow it just fine so long as I remember to shelve my modern prejudices, such as my tendency to assume that medicine is a secular discipline. Not so in ye olde days. Respected Medieval anatomy handbooks attributed, say, man's upright stature to his need to be close to the Heavens. Ideas that we assume were meant as metaphors simply weren't.
Since you've no doubt been lately thinking to yourself, "Self, why don't I devote more of my time to reading 17th century anatomy guides?" why not rememdy the situation by checking out this snippet from Helkiah Crooke's 1615 handbook, Microcosmographia. Or a Description of the Body of Man. In this passage Helkiah investigates the many ways that mankind is different from the brutes. One key factor, oddly enough, is the shape of the noggin:
Of all living Creatures, only Man hath a head made into a round and circular forme, as it were turned on a wheele, both that it might be capable to receive a greater quantitie of Braines and less apt to be overtaken with danger either from without or within; as also, for the more ease in mooving and turning about; and lastly, because it was to be the Mansion-house of Reason, that is, the Soule. Now we know, that the Soule was Infused into us from Heaven, which even to our sense is round and circular: Seeing then her heavenly habitation is round before she is infused, it was likewise requisite that her Mansion here below should be orbicular also.
A guy with braines
Monday, January 15, 2007
Not a “best of 2006” list (barely even a list)
Really just a few movies I’ve seen in the past few weeks. Forgive me, Justin-- films.
Now, Voyager (1942)
Every so often I get on a Bette Davis kick where I first indulge in a little self-pity that I can’t be Bette and then content myself with watching her sly, soft-filter face and grand, emotional monologues. I especially love 1950’s All About Eve, but this movie’s also a good place to start. Davis plays Charlotte, a young woman who evolves from a frumpy daughter to a svelte woman of the world. In one characteristic scene that is definitely not meant be funny, Charlotte’s new beau, unaware that she was once an ugly duckling, studies her family photograph. “Say!” he frowns. “Who's the fat lady with the heavy brow?” “That lady,” gasps Charlotte, spinning away tearfully, "is me!”
The old Charlotte, apparently hideous
Volver, Pedro Almodóvar (2006)
Speaking of drama, nobody does more to whip the passions of women’s lives into such moving, operatic proportions. If the emotions passing across his characters’ faces could be harnessed, they could power a small continent-- and everyone on the continent would be weeping, laughing, and wearing vivid, low-cut blouses.
Little Children, Todd Field (2006)
I almost hesitate to recommend this film, because I don't much like some of the plot, but it’s an improvement on Tom Perrota’s decent novel (how often can you say this about a film?), and the acting and cinematography are extraordinary. Kate Winslet brings her usual, believable beauty, and when the camera pans quietly over a packed community pool and an empty suburban backyard you feel like you're looking through the eyes of a single riveted observer, rather than a cool, omniscient lens. A few minutes in, it was clear that the subject of the story (suburban malaise) would be treated without irony. A big relief.
More generally: We just got a subscription to Wolphin. The first DVD to arrive is, well, a mixed bag: A few excellent shorts, a couple of oddballs and more than one genuine dud. But if you’re interested in checking out short films (oh, these most definitely are films) that nobody one else has seen, I'd say it's well worth subscribing. Either way, be sure to watch the short clip on the website from A Stranger in Her Own City, an excellent documentary about a seventh-grade girl from Yemen who refuses to wear a veil.
So... I still have a little time before the new semester descends, avalanche-style. I want to squeaze in a few more Netflix and theatre trips, so pass along your recommendations! Then it's back to books.
Really just a few movies I’ve seen in the past few weeks. Forgive me, Justin-- films.
Now, Voyager (1942)
Every so often I get on a Bette Davis kick where I first indulge in a little self-pity that I can’t be Bette and then content myself with watching her sly, soft-filter face and grand, emotional monologues. I especially love 1950’s All About Eve, but this movie’s also a good place to start. Davis plays Charlotte, a young woman who evolves from a frumpy daughter to a svelte woman of the world. In one characteristic scene that is definitely not meant be funny, Charlotte’s new beau, unaware that she was once an ugly duckling, studies her family photograph. “Say!” he frowns. “Who's the fat lady with the heavy brow?” “That lady,” gasps Charlotte, spinning away tearfully, "is me!”
The old Charlotte, apparently hideous
Volver, Pedro Almodóvar (2006)
Speaking of drama, nobody does more to whip the passions of women’s lives into such moving, operatic proportions. If the emotions passing across his characters’ faces could be harnessed, they could power a small continent-- and everyone on the continent would be weeping, laughing, and wearing vivid, low-cut blouses.
