Nut bread.
2 cups flour (I use 1 cup regular white, 1 cup whole wheat)
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/4 cup cooking oil
3/4 cup chopped nuts (almonds, pecans, or walnuts. Roast them on a baking sheet in a 350 degree oven for 3-4 minutes, prior to putting them in.)
For cranberry nut bread:
Add 1 cup chopped cranberries and 1 teaspoon lemon juice.
Mix everything together, grease a 8x4x2-inch loaf pan, pour the mix in, and bake at 350 degrees for 50 to 55 minutes.
===
===
===
White bread.
5 3/4- 6 1/4 cups flour
1 package of yeast
2 1/4 cups milk
2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon butter
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
Mix milk, sugar, butter and salt in a pan, heat up until butter melts. (Or just microwave for a minute.)
Add the liquid mix to 2 1/2 cups of flour and yeast.
Beat the resulting mix with an electric mixer on medium speed for 30 seconds, scraping sides of bowl constantly. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes. Using a wooden spoon, stir in as much of the remaining flour as you can.
Turn dough out on lightly floured surface, knead for 6-8 minutes, until it's moderately stiff. Form into a ball, place in a lightly greased bowl, cover with a towel and let rise in a warm place for 45-60 minutes, or until doubled in size.
Punch the dough down, turn it out onto the lightly floured surface again, divide in 2. Let rest for 10 minutes.
Grease 2 8x4x2 inch loaf pans.
Shape dough into loaves, put them into pans, cover and let rise for additional 30-40 minutes.
Bake in a 375 degree oven for about 40 minutes, or until the bread sounds hollow when tapped. Remove from pans as soon as it's done, and cool.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Lack of artsiness, part two.
Another uneventful, nonartistic week has come and gone. Throughout it, I felt utterly uninspired to make anything (yes, even after coming back from viewing a Picasso exhibit in the local museum), and the fact that snow storms have prevented me from going to Wednesday morning painters (Art grrls was rescheduled for the upcoming week) didn’t make it any better.
We did have a rather lengthy, alcohol-spurred conversation with Elrin one evening some days ago, about housewifery, artfulness, and aspirations for the future. And yummy, yummy Irish cream cut almost in half with chocolate syrup. You’ve got to eat it by the spoonful. It’s that good. But El had to have a beer instead, because he’s weird like that.
Here’re some of the things which came of this conversation.
Housewifery (Housefiance-ing? Housepartner-ing?) and aspirations for the future.
These days, staying at home full time is a luxury rather than a necessity. It’s also considered a side-effect of raising children. Errant has no children, so staying at home is definitely a luxury and a drain on resources. Or, it would’ve been, if the entirety of the income from any part-time job out here didn’t have to go into insurance, gas, and maintenance for my car. It’s actually cheaper to not get out of the house.
During the afore-mentioned conversation, an interesting point was brought up: all of my female relatives are stay-at-homes. They might occasionally work outside the home, when the circumstances and downtrodden economy warranty it. This does not prevent them from being talented, well-read, and well-educated (one or more college degrees) women, who wouldn’t leave a mark on the world in a generation or two. While there’s probably no such thing as the “housewife gene”, there probably is a path in life which funnels certain people towards certain things.
In the past several months, I’ve found it increasingly satisfying just to be able to have a warm meal on the table by the time El comes (to the clean and orderly) home. This is odd for a person who tends to have little to no empathy towards other people; doing things for others just for the sake of being nice/altruistic/sociable is something that I understand in theory, but hold no emotional resonance towards. Maybe, like eating green beans, it’s something that comes with age?
Being a homebody does put a hamper on something called a ‘career’. Teaching out here is about the only thing an education/arts major –can- do, and, as El pointed out, about the only way to get ones’ name out into the public. The problem is that a. Some of us would rather hang themselves than teach, and b. We’re moving out of the area within the next five years, as likely as not, anyway.
There’s always a possibility of a retail job, or, if worst comes to worst, something in the local call-center. As entertaining as stories at www.notalwaysright.com are, these doesn’t strike me as pleasures that a person should willingly inflict upon themselves or others.
So.. why not be a career house partner? Not to be vain, or anything, but standing around and looking pretty comes naturally, here. If there’s such a thing as a cooking gene, I’ve got it. Same with non-confrontational, placid attitude, and decent taste as far as interior decoration goes. Therefore. We’ve come to a conclusion that if (Gods forbid) something happens to Elrin, I’d have to find some moderately wealthy and religiously conservative gentleman. Never mind that anyone over 30 and without a long-term partner probably has some serious issues.
Artfulness
As mentioned before, there was a Picasso exhibit that El and I went to at the William King museum. They also had a small show of womens’ work from the 1800s, mostly heirlooms passed down in a few families. Overall, ‘d say that we’ve enjoyed this exhibit more so than the cubist one: decorative arts should NOT be underestimated, and there were some rather gorgeous large embroideries on display.
