Monday, July 28, 2008

A Mutt Like Us

OK, once again, I'm apologizing. First, I've had the best intentions of posting every day but ya know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men... My second apology comes from the fact that for a while anyway, my blog is going to be a little boring visually. I seem to have left my camera behind at a party a few weeks ago and won't be able to get it back until the next time I'm down the shore. Sorry guys. For now, my words will have to be enough.
Anyway, I've got a good blog in the works and I promise you'll get it soon. But work is insane these days so today all you get is me... sorry.
This is a poem I wrote a few months ago and I generally don't share stuff like this, because it's intensely personal to me and I get really anxious about sharing things like this but I guess the Internet is making me brave, so here goes. Be gentle. That's not to say, however, that I don't want to hear comments. Because it is kind of a loaded topic and I think it could generate some great discussion, just keep in constructive.

A Mutt Like Us

I am the white girlfriend.
The one who had never eaten collard greens.
Who needed a definition of ham hocks before she would sample them.
The one who still isn't quite sure what chitlins are,
but is a little ashamed to ask.

As I stand in the kitchen of the woman I hope
will someday be my mother-in-law,
She poses a question:
"What are you?"
And I know what she's asking.
She wants the recipe that has come together to create my blue eyes,
my fair skin, my angular nose:

2 parts Irish,
2 parts German,
1 part English
Just a dash of Polish
Bake for nine months until golden blonde.

Oh, she replies. You're a mutt, like us.
The word, with its single, ordinary syllable
immediately sours on my tongue.

I can't imagine the bloodlines that have borne my lover,
With his coffee-toned skin,
His deep chocolate eyes,
And those full lips I relish kissing,
Ever being described so commonly.

By my own mother,
We are looked upon as a riddle
She is not yet able to solve.

No longer can she predict a family of toe heads
Long before conception has even occurred.
I cannot give her an answer until the genetic dice
Has been rolled.

It's a brand new recipe,
As of yet untested
And it still has long to bake.

Monday, July 21, 2008

I'm such a slacker

OK, I know. I was totally MIA last week... but I got a little distracted preparing for a new addition to our family (relax family members, I'm talking about a second cat). So anyway, she's arrived and she's now settling in. Her name is June and Cassidy is still trying to decide if she likes her. And since I'm still catching up a little... I'm being lazy today. Here's the songs currently in my top 25 most played on my iPod... maybe you'll find something new you like:

25. Running on Sunshine - Jesus Jackson... got this from one of the Grey's Anatomy soundtracks. It has quickly become my favorite song to take on my run. It has the perfect beat for it.

24. Shut Up and Let Me Go - The Ting Tings... the aforementioned iPod commercial favorite...

23. Anyone Else But You - The Moldy Peaches... from the Juno soundtrack. It's quickly becoming a favorite.

22. Shame for You - Lily Allen... seriously, love her. Somehow telling someone to eff off doesn't sound quite so bitchy when it's done with a quite proper British accent.

21. New Soul - Yael Naim... talked about this one before too. It's from the commercial for the thin Macbook.

20. Sea of Love - Cat Power... Juno soundtrack again... I'm telling you, good movie soundtracks are an awesome way to find new bands you've never heard of.

19. All I Want is You - Barry Louis Polisar- Juno again... noticing a pattern yet?

18. Hush - Deep Purple... not nearly as random as it seems if you know me

17. Mercy - Duffy... this one's been pretty popular lately... it's actually pretty rare for me, but I'm in a period of actually finding really good new music on the radio!

16. We Belong - Pat Benatar... an oldie but a goodie...

15. Southern Cross - Crosby, Stills, and Nash... a classic... no other way to put it

14. Knock 'Em Out - Lily Allen... I won't force you to listen to any more of my Lily Allen worship, I promise.

13. Stay With You - John Legend... Just a really beautiful, soulful love song... I've already decided this will one day be my wedding song... the groom has no say.

12. Merry-go-Round - Antje Duvekot... totally random, but I discovered this song because it was used in a Bank of America commercial.

11. Sweetest Girl - Wyclef... another radio find... I'm telling you, z100 is on fire lately!

10. Love In This Club - Usher... Say what ya want... I just can't get enough of this man...

9. Shake It - Metro Station.... this is a good "I'm driving alone and it's Friday and I have way too much energy" kinda song...

8. The Way I Am - Ingrid Michaelson... oh man, so sweet... a very folksy, totally simple love song. Short and sweet and to the point. (and ya gotta love a girl who promises to buy her guy rogaine if he goes bald!)

7. Love is Gone - David Guetta... another good dancing in the car tune

6. No One's Gonna Love You - Band of Horses... heard this on an episode of One Tree Hill

5. Sweet Pea - Amos Lee... OK I've always liked this song... but then I saw that Cingular Wireless commercial and it totally just killed me.

4. New York Groove - Kiss... been in the mood for this song constantly since I moved back up north.

3. I Kissed a Girl - Katy Perry... I think what I like about this is that it's nothing like all the Britney types...

2. With You - Chris Brown... another radio find... go z100!

1. The Story - Brandi Carlisle... Oh...my... god... that's all I can say about this song... brings me to tears every single time...

