Pavlov, Salivation On!

Last night I made the dough for these cookies.  Our food processor wasn't really working (much like everything else in the house--go figure) but lucky for me I am the proud possessor of a mortar and pestle.  All I can say is, a dough that is supposed to take 20 minutes to make took me two hours, and I got a nice arm workout out of it, chopping and pounding almonds, and combining them with sugar, butter, flour, and egg yolks.  

The cookies I made are called Ischlers, and according to my taste tester (my mom--I haven't tried them yet.  I can't handle any more sweetness today after licking chocolate ganache off a spoon) they are delicious.   Ischlers are sort of almond-shortbready, and they're filled with jam (usually apricot, but I thought that was weird so I used raspberry) and topped with (what else but)...chocolate ganache!  Making the ganache was much easier than I thought it would be.  I ate a lot of chocolate ganache cake when I was younger, and thought there was something mysterious about it, but it turns out that it's only chocolate and cream.  I must say, however, that finding bittersweet chocolate that I could use for this recipe was difficult.  I walked to Trader Joe's yesterday only to find that they sold bittersweet chocolate in 3-ounce bars for three dollars each.  I needed half a pound (or so I thought--I now have a small pirex-full of chocolate ganache sitting in my fridge.)  They didn't have it at Sprout's either, but they did have it at Ralph's.  I got it in time to come home and watch Emma on PBS.  Woohoo!  I always squirmed when my mom wanted to watch those old English dramas (except the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice--that's six hours of amazing), but they're starting to grow on me.  And what with my house smelling like almonds, sugar, butter and chocolate, and my finding the first season of Pushing Daisies at the library (along with a Juliet Binoche movie--that woman is so beautiful) I am pretty darn contented.  I've also made a pact to go to the beach every day, and so far I've been keeping it.  Seeing the ocean and smelling the salt air will not stop amazing me.  I appreciate it so much more now.  Anyway, I've been rambling.  I took the liberty of attempting to take oddly-lit photos, so feast your eyes on the scrumptiousness (for some reason they're not as bright on Blogger as they are on my computer, but, oh well).

The One Year Mark

It has been more than a year since this man made me cry. I have taken my "Yes We Did" poster down. The Kucinich for President banner is still hanging in my bedroom. A year ago, I watched Barack Obama take his place as President of the United States in suspended disbelief. On November 4th of 2008 I fell asleep in a daze, waking to joyfully cry into my cereal, and to tear up in Calculus as I announced that I could say truly for the first time that I was "proud to be an American." It was a time to be corny and patriotic, for eyes to glisten at what seemed like the holiest of times, the promises in the air tingling.

Maybe it was just the magic of living in New Haven, but much has changed since then. Or, to put it more succinctly, not enough has changed since then. The most magical of times has lost out to reality. How am I to clap my hands as loudly as I can and say "I believe in Obama"? He has more responsibility than Tinkerbell. And more power that he has used illy. He has convinced Congress to pass a bill that frustrated most Americans, and even he is not proud of handing money over, however temporarily, to big business. Health care reform would have been the strongest point of his first year, and he has not done his job, letting a watered-down bill through, and Americans will suffer as a result. His mythology can only take him so far.

Sorry for this...I'm just mad about the whole thing. What is he going to say in his State of the Union Address? He and the media are way past their honeymoon period.

Obsessions?

Hooooooooney, I'm hooooooooooome.

What movie is that from?  I want to say it's from My Blue Heaven, but considering I haven't seen that movie since I was oh, maybe five years old, I could be (probably am) wrong.  Any takers?

So, obviously I haven't written on here in a while.  I'm in a particularly writerly mood today, and while I spent a lot of time this morning writing in my journal by a fountain (and watching little kids throw pencils and pinecones and stones into said fountain), I feel like being all...spontaneous.  Or as spontaneous as one can be on a blog. Evidently, I'm being rather inelegant and I'm in a talkative mood.  Since it is nearly midnight, I am talking to no one in particular, and everyone.  So even though I could be writing about my first day at my internship, or how the girl in my yoga class this morning fainted, I won't.  At least not today. 

Lately, I've been thinking about all the random people with whom I am not associated, but whom I love.  In no particular order, here are the ones I can rattle from my clanking brain at the moment:

PEOPLE NOOR MIGHT MARRY (yeah, not really): INSTALLMENT ONE

1.) Jimmy Carter:

This old man is adorable.  And I know that old people supposedly don't like being called "cute" or "adorable" or just generally be squealed at.  But you know, Carter probably could have been elected to the presidency based on his winning smile alone, K?  Now you may be thinking, Noor's getting ahead of herself.  And her love for Jimmy Carter is the product of either a strange and unhealthy love for octogenarians, or the callouses on her stony heart have been sawed off by those disarming teeth.  Okay that was a weird sentence.  Don't say you weren't warned.  But in any case, Jimmy's not all beauty and no brains!  He was a really great President--in my mind, one of the best America ever had.  He tried to do what was right for his country without being overly concerned about his own popularity (he wasn't reelected), and even now he's keeping himself out there.  Good man.