In other news, there’s a Lark books competition for 30 minute ring, with a deadline in mid-March, which is probably going to be entered by yours, truly, if she gets her bum into the working mode.
SNAG educational endowment scholarship deadline is also coming up, which is a good thing if you’re a student in the field of metals, and a sad, nostalgic thing, if you’re not.
The lack of artfulness makes me wonder if I should start doing two book updates a week, rather than a book and an art one. Or maybe another wildlife? (Did see a towhee by the bird feeder today. And a warbler on the walk through the local trail, this morning. If it wasn’t 23 degrees out/if El was wearing a hat, I could’ve probably seen a lot more. Grrrr.).
We did have a rather lengthy, alcohol-spurred conversation with Elrin one evening some days ago, about housewifery, artfulness, and aspirations for the future. And yummy, yummy Irish cream cut almost in half with chocolate syrup. You’ve got to eat it by the spoonful. It’s that good. But El had to have a beer instead, because he’s weird like that.
Here’re some of the things which came of this conversation.
Housewifery (Housefiance-ing? Housepartner-ing?) and aspirations for the future.
These days, staying at home full time is a luxury rather than a necessity. It’s also considered a side-effect of raising children. Errant has no children, so staying at home is definitely a luxury and a drain on resources. Or, it would’ve been, if the entirety of the income from any part-time job out here didn’t have to go into insurance, gas, and maintenance for my car. It’s actually cheaper to not get out of the house.
During the afore-mentioned conversation, an interesting point was brought up: all of my female relatives are stay-at-homes. They might occasionally work outside the home, when the circumstances and downtrodden economy warranty it. This does not prevent them from being talented, well-read, and well-educated (one or more college degrees) women, who wouldn’t leave a mark on the world in a generation or two. While there’s probably no such thing as the “housewife gene”, there probably is a path in life which funnels certain people towards certain things.
In the past several months, I’ve found it increasingly satisfying just to be able to have a warm meal on the table by the time El comes (to the clean and orderly) home. This is odd for a person who tends to have little to no empathy towards other people; doing things for others just for the sake of being nice/altruistic/sociable is something that I understand in theory, but hold no emotional resonance towards. Maybe, like eating green beans, it’s something that comes with age?
Being a homebody does put a hamper on something called a ‘career’. Teaching out here is about the only thing an education/arts major –can- do, and, as El pointed out, about the only way to get ones’ name out into the public. The problem is that a. Some of us would rather hang themselves than teach, and b. We’re moving out of the area within the next five years, as likely as not, anyway.
There’s always a possibility of a retail job, or, if worst comes to worst, something in the local call-center. As entertaining as stories at www.notalwaysright.com are, these doesn’t strike me as pleasures that a person should willingly inflict upon themselves or others.
So.. why not be a career house partner? Not to be vain, or anything, but standing around and looking pretty comes naturally, here. If there’s such a thing as a cooking gene, I’ve got it. Same with non-confrontational, placid attitude, and decent taste as far as interior decoration goes. Therefore. We’ve come to a conclusion that if (Gods forbid) something happens to Elrin, I’d have to find some moderately wealthy and religiously conservative gentleman. Never mind that anyone over 30 and without a long-term partner probably has some serious issues.
Artfulness
As mentioned before, there was a Picasso exhibit that El and I went to at the William King museum. They also had a small show of womens’ work from the 1800s, mostly heirlooms passed down in a few families. Overall, ‘d say that we’ve enjoyed this exhibit more so than the cubist one: decorative arts should NOT be underestimated, and there were some rather gorgeous large embroideries on display.
In other news, there’s a Lark books competition for 30 minute ring, with a deadline in mid-March, which is probably going to be entered by yours, truly, if she gets her bum into the working mode.
SNAG educational endowment scholarship deadline is also coming up, which is a good thing if you’re a student in the field of metals, and a sad, nostalgic thing, if you’re not.
The lack of artfulness makes me wonder if I should start doing two book updates a week, rather than a book and an art one. Or maybe another wildlife? (Did see a towhee by the bird feeder today. And a warbler on the walk through the local trail, this morning. If it wasn’t 23 degrees out/if El was wearing a hat, I could’ve probably seen a lot more. Grrrr.).
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Current books.
"The Haunting of Hill House"
By Shirley Jackson
AKA
“Haunted Consciousness of a Pathological Liar”
Or
“Survivor, the Psychopath Edition”
Rating:
The contents of the book> 9/10
To your average horror story junkie, this book represents a weekly quota. Unlike your average Stephen King (As Books-a-minute put it, “It was a bright and sunny day, and then the evil came”) or John Michael Crichton (“Something lurks in the bushes, a few inconsequential characters die, and everyone else escapes in a balloon/helicopter/dirigible, etc”), it’s a short, psychologically charged story with a very limited character cast.