OK... that's it for now... Happy downloading, and let me know what you think of my picks (that means leave comments, dammit!)

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Where is it?

I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of my New Yorker. I think it should come either today or tomorrow. I always get excited when I see it laying on the floor of my apartment stairwell, but rarely do I actually get anxious waiting for it to come.
I just really want to see what all the hype is about with this cover they're talking about. The issue I'm waiting on should be the much talked-about cover with Barack Obama dressed like a Muslim and Michelle Obama dressed like some kind of extremist with an afro and a machine gun.
Many have come out saying the cartoon is offensive and completely inappropriate. The New Yorker says they were simply trying to "hold a mirror up" to the lies and falsehoods that have been spread about Senator Obama.
In The Washington Post, Philip Kennicott writes that "If it's a problem at all, is that its humor is intended for a relatively insular, like-minded readership: subscribers to the New Yorker, a presumably urbane audience with strong Obama tendencies. No matter what the New Yorker says about holding up a mirror to prejudice, the cartoon certainly didn't do that. It was more like a spyglass."
In defending the cartoon, New Yorker editor David Remnick said "Satire is offensive sometimes, otherwise it's not very effective." He added that the cartoon does, indeed, have a title: "The Politics of Fear." He also said the cartoon has a context. That context is what I'm very interested to look into. I'm curious if there's any corresponding article to explain the point of view of the cartoon, or if the context is simply "this is The New Yorker."

Monday, July 14, 2008

Perspective-changing


My favorite author, hands down, is Barbara Kingsolver. Most of you probably know her best as the author of The Poisonwood Bible, which was an Oprah's Book Club selection a few years back. No offense to Oprah because I think she's done a great deal to encourage literacy, but I think she did a huge disservice to the author with that selection. As much as I love that book, I think it's not her best work. Although for her, even that isn't much of an insult.
At her worst she weaves a tapestry of beautiful prose. At her best, her writing has the ability to change the way in which the reader views the world and themselves.
I recently finished reading her collection of short stories, Homeland. The title story talks about a little girl growing up in the same house as her Cherokee grandmother. In one part of the story, when the little girl talks about her knobby knees that she hates. The grandmother says "never say that you hate what you are. It is an insult to those who created you." Overall her writing gives a glimpse into her Cherokee background that offers a perspective rarely seen in popular literature.
Of course I would recommend Homeland, but others high on my list are Animal Dreams, The Prodigal Summer, The Bean Trees and Pigs in Heaven.

Happy reading :)

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Guacamole that's a work of art

I love avocados. Yes, I know they're a tad on the fatty side. But the way I see it, the health benefits far outweigh the fat. And besides, I figure I work it off when I go running after I eat it.
But no matter how much I love avocado, I've always had a bit of a love/hate relationship with guacamole. I could never find a recipe I really liked.
Finally I figured it out. It's kind of a mish mash of a few different recipes I've tried. It's also a very simple, no muss no fuss version of guacamole because I think avocados have such an amazing flavor all their own that they should just be allowed to speak for themselves. I'll also include some tips for dealing with avocados because, if you're anything like me, you've put off making your own guacamole because you don't know quite how to get the insides out.

Ingredients

2 ripe avocados
1 plum tomato, seeded and diced
juice of 1 lime
1 clove of garlic
salt

First, we need to deal with the avocados. Start by making sure they're ripe. They should be a very dark green, almost black. And when you push on the outer skin, there should be some give to them. Basically, they should look like this:


Then you're going to cut into one side till your knife finds the pit, then cut all the way around the pit. Twist the two halves and they'll separate easily. To get the pit out, wedge the blade of your knife into the pit, like this:

Once the knife is wedged in there, twist and the pit should release easily. Now we need to scoop out the insides. Take a spoon and insert it just under the skin, using it to scoop the flesh away from the outer skin. Once you've gotten rid of the skin, chop the flesh into medium size chunks (exact size isn't important) and place in a bowl.
Next, chop your clove of garlic and then paste it. To do this, you'll chop the clove, then sprinkle it liberally with salt. use the flat side of your chopping knife to apply pressure to the garlic and smoosh it back and forth against the cutting board until you have a paste consistency. I'm using very technical terms, I know but it looks something like this:



Combine garlic paste with avocado. Seed tomato (cut in half and squeeze out and discard all the seeds and juice) and dice it, adding to the bowl.
Juice the lime into the bowl.
Mix well with a fork, smashing some of the avocado chunks as you go. I've seen recipes that use a food processor for this but I wouldn't suggest it. I think it makes too liquidy a consistency. You want it to be like a dip with a few chunks left in it.
Let it sit for at least 30 minutes before serving so the flavors have a chance to marry.