Little Children, Todd Field (2006)
I almost hesitate to recommend this film, because I don't much like some of the plot, but it’s an improvement on Tom Perrota’s decent novel (how often can you say this about a film?), and the acting and cinematography are extraordinary. Kate Winslet brings her usual, believable beauty, and when the camera pans quietly over a packed community pool and an empty suburban backyard you feel like you're looking through the eyes of a single riveted observer, rather than a cool, omniscient lens. A few minutes in, it was clear that the subject of the story (suburban malaise) would be treated without irony. A big relief.
More generally: We just got a subscription to Wolphin. The first DVD to arrive is, well, a mixed bag: A few excellent shorts, a couple of oddballs and more than one genuine dud. But if you’re interested in checking out short films (oh, these most definitely are films) that nobody one else has seen, I'd say it's well worth subscribing. Either way, be sure to watch the short clip on the website from A Stranger in Her Own City, an excellent documentary about a seventh-grade girl from Yemen who refuses to wear a veil.
So... I still have a little time before the new semester descends, avalanche-style. I want to squeaze in a few more Netflix and theatre trips, so pass along your recommendations! Then it's back to books.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Casper & Ferdinand
Alas, this is not the name of a recent Merchant Ivory release, nor of a storybook ghost and his Portuguese explorer friend. No, these are the names of two small boys who happened to be attending the “Story Hour” at a café on the Upper East Side recently. Coincidentally, it was the same day and the same café where I happened to be enjoying a cup of coffee. I had arrived at the café around 9:45, having put in a long walk looking for the place, and had just sat down with my steaming coffee and opened my laptop. Cold Play was crooning inoffensively on the speakers, and all around gentle students and freelancers were softly clicking away, savoring the free wi-fi.
Little did I know that in mere minutes Story Hour would begin (apparently announced to the entire Metropolitan area at a frequency that only parents and small children can pick up), and New York’s Most Fertile (NYMF) and their bundled offspring would be charging the door. Around 10:15, the café staff went into gear, moving furniture, tossing down colorful blankets, and pouring apple juice into what looked like hundreds of plastic medicine cups. Around 10:30 the front door jangled: an imposing woman with curly hair and an ear-popping voice (The Story-teller, I would learn) strode in, issuing commands: “Let’s have that sofa a little to the left! Where’s my marionette?” Ten minutes later the place was brimming with mothers, nannies, massive strollers and fat toddlers barreling around like drunken sailors. I debated whether to stick it out or run (factors: my coffee was still hot and served in such a nice glass mug, and I had overheard someone said the whole thing would be over in an hour).
Amid my indecision, café employees were shepherding the children and their caretakers into a line, so that the lucky pre-schoolers could receive juice and nametags, and enjoy pointless conversation with the employee distributing said provisions (“And how was your New Year’s Eve, Olaf?” Shuffle, shuffle of snowboots. “I don't know!!”) The front of the line was, of course, inches from where I sat, ruefully staring at my computer screen. And if you’re wondering if I’ve forgotten about the two boys in the title of this post, well here they are: smartly dressed in corduroys, the identical twins of a tall woman in a fur coat. They stepped to the front of the line, and pen poised, the employee asked their names. Their mother placed a bejeweled, proprietary hand atop one of their heads, and trilled--so loudly that I’m sure people in New Jersey could hear-- “Casper and Ferdinand!”
I keep mentally reliving this moment (my brain has important work to do, I tell you), and each time her response is more embellished. Now I’m seeing her in a tiara, tossing back her head and replying, “Why, these lads?! They are none other than Caspah and Fah-dinand!” By tomorrow, she'll probably have some guys with horns on hand to toot as she says their names. And soon red carpets and waving flags will fill the café and all of us humble café patrons will be barred from the free wi-fi and the tempting baked goods until we pay our homage to the young princes... Casper and Ferdinand.
“Alrighty,” says the employee, pen in hand. “Is that Casper with a “K”?
"No," she sniffed. "A 'C'."
Alas, this is not the name of a recent Merchant Ivory release, nor of a storybook ghost and his Portuguese explorer friend. No, these are the names of two small boys who happened to be attending the “Story Hour” at a café on the Upper East Side recently. Coincidentally, it was the same day and the same café where I happened to be enjoying a cup of coffee. I had arrived at the café around 9:45, having put in a long walk looking for the place, and had just sat down with my steaming coffee and opened my laptop. Cold Play was crooning inoffensively on the speakers, and all around gentle students and freelancers were softly clicking away, savoring the free wi-fi.
Little did I know that in mere minutes Story Hour would begin (apparently announced to the entire Metropolitan area at a frequency that only parents and small children can pick up), and New York’s Most Fertile (NYMF) and their bundled offspring would be charging the door. Around 10:15, the café staff went into gear, moving furniture, tossing down colorful blankets, and pouring apple juice into what looked like hundreds of plastic medicine cups. Around 10:30 the front door jangled: an imposing woman with curly hair and an ear-popping voice (The Story-teller, I would learn) strode in, issuing commands: “Let’s have that sofa a little to the left! Where’s my marionette?” Ten minutes later the place was brimming with mothers, nannies, massive strollers and fat toddlers barreling around like drunken sailors. I debated whether to stick it out or run (factors: my coffee was still hot and served in such a nice glass mug, and I had overheard someone said the whole thing would be over in an hour).