Originally, I’ve read it some months ago, but decided to re-read, both because the book is just incredibly good, and because it begged to be compared to “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”. It’s kind of ironic: when idly browsing library shelves, I tend to select books by male writers, perhaps because they tend to write in a more action-y way, but in the end, my favorite books tend to be ones written by women. And as far as Hill House vs. Body Snatchers go, it isn’t a comparison at all.
Review of the basic plot in Hill House: a professor with an interest in paranormal finds a creepy little place and decides to collect material for a book by doing some ghost-hunting the Victorian way: aka living in the house and recording, in the company of. Two are women of the said individuals are women: a (possibly lesbian), outgoing Theodora, and a shy, reclusive Eleanor, who spent large portion of her life caring for her invalid mother. The last person present is Luke, a heir to the house, who is required to be there by contract.
The married couple of caretakers supervise their stay, but are an inhospitable lot, absolutely refusing to stay on the premises after dark. At one point, the professor’s wife and her friend also come down, attempting to elicit ‘supernatural contact’ with little to no results.
A series of events happens, resulting in Eleanor seemingly becoming possessed by the house (or possessing it?), and killing herself shortly after being forcibly expelled by her fellow ghost-whisperers.
There are some points which endear this book to me, for instance, the whimsical way in which dialogue between characters takes place, and the amount of fancy or fantasy and fiction that each of the mains manages to weave in around their persona. Chief among these is Eleanor, whom one could hardly call ‘grounded in reality’. During the main characters’ first evening together, they respectfully assign themselves fictional pasts, those of a concubine, wanderer, bullfighter and princess. These assumed roles seem to influence the ways the group interacts with the house itself.
Another point is that from very beginning, the flow of the story emphasizes compartmentalization, both of the house (doors remain shut, rooms located within rooms, rooms with no windows) and of the characters, which drift apart and occasionally start off on stream-of-consciousness ramblings. In the end, the group is broken apart, and its weakest link falls prey, to what, we shall never know. (The progressive decay of Eleanor’s hold of herself is also quite thrilling, if you’re reading with an eye out for that in particular).
In short, an awesome book all around. I’d love to read Jackson’s other works.
Other books:
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
By Jack Finney
Read by Kristoffer Tabori
AKA
“The Legume Invasion”
Or
“Me Tarzan, You Jane. Them Aliens.”
Rating:
The contents of the book> 6/10
It’s funny. Before re-reading Hill House, I’d have given it a 7, maybe an 8. After the Hill House.. the character development doesn’t hold up. The story is basically this: a doctor reconnects with his old sweetheart, just to discover that some people think that some other people aren’t what they seem. They are contacted by one other couple, who’ve apparently discovered a corpse of something that looks very much like one of them. The book’s properly creepy up until that point, and up until the author starts to get technical with what these invading shapeshifters actually are, and how they function.
It goes drastically downhill from there, with possibly one of the worse horror-tale endings I’ve ever read. Aliens giving up and drifting away? Pffhhhhst.
The voice-acting> 10/10
The guy’s voice is perfect for reading this type of literature. There’s no what-if’s or but’s around it. Good intonation and range, lovely pauses in all the right places.. Just like with Richard Ferrone, I’m very tempted to start poking around just to see what else he’s read, never you mind the contents.
Geisha, a Life
By Mineko Iwasaki
AKA
“Autobiography of a Chronic Workaholic”
Or
“Geiko: Save Plenty on Face Insurance.”
Rating:
The contents of the book> 9/10
To clarify, “Geisha, a Life” and “Geisha of Gion” are the same book, published under different names in England and the US. This is the autobiography of the woman mentioned in the “Memoirs of a Geisha, and reading it makes me want to drop the Memoirs’ rating to 7 or even 6.
The book serves as a good illustration for the difference between communal and individualistic societies. Dunne deserves a solid punch in the face for blurring the line between geiko, or “woman of art”, and a prostitute. Seems that the entire point of geisha training, and what they are supposed to be embodying, is almost entirely adverse to physically intimate relationships. Not that they don’t happen; just that they are a by-product of being human in presence of the wealthier and more sophisticated layers of the society, rather than a way of making ends meet.
It’s an intriguing line of work, physically and emotionally demanding. The author makes this quite clear, what with her 3 hours of sleep per night during the peak of her career, and a failing kidney. It’s also the only line of work that I’ve ever read about, which was actually conducted in a purely matriarchal system.
To hell with political correctness, and not oogling other ‘cultures’. I find Japanese culture fascinating, though ‘d never want to be a part of it, even if I could.
Erm.