** Note: In an air-tight container, the lime juice will help this keep for a few days, but not much longer. Even preserved with the juice, the avocado will eventually oxidize and turn brown.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Sam's Bunny


The other night I finished making a stuffed bunny for my nephew, Sam. It wasn't really the knitting of the bunny that took so long. Mostly it was the finishing up, which I kept putting off. I knitted him up on straight needles so when I was done, I had a bunch of parts that needed to be stuffed and sewn. Finally I just got down to it and I must say, he's pretty darn cute.
I'm planning to give him to my sister's son as part of a christening gift when she comes to visit next month and I really hope she likes it. Of course, I hope Sam likes it too but he's only 9 months old so I'd imagine he'll like anything as long as it's soft, fuzzy and pretty colors.
I will say that I'm a little bit nervous, too. This will actually be the first thing I've knit that I'm giving away as a gift. I've been afraid, I think because I have this feeling like if the thing you make isn't absolutely perfect to the point of being mistaken for store-bought, that the person will view it as you being cheap and not wanting to spend money on the gift. So I guess I haven't been confident enough in my abilities up to now. But fortunately, since it's for my sister's son, I know she'll love it no matter what. And I know that she'll know that making the gift had nothing at all to do with saving money (at $10 a hank, that's a fairly pricey little guy!) and everything to do with putting my love into the present, rather than buying something generic at the mall.
Well anyway, I used the Knitted Cuddlies pattern and he's made with Blue Sky Organic Cotton, which is soooooo snuggly. The ears are white and the body is a baby blue. For the face I just used some charcoal gray scrap yarn I had laying around.

People I'd Like to Meet: the first installment

I was thinking about this last night. I'd really like to meet whoever is responsible for picking the music for Apple's ad campaigns. I sort of hope it's not just one person because that would mean there's someone working there with inhumanly good taste in music.
But whether it's one person or a room full of people sorting through songs, I owe a large portion of what is currently on my iPod to their taste.
I think it started about a year and a half ago when they started promoting iPods using "Flathead," by the Fratellis. Then, this year they used "1,2,3,4" by Feist and that made them one of my favorite bands. (their cover of Nina Simone's Sea Lion is awesome, by the way.)
More recently, it was the ad for the new thin Macbook that turned me on to "New Soul" by Yael Naim.
And they've also been the cause of my most current musical obsession, The Ting Tings
The Ting Tings sing the song on one of Apple's recent iPod commercials, "Shut Up and Let Me Go." It has such a great energy and just enough anger for me to want to blast it repeatedly when I'm driving alone.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Into the Wild


A couple months ago, I went to visit my brother, who lives in Alaska. For part of the time I was there we went camping in Denali National Park (completely amazing, but that's another story). Before I went, I had seen the trailers for the movie, "Into the Wild" and I vaguely knew that it was based on a book, which was based on a true story and that the true story was about a kid who went into the woods right near Denali and never came out alive.
In northern New Jersey, where I'm from, the story doesn't create much of a stir. But up in Alaska, people have some pretty strong feelings about what that kid did. Many that I heard were along the lines of how irresponsible and ill prepared he was for what he was trying to do.
After being up there, it piqued my interest so I picked up a copy of the book, by Jon Krakauer and read it on the plane ride home. I'll say this: it's a worthy read. Is it going to go down in history? Probably not. Win any awards? I'd be surprised. But what it will do is give you a little more insight into who this kid, Christopher McCandless, was and what went wrong. It'll make you understand a little better and maybe even sympathize just a little bit.
All that being said, after I finished the book, of course I had to see the movie. The book is worth reading, yes. The movie... well, let's just say read the book. I hate to sound like your 10th grade English teacher here but in this case, I'm telling you, read the book.
The book, like I said, gives some insight into what happened. And you get the definite sense that the author really identifies with this kid (in fact I'm pretty sure he comes right out and says it) and what you end up with is as complete a picture as possible of a very real, very lost kid who took things just a little too far.
The movie, however, did a very superficial job of painting a picture of an overzealous, overindulgent spoiled little rich kid trying to piss off his parents. It's entirely possible that some of these things are true, but without giving you the whole story and the background information, the movie makes it difficult to draw any other conclusion.
One final note: If you do take my advice, and decide to read the book, make sure what you're reading is the most current edition. Obviously, this story struck a chord with Krakauer because even after it was finished, he kept researching what had happened. He's edited to add new information and when I watched the movie, it became pretty clear that the screenwriter was working from an older version than what I read.

This blog

Let me just start by saying that the title of this blog is not, by any means, a self-proclamation. It's a nickname I was given by a friend because basically, I'm that friend who is always recommending new music, suggesting a new book or telling you to go watch some really random (but ultimately awesome) movie.
The idea for this blog started out as just that. A place for me to make those suggestions. And without me sitting there to pester you, readers (all two of you) can take or leave my suggestions as you like. But I don't intend for this to be just that. I'd like this blog to be just as varied as I am as a person.
Yes, in large part, I'll be writing about books, music, movies and things because that is a large part of who I am. But I'll also be writing about my own artistic adventures and experiments, among them, writing, knitting, cooking and whatever else strikes my fancy at the time. (Full disclosure here: you may at some point be subjected to reading some of my own attempts at poetry)
The way I see it, nothing is out of bounds here. Partly because, well, it's my blog. And partly because isn't variety really what culture is all about?