Amid my indecision, café employees were shepherding the children and their caretakers into a line, so that the lucky pre-schoolers could receive juice and nametags, and enjoy pointless conversation with the employee distributing said provisions (“And how was your New Year’s Eve, Olaf?” Shuffle, shuffle of snowboots. “I don't know!!”) The front of the line was, of course, inches from where I sat, ruefully staring at my computer screen. And if you’re wondering if I’ve forgotten about the two boys in the title of this post, well here they are: smartly dressed in corduroys, the identical twins of a tall woman in a fur coat. They stepped to the front of the line, and pen poised, the employee asked their names. Their mother placed a bejeweled, proprietary hand atop one of their heads, and trilled--so loudly that I’m sure people in New Jersey could hear-- “Casper and Ferdinand!”
I keep mentally reliving this moment (my brain has important work to do, I tell you), and each time her response is more embellished. Now I’m seeing her in a tiara, tossing back her head and replying, “Why, these lads?! They are none other than Caspah and Fah-dinand!” By tomorrow, she'll probably have some guys with horns on hand to toot as she says their names. And soon red carpets and waving flags will fill the café and all of us humble café patrons will be barred from the free wi-fi and the tempting baked goods until we pay our homage to the young princes... Casper and Ferdinand.
“Alrighty,” says the employee, pen in hand. “Is that Casper with a “K”?
"No," she sniffed. "A 'C'."
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Carmelized Endive & Swordfish
Dinner's made, eaten, and now I just have to say that this recipe is delicious. The fish is tasty enough, but the carmelized endive is buttery, sweet, and melts in your mouth. I can't believe it's taken me all these years to discover it.
Dinner's made, eaten, and now I just have to say that this recipe is delicious. The fish is tasty enough, but the carmelized endive is buttery, sweet, and melts in your mouth. I can't believe it's taken me all these years to discover it.
Kind of Blue
This method of photo processing may look otherwordly, but Steph claims that cyanotypes are actually easy to make. In fact, you could whip one up right now, if only you had a few vials of green ferric ammonium citrate (insert evil scientist laugh) and some other goodies lying around. What you’re looking at is an "excerpted" version of one of Steph's very lovely pieces (Sorry, Ste. One day I'll learn how to fit large pages into my scanner. Baby steps, baby steps).
This method of photo processing may look otherwordly, but Steph claims that cyanotypes are actually easy to make. In fact, you could whip one up right now, if only you had a few vials of green ferric ammonium citrate (insert evil scientist laugh) and some other goodies lying around. What you’re looking at is an "excerpted" version of one of Steph's very lovely pieces (Sorry, Ste. One day I'll learn how to fit large pages into my scanner. Baby steps, baby steps).
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Chair Love
Voila a Christmas gift—an old chair reupholstered!
This reading chair originally belonged to my great grandmother and was a wedding gift from my parents. It came to us in tattered blue fabric with bits of foam popping out here and there, and spent the last five years stored in a Michigan attic, lodged between boxes of Christmas ornaments and old cans of paint. A few months ago, hushed negotiations started behind my back: Justin contacted his friend Tim (who runs a textile design company with his wife) about selecting a new fabric. Then Just’s dad took the chair in to a Michigan reupholsterer, who—I found out later—was thrilled to work with Tim's merry fabric, since his usual orders involve variations on beige and tan.
This pattern is called “Feasting at the Berry Bush,” and reminds me of modern Swedish cave markings + the Garden of Eden (i.e. Sweden-Eden). If you go here and click on the new stuff for spring, you'll see a whole lot of products made with the same fabric.
With the new upholstery in place, the chair awaited Christmas morning (Justin’s whole family was in on the secret). After the blanket that covered it was whisked away, and I had exclaimed my happiness forty or fifty times, Just’s dad helped him carefully crate and pack it for the trip to NYC. Then we hauled the box into a Kinkos/Fed Ex store, where we heaved it high up into the air and down onto a comically miniscule scale better suited to weighing tea cups than 90 lb crates. Miraculously, it made it to our door in the Bronx two days later.
Ever since it arrived, I’ve been standing back and gazing at it, testing it out: it looks cute with cats on it and without. It doesn’t match the rug but that’s okay. Can I read Dostoevsky in a chair like this?
I also keep thinking about one of the papers I wrote last semester. It dealt with a couple of 19th century women writers, who, I pointed out, tend to fetishize the domestic space. By fetishize, I meant something akin to Marx's definition, that to fetishize an object is to value it beyond its utility. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, for instance, Stowe spends a breathless passage describing a character’s beloved old rocking chair, and how it is so wise that, my oh my, if it could talk, the stories it would tell!