Anyway, it’s a good book. I really wish Iwasaki would’ve gone more in depth about her last three years as a geiko, but one can’t have everything.
By Shirley Jackson
AKA
“Haunted Consciousness of a Pathological Liar”
Or
“Survivor, the Psychopath Edition”
Rating:
The contents of the book> 9/10
To your average horror story junkie, this book represents a weekly quota. Unlike your average Stephen King (As Books-a-minute put it, “It was a bright and sunny day, and then the evil came”) or John Michael Crichton (“Something lurks in the bushes, a few inconsequential characters die, and everyone else escapes in a balloon/helicopter/dirigible, etc”), it’s a short, psychologically charged story with a very limited character cast.
Originally, I’ve read it some months ago, but decided to re-read, both because the book is just incredibly good, and because it begged to be compared to “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”. It’s kind of ironic: when idly browsing library shelves, I tend to select books by male writers, perhaps because they tend to write in a more action-y way, but in the end, my favorite books tend to be ones written by women. And as far as Hill House vs. Body Snatchers go, it isn’t a comparison at all.
Review of the basic plot in Hill House: a professor with an interest in paranormal finds a creepy little place and decides to collect material for a book by doing some ghost-hunting the Victorian way: aka living in the house and recording, in the company of. Two are women of the said individuals are women: a (possibly lesbian), outgoing Theodora, and a shy, reclusive Eleanor, who spent large portion of her life caring for her invalid mother. The last person present is Luke, a heir to the house, who is required to be there by contract.
The married couple of caretakers supervise their stay, but are an inhospitable lot, absolutely refusing to stay on the premises after dark. At one point, the professor’s wife and her friend also come down, attempting to elicit ‘supernatural contact’ with little to no results.
A series of events happens, resulting in Eleanor seemingly becoming possessed by the house (or possessing it?), and killing herself shortly after being forcibly expelled by her fellow ghost-whisperers.
There are some points which endear this book to me, for instance, the whimsical way in which dialogue between characters takes place, and the amount of fancy or fantasy and fiction that each of the mains manages to weave in around their persona. Chief among these is Eleanor, whom one could hardly call ‘grounded in reality’. During the main characters’ first evening together, they respectfully assign themselves fictional pasts, those of a concubine, wanderer, bullfighter and princess. These assumed roles seem to influence the ways the group interacts with the house itself.
Another point is that from very beginning, the flow of the story emphasizes compartmentalization, both of the house (doors remain shut, rooms located within rooms, rooms with no windows) and of the characters, which drift apart and occasionally start off on stream-of-consciousness ramblings. In the end, the group is broken apart, and its weakest link falls prey, to what, we shall never know. (The progressive decay of Eleanor’s hold of herself is also quite thrilling, if you’re reading with an eye out for that in particular).
In short, an awesome book all around. I’d love to read Jackson’s other works.
Other books:
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
By Jack Finney
Read by Kristoffer Tabori
AKA
“The Legume Invasion”
Or
“Me Tarzan, You Jane. Them Aliens.”
Rating:
The contents of the book> 6/10
It’s funny. Before re-reading Hill House, I’d have given it a 7, maybe an 8. After the Hill House.. the character development doesn’t hold up. The story is basically this: a doctor reconnects with his old sweetheart, just to discover that some people think that some other people aren’t what they seem. They are contacted by one other couple, who’ve apparently discovered a corpse of something that looks very much like one of them. The book’s properly creepy up until that point, and up until the author starts to get technical with what these invading shapeshifters actually are, and how they function.
It goes drastically downhill from there, with possibly one of the worse horror-tale endings I’ve ever read. Aliens giving up and drifting away? Pffhhhhst.
The voice-acting> 10/10
The guy’s voice is perfect for reading this type of literature. There’s no what-if’s or but’s around it. Good intonation and range, lovely pauses in all the right places.. Just like with Richard Ferrone, I’m very tempted to start poking around just to see what else he’s read, never you mind the contents.
Geisha, a Life
By Mineko Iwasaki
AKA
“Autobiography of a Chronic Workaholic”
Or
“Geiko: Save Plenty on Face Insurance.”
Rating:
The contents of the book> 9/10
To clarify, “Geisha, a Life” and “Geisha of Gion” are the same book, published under different names in England and the US. This is the autobiography of the woman mentioned in the “Memoirs of a Geisha, and reading it makes me want to drop the Memoirs’ rating to 7 or even 6.
The book serves as a good illustration for the difference between communal and individualistic societies. Dunne deserves a solid punch in the face for blurring the line between geiko, or “woman of art”, and a prostitute. Seems that the entire point of geisha training, and what they are supposed to be embodying, is almost entirely adverse to physically intimate relationships. Not that they don’t happen; just that they are a by-product of being human in presence of the wealthier and more sophisticated layers of the society, rather than a way of making ends meet.
It’s an intriguing line of work, physically and emotionally demanding. The author makes this quite clear, what with her 3 hours of sleep per night during the peak of her career, and a failing kidney. It’s also the only line of work that I’ve ever read about, which was actually conducted in a purely matriarchal system.
To hell with political correctness, and not oogling other ‘cultures’. I find Japanese culture fascinating, though ‘d never want to be a part of it, even if I could.
Erm.
Anyway, it’s a good book. I really wish Iwasaki would’ve gone more in depth about her last three years as a geiko, but one can’t have everything.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Hoya issues.
The black spots. What are they? Where do they come from? Are they really, as someone on Gardenweb said, spots from overexposure to the sun? Or are they a fungus? Should I panic and liberally douse with cinnamon?
And now for the review.
Hoyas are wonderful. Hoyas are great. For anyone who does not know, hoyas are tropical climbing plants related to common milkweed, possessing waxy green (and sometimes variegated) leaves, and known for their tightly-packed, fragrant, clusters of flowers.
Originally I’ve read up on them some two months ago, and immediately had to have one. After all, fragrant flowers are rather hard to come by in the grand scope of potted plants, and this one even had its own Gardenweb forum section.. Elrin immediately didn’t like the idea. It’s not that he doesn’t like plants (he is indifferent with an occasional “hm, that one’s pretty” reaction): it’s that he thinks I’ve got too many of them as it is. (40 containers, down from 52 earlier in the year, and about a third of them are literally plastic cups with either sprouting seeds (lemon/lime) or African violet babies). So technically, I probably do have too many plants.
But, then—what else is one supposed to do with the extra window space, but populate it with more plants?
Back to the hoya issue, we eventually did find some at a locally owned greenhouse. A little container with three individual rooted cuttings (one-variegated) cost about 8$, which is a bit much, since we later found out that Lowe’s had a much larger basket for about the same price. Oh well!
What the hoya enthusiasts do not tell you is that the plant can go for years without blooming, and tends to be quite finicky about watering. The former you wouldn’t think would be an issue, since our plant’s now on the south side, and the latter shouldn’t be an issue, since I tend to under- rather than over-water. (With the exception of the mosaic plant.)
Rather than forming peduncles and getting to the business of producing flowers, our hoya(s) decided that they wanted to grow, and grow they did, doubling in length and being tame enough to be trained along the tied-twine supports of their small hanging basket. An awesome hanging basket, too, acquired en-batch for 1$ ea at the local flea market. They’ve also developed the above-mentioned black spots. … Guess I’ll go’head and sprinkle them with cinnamon just in case (wonder if pumpkin spice would work? It’s got cinnamon in it..). Any advice would be much appreciated.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Artistic goings on.
First of all, I’d like to announce that the lack of artistic productivity has hit a new low. More time’s been spent repotting plants (a tale of woe in and of itself; one of the two still-surviving seed-grown African violets from last year is in serious trouble, and hoya’s got what I suspect is a fungus) then making things, which is sad.
One thing that was scribbled can be seen above. The bucket of birds. The concept of the bucket appeals to me for many reasons, most of which go along these lines: buckets are meant to carry things en masse, and birds are a good thing. Kind of like bucket of sugar. Or bucket of cash. Except both can be found in nature. Birds tend to not sit still, when one tries to stuff them into a confined space, and considering that they have an escape hatch right over their heads… well.
Long story short, this post is not going to be about artfulness, with one exception. The monthly meeting of Art Grrls is happening this upcoming Thursday, and I’m looking forward to it. The meeting is basically a very loosely connected group of female artists in the region, and serves a networking function, along with the “eat, drink and be merry” function.
Myself and one other girl, who is in her late 20s, are among the youngest. The oldest are in their 70s, if not 80s. (I don’t ask. It’s not polite to ask. Nevermind why.) It’s a cheerful bunch, with plenty of art-related experience and entertaining life stories to share. One of the high points of the gathering is the fact that we tend to go to rather nice restaurants for this. (Last one was at Wildflour, a bakery-cum-fine dining ‘experience’, or a charming little house in the middle of nowhere, Virginia. Yummy pot-stickers, though.)
Nonartistic goings on.
A few lines of wisdom from the local Elrin.
(After watching a movie) “... Why did I try to pause Wikipedia?”
(Upon reading a thread about children on Straight Dope) “Sex is not recreation. Frisbee is.”
Link of the week.
There are very few blogs that I follow with any consistency (read: 1), as the blogosphere is a giant timesink, and one should recognize it as such. Time sinking in and of itself isn’t necessarily bad. Spending time on the computer when you’ve got other errands to take care of is. Can’t dispute the basic contradiction there.