While laying out my little critique of this kind of unhealthy chair-loving, I had no idea I'd soon be the owner of a wonderful old chair of my own. I was aware, however, of how much I (my unacademic side) love household objects, how much I obsess over them. I remember my great grandmother’s sugar bowl into which we dipped fresh rhubarb from her garden (she was the chair’s original owner!). I forget events and conversations but I have a good memory for trinkets and collections: glass frogs, china figurines, the sorts of things that clutter shelves and make dusting pointless. And bigger things, too: a wooden table whose sharp edges grew rounded by multiple coats of paint, a gold quilt I found at a garage sale when I was in college that I finally had to throw out after the cat peed on it one too many times.
These things sometimes seem more real to me than anything else, and I don't think I'm alone in this feeling. Even the weird popularity of chotzche and kitsch a few years ago—all those snow globes, religious candles and similar clutter—seems less a critique of sentimentalism than an embarrassed confirmation of our need to understand ourselves through accumulated stuff.
I say we need a new vocabulary to talk about our relationship to things. If I were ten and announced that I loved my chair, another kid my age would instantly holler, “Well, why don’t you marry it!” See? Back then we were already trying to figure out what it means to be attached to stuff.
Anyway, I am smitten with this chair, and hope that's not the sign of a character flaw or a frail constitution.
It's officially my new most favorite thing. What's yours?
Voila a Christmas gift—an old chair reupholstered!
This reading chair originally belonged to my great grandmother and was a wedding gift from my parents. It came to us in tattered blue fabric with bits of foam popping out here and there, and spent the last five years stored in a Michigan attic, lodged between boxes of Christmas ornaments and old cans of paint. A few months ago, hushed negotiations started behind my back: Justin contacted his friend Tim (who runs a textile design company with his wife) about selecting a new fabric. Then Just’s dad took the chair in to a Michigan reupholsterer, who—I found out later—was thrilled to work with Tim's merry fabric, since his usual orders involve variations on beige and tan.
This pattern is called “Feasting at the Berry Bush,” and reminds me of modern Swedish cave markings + the Garden of Eden (i.e. Sweden-Eden). If you go here and click on the new stuff for spring, you'll see a whole lot of products made with the same fabric.
With the new upholstery in place, the chair awaited Christmas morning (Justin’s whole family was in on the secret). After the blanket that covered it was whisked away, and I had exclaimed my happiness forty or fifty times, Just’s dad helped him carefully crate and pack it for the trip to NYC. Then we hauled the box into a Kinkos/Fed Ex store, where we heaved it high up into the air and down onto a comically miniscule scale better suited to weighing tea cups than 90 lb crates. Miraculously, it made it to our door in the Bronx two days later.
Ever since it arrived, I’ve been standing back and gazing at it, testing it out: it looks cute with cats on it and without. It doesn’t match the rug but that’s okay. Can I read Dostoevsky in a chair like this?
I also keep thinking about one of the papers I wrote last semester. It dealt with a couple of 19th century women writers, who, I pointed out, tend to fetishize the domestic space. By fetishize, I meant something akin to Marx's definition, that to fetishize an object is to value it beyond its utility. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, for instance, Stowe spends a breathless passage describing a character’s beloved old rocking chair, and how it is so wise that, my oh my, if it could talk, the stories it would tell!
While laying out my little critique of this kind of unhealthy chair-loving, I had no idea I'd soon be the owner of a wonderful old chair of my own. I was aware, however, of how much I (my unacademic side) love household objects, how much I obsess over them. I remember my great grandmother’s sugar bowl into which we dipped fresh rhubarb from her garden (she was the chair’s original owner!). I forget events and conversations but I have a good memory for trinkets and collections: glass frogs, china figurines, the sorts of things that clutter shelves and make dusting pointless. And bigger things, too: a wooden table whose sharp edges grew rounded by multiple coats of paint, a gold quilt I found at a garage sale when I was in college that I finally had to throw out after the cat peed on it one too many times.
These things sometimes seem more real to me than anything else, and I don't think I'm alone in this feeling. Even the weird popularity of chotzche and kitsch a few years ago—all those snow globes, religious candles and similar clutter—seems less a critique of sentimentalism than an embarrassed confirmation of our need to understand ourselves through accumulated stuff.
I say we need a new vocabulary to talk about our relationship to things. If I were ten and announced that I loved my chair, another kid my age would instantly holler, “Well, why don’t you marry it!” See? Back then we were already trying to figure out what it means to be attached to stuff.
Anyway, I am smitten with this chair, and hope that's not the sign of a character flaw or a frail constitution.
It's officially my new most favorite thing. What's yours?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)