This blog was found while idly searching for the level of daily alcohol intake, which signifies that you are an alcoholic. (The answer is unclear, though most guys can get away with about 3 beers a day. And still stay healthy.)
http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/
Fascinating fact of the week.
Last speaker of Aka-Bo, a Great Andamanese language, died earlier this week. (This group of languages was practiced by people from a chain of islands east of India; it is, as a whole, mostly extinct). While poking about the interwebs and searching for information about these people, I came across this little blurb:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese
The Sentinelese is a group of people inhabiting a little island slightly off the main chain of Andaman islands. They are also among the most socially isolated people on the planet. Meaning, that they react violently towards outsiders, and because their tiny island (72 square kilometers) likely doesn’t have much in the way of natural resources, the rest of the world lets them be. (Likely, if the rest of the world didn’t let them be, they’d die off from foreign diseases.)
Still, their state boggles my mind to an extreme degree. Virtually nothing’s known about their language, though it’s presumed to be some form of Andamanese. Virtually nothing is known about their culture. They’re just.. out there. Little groups of people (only rough approximations of their total numbers have been made, since one can’t really knock on their doors to take a census) are living on an island, in the middle of an ocean. They do not know that there’s the rest of the world out there. Hell, they likely do not know that the world is round. They assault helicopters with arrows, and succeed in driving the said helicopters off.
What do they think of the rest of the world? Of the people who occasionally cross their boundaries? What do they think of the massive ships which were wrecked by their island? (One of these ships is still visible north-west of the isle, if you look Sentinel island up on Google maps, by the way. A wreck in a deep-blue sea.)
I wish there was a way to ask ‘em.
One thing that was scribbled can be seen above. The bucket of birds. The concept of the bucket appeals to me for many reasons, most of which go along these lines: buckets are meant to carry things en masse, and birds are a good thing. Kind of like bucket of sugar. Or bucket of cash. Except both can be found in nature. Birds tend to not sit still, when one tries to stuff them into a confined space, and considering that they have an escape hatch right over their heads… well.
Long story short, this post is not going to be about artfulness, with one exception. The monthly meeting of Art Grrls is happening this upcoming Thursday, and I’m looking forward to it. The meeting is basically a very loosely connected group of female artists in the region, and serves a networking function, along with the “eat, drink and be merry” function.
Myself and one other girl, who is in her late 20s, are among the youngest. The oldest are in their 70s, if not 80s. (I don’t ask. It’s not polite to ask. Nevermind why.) It’s a cheerful bunch, with plenty of art-related experience and entertaining life stories to share. One of the high points of the gathering is the fact that we tend to go to rather nice restaurants for this. (Last one was at Wildflour, a bakery-cum-fine dining ‘experience’, or a charming little house in the middle of nowhere, Virginia. Yummy pot-stickers, though.)
Nonartistic goings on.
A few lines of wisdom from the local Elrin.
(After watching a movie) “... Why did I try to pause Wikipedia?”
(Upon reading a thread about children on Straight Dope) “Sex is not recreation. Frisbee is.”
Link of the week.
There are very few blogs that I follow with any consistency (read: 1), as the blogosphere is a giant timesink, and one should recognize it as such. Time sinking in and of itself isn’t necessarily bad. Spending time on the computer when you’ve got other errands to take care of is. Can’t dispute the basic contradiction there.
This blog was found while idly searching for the level of daily alcohol intake, which signifies that you are an alcoholic. (The answer is unclear, though most guys can get away with about 3 beers a day. And still stay healthy.)
http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/
Fascinating fact of the week.
Last speaker of Aka-Bo, a Great Andamanese language, died earlier this week. (This group of languages was practiced by people from a chain of islands east of India; it is, as a whole, mostly extinct). While poking about the interwebs and searching for information about these people, I came across this little blurb:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese
The Sentinelese is a group of people inhabiting a little island slightly off the main chain of Andaman islands. They are also among the most socially isolated people on the planet. Meaning, that they react violently towards outsiders, and because their tiny island (72 square kilometers) likely doesn’t have much in the way of natural resources, the rest of the world lets them be. (Likely, if the rest of the world didn’t let them be, they’d die off from foreign diseases.)
Still, their state boggles my mind to an extreme degree. Virtually nothing’s known about their language, though it’s presumed to be some form of Andamanese. Virtually nothing is known about their culture. They’re just.. out there. Little groups of people (only rough approximations of their total numbers have been made, since one can’t really knock on their doors to take a census) are living on an island, in the middle of an ocean. They do not know that there’s the rest of the world out there. Hell, they likely do not know that the world is round. They assault helicopters with arrows, and succeed in driving the said helicopters off.
What do they think of the rest of the world? Of the people who occasionally cross their boundaries? What do they think of the massive ships which were wrecked by their island? (One of these ships is still visible north-west of the isle, if you look Sentinel island up on Google maps, by the way. A wreck in a deep-blue sea.)
I wish there was a way to ask ‘em.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Current books.
Memoirs of a Geisha
By Arthur Golden
Read by Bernadette Dunne
Also known as
“The cave, the eels, and destiny.”
Or
“To geisha, and back again. And to geisha.”
Rating:
The contents of the book> 8/10
Memoirs might be called a historical novel, based in the early 20th century Japan. The story follows the life of a girl, all the way through her (somewhat deceitful) removal from a poor fishing village, to becoming an entertainer of sorts, or geisha.
Well-written with a good attention to detail, the book contains a rather large amount of metaphors and cultural quirks that makes you want to keep reading, along with truly hate-able adversary characters. The protagonist, for the record, comes off as somewhat sheltered and weak-willed, strewn left and right in an involuntary dance of fate. (Nope, no full-length summary here!)
I’m surprised I haven’t read this book earlier, with how popular it was at the time of its release. The only reason why it’s not getting a 10 out of 10 is the controversy over its accuracy. The majority of the details/events in the book are based off of a series of interviews by Golden with Mineko Iwasaki, a retired geisha.
Apparently, Iwasaki agreed to this under condition of confidentiality, a condition broken by the author. Furthermore, she was offended by the historical inaccuracies (especially the ones dealing with ritualized prostitution) presented within the book.
Iwasaki later wrote an autobiography, Geisha of Gion, which I would dearly love to read before making further judgment on the author of this little gem.
The voice-acting> 9/10
Dunne has a good voice for the job, and her intonation lives up to the intense moments within the story. However, her pauses leave much to be desired. (Generally, one should be able to discern a pause between one sentence and another from pauses in the end of a paragraph.)
Other books:
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Overall- 9/10
AKA “Noah on the budget.”, or “It was believable until the carnivorous seaweed.”
A tale of a son of a zookeeper, stranded on a lifeboat. With a tiger. About a third of the book is dedicated to Pi’s life before this life-changing event, and his wading in faith(s). I especially enjoyed the ending interview.
"Confessions of a Shopaholic" by Sophie Kinsella (AKA Madeline Wickham)
Read by Emily Gray
Overall- 6/10
Audio- 10/10 (One great performance, for the subject.)
AKA “Denial 101.”, or “Financial irresponsibility for dummies.”
The book follows the life of a financial journalist with a serious financial problem. A light, witty read that some girls might find enjoyable. Half way through the book, I sort of lost patience with it, however.
The story follows this format:
1. Main character realizes that she has a problem with her finances.
2. Main character finds ways to resolve this problem.
a. Without doing any extra work
or
b. Without knowing what the heck she’s doing
3. Main character ends up in deeper debt than before.
a. While making a large fool of herself.
b. And dodging her bank manager.
It was funny the first 5 times, but then it wasn’t. Even a moderately decent ending doesn’t make up for that fact.
Elrin’s book:
"The Last Founding Father" by Harold G. Unger
Overall- 9.5/10
…Apparently, he liked it.
By Arthur Golden
Read by Bernadette Dunne
Also known as
“The cave, the eels, and destiny.”
Or
“To geisha, and back again. And to geisha.”
Rating:
The contents of the book> 8/10
Memoirs might be called a historical novel, based in the early 20th century Japan. The story follows the life of a girl, all the way through her (somewhat deceitful) removal from a poor fishing village, to becoming an entertainer of sorts, or geisha.
Well-written with a good attention to detail, the book contains a rather large amount of metaphors and cultural quirks that makes you want to keep reading, along with truly hate-able adversary characters. The protagonist, for the record, comes off as somewhat sheltered and weak-willed, strewn left and right in an involuntary dance of fate. (Nope, no full-length summary here!)
I’m surprised I haven’t read this book earlier, with how popular it was at the time of its release. The only reason why it’s not getting a 10 out of 10 is the controversy over its accuracy. The majority of the details/events in the book are based off of a series of interviews by Golden with Mineko Iwasaki, a retired geisha.
Apparently, Iwasaki agreed to this under condition of confidentiality, a condition broken by the author. Furthermore, she was offended by the historical inaccuracies (especially the ones dealing with ritualized prostitution) presented within the book.
Iwasaki later wrote an autobiography, Geisha of Gion, which I would dearly love to read before making further judgment on the author of this little gem.
The voice-acting> 9/10
Dunne has a good voice for the job, and her intonation lives up to the intense moments within the story. However, her pauses leave much to be desired. (Generally, one should be able to discern a pause between one sentence and another from pauses in the end of a paragraph.)
Other books:
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Overall- 9/10
AKA “Noah on the budget.”, or “It was believable until the carnivorous seaweed.”
A tale of a son of a zookeeper, stranded on a lifeboat. With a tiger. About a third of the book is dedicated to Pi’s life before this life-changing event, and his wading in faith(s). I especially enjoyed the ending interview.
"Confessions of a Shopaholic" by Sophie Kinsella (AKA Madeline Wickham)
Read by Emily Gray
Overall- 6/10
Audio- 10/10 (One great performance, for the subject.)
AKA “Denial 101.”, or “Financial irresponsibility for dummies.”
The book follows the life of a financial journalist with a serious financial problem. A light, witty read that some girls might find enjoyable. Half way through the book, I sort of lost patience with it, however.
The story follows this format:
1. Main character realizes that she has a problem with her finances.
2. Main character finds ways to resolve this problem.
a. Without doing any extra work
or
b. Without knowing what the heck she’s doing
3. Main character ends up in deeper debt than before.
a. While making a large fool of herself.
b. And dodging her bank manager.
It was funny the first 5 times, but then it wasn’t. Even a moderately decent ending doesn’t make up for that fact.
Elrin’s book:
"The Last Founding Father" by Harold G. Unger
Overall- 9.5/10
…Apparently, he liked it.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Roster: Mushka and OtherKitty
The issue of animals within a rented space is a common one; just finding a place that allows pets and that looks/smells decent is a problem in and of itself. Thankfully, this is not a problem that we’ve had to face this time around, as the current townhouse complex does allow animals, while retaining many of the niceties (such as unstained carpets) of a place that only-recently-did-not-allow-pets.
Which brings us down to the question of what animals dwell within a (not so dark) dwelling of the Errant, and, more importantly, what stories might be gleaned from their furry/scaly/feathered hides. (What use is an animal or a plant if it doesn’t carry an anecdote or three along with it?)
The first on the roster are the cat(s), 1.5 of them to be exact. The case here is the classical “Basement cat vs. Ceiling cat” one, ripe with daily conflicts, quips over the foodbowls, and moral lessons for the nonexistent children.
Basement cat
The name of the kitty is Myishka, or Russian for ‘little mouse’, not to be confused with Mishka, or endearment for the name Mihail, or Mushka, which means ‘little fly’. Ironically, since the letter ‘yi’ isn’t really present in the English alphabet, the cat ends up being called Mushka as often as not.
Mushka is a 10-year-old tortoiseshell, meaning that she is the devil on her monthlies, reincarnated into a feline body. For more information on this phenomena, search for ‘tortitude’ in your friendly neighborhood search engine.
(Though, it’s been proposed that her attitude is a partial side-effect of being declawed at a very young age, what with mom having a leather couch and not wanting any of the cats to scratch it up. Inhumane? Yup. Did Mushka still manage to ruin the couch by other means available to her? You bet’cha.)
A survivor of cancer and 4 years in a house with my mother (I’m not sure which of these feats is more impressive), this cat is temperamental, violent, possessive, and needy. We love her to death, despite her frequent habit of screeching howls, followed by violent assault on whatever body parts of the offending humanoid she can reach. To be fair, she does make a good lap-cat, complete with the catfish complex (will expand to fill a space, no matter how large; she’s not fat, though she used to be, and still has the extra skin to prove it), and lack of shame (will insist on staying on her corner of the bed, no matter what’s going on in other parts of the said bed).
Ceiling cat
Let’s be clear. This is not our cat. It never was our cat. If Elrin gets his way, it never will be our cat. (“No more pets! One cat is enough!”) We just happen to feed and cuddle it, making it a ‘cat with benefits’. The cat originally showed up as a loveable stray, shortly after Elrin moves out to this location. It was cuddled by everyone, and, as far as we know, is also getting fed in at least one other townhouse on our block. Maybe, more. Yet another resident took it to the veterinarian to be fixed, a few months ago.
This phenomenal product of nature is a large male cat, a communally owned male cat, larger than Mushka, whom we simply call “OtherKitty”. I wouldn’t mind calling him “Ryisik”, or an endearment of “lynx”, due to the black tufts on its ears, but, as Elrin said—no more pets.
OtherKitty and Mushka have an interesting relationship; she tries to establish dominance by hissing like a teapot and lunging at him in berserker rage every time she sees him at distance of five feet or less. He just tries to make friends. And play with her. It’s a never-ending, vicious cycle that’s incredibly entertaining to watch.
OtherKitty is the polar opposite of our bitchy lady, being hyperactive, friendly, and never resenting anyone picking him up; bird watching, (unsuccessful) bird hunting, eating cat food until bloating, and napping on his back in the ComfyChair(to be covered at a later post) are his primary hobbies. He also attacks feet, hands, jackets, potted plants, and cords, in wild fits of abandon which we can only hope is a show of youthful playfulness. Gods save us, if he grows up to be anything like the other.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)