2.) Kenna

I don't really know how to explain what Kenna is.  He can't be filed under pop or rock or hip hop or electronica, but some weird amalgamation of them all with bits African beats and stuff that seems like it should belong in a Pixar film but that is actually found in his voice.  Whoah.  His music is decidedly better without the music videos, although the one for "freetime" manages to be both cute and disturbing.  Kenna, I do not want to see you being dragged around by police in your underpants.  If You do, however, (you being the invisible people I encompass by sweeping my arms up and around and possibly elbowing someone very visible in the process), here it is:  

3.) The Implicit Association Test Folks

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/takeatest.html

I took the race test, and these guys blow my mind.  I don't really understand how all this works--how do they factor in people like me, who forget which keys my fingers are on and thus press the wrong button?  I won't say what my result was from the test, but I will say it was surprising.  I genuinely believe I hold people of all races equal.  Is there anyone who has ever gotten a "perfect score" in terms of having no bias towards black or white people?

4.) Ralph Nader  

Ok.  So this isn't really any sort of revelation or anything, but I really love Ralph Nader.  I think he could have become president if he just stood a little straighter--he's always stooped, ever since he was a strapping young lad.  And, as much as it pains me to say so, stooping does not project confidence/a presidential aura.  I mean, look at Warren Harding--he only got elected because he looked like a presidential sort of guy.  Yalla, ya Nader. Sit up, stand up straight as the status quo.  Ok, the status quo is crooked.  Rebel against the status quo in your posture.  Why am I addressing this to Ralph Nader, he'll never read this?  And besides, honestly, I like him just the way he is.  And as much as I hate the way seat belts chafe one's neck, I love him for them.  And nutrition facts labels.  And cleaner air.  And...

5.) David Sedaris

This man.  Is amazing.  If he wasn't gay, I would be his stalker.  Ok, actually I wouldn't be, because who really needs to become a stalker when there's facebook live feed or news feed or whatever it is we're being fed, but I would be letting his girlish voice lull me to sleep every night.  Wait.  I already do that.  Just kidding.  I am not quite so attached.  Only every other night.  And I am joking you again.  But seriously, he makes me draw in a huge breath after every essay in When You Are Engulfed In Flames.  His other stuff is excellent, but that is mind-blowing.  And it is the one that drugs figure into least.  Ah, the irony.  Although, his stories in Barrel Fever are quite wonderful; if you're looking for white trash on a more sophisticated level than King of the Hill, that's totally the way to go.  Perhaps the piece that fills me with the most toothy joy is one he wrote for The New Yorker last year on undecided voters; it's the best commentary I've ever heard on the topic, and I think it really hi-lights my favorite thing about him--his abashed subtlety.  If anyone writes to discover, it's David Sedaris.  He's not trying to be the smart guy who shoves his wisdom down your throat.  He's at his best when he's the cynic who thinks noone is as good as him.  And it's wonderful. 

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2008/10/27/081027sh_shouts_sedaris?currentPage=all

and another fav, from Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim:  http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2004/jun/sedaris/usandthem.html

6.)  Ira Glass

Some people have described Ira's voice as that of an old, obese man.  Others have described its dulcet tones as those of a gay hipster.  To me, it's pure love.  If you've never listened to This American Life...you're missing out.    http://www.thisamericanlife.org/

7.) Beck

I've always loved Beck, and now I'm really digging this song...

Heaven

As a young child, I imagined that heaven was a library.  I envisioned a great room redolent with the beautiful, musty smell of pages from ages past, holding every book imaginable, all while retaining the cozy atmosphere of a private library.  My heaven was full of big, squashy, chartreuse-colored armchairs, the kind a small child like myself could just sink into, each with its own little table next to it, and a lamp that provided enough light to read by and painted everything around its dim pool goldenrod.  Also scattered about the room, reaching from old book-ladder to book-ladder were hammocks hung expressly for my reading pleasure.  Ah, to find yourself in a place where, after having lived your own life thoroughly on Earth, you could bury yourself in the worlds of others, take part in every adventure embarked upon this little planet teeming with life in the midst of a nebulous universe.

If you'd asked me what I wanted to be when I grw up at that age, you most likely would have been presented with a list of every possible occupation--"doctor, teacher, waitress, soccer coach, soccer mom (I thought this was a job.  I also thought minivans were cool.), lifeguard, scientist (I imagined myself looking through a telescope at the stars and sighing), writer, racecar driver, restaurant critic, actress, book-editor, hobo...".  As I grew older, the jobs became more specific, but just as varied.  In fourth grade, I planned to be a marine biologist, a botanist scouring the world for natural cures to a botanist scouring the world for natural cures to diseases like cancer, and a discoverer of rare mushrooms.  And then my ambitions became just plain precocious, "I want to be a social anthropologist!  I'll be an adventurer!" I cried at age 12.  "I'm planning to become a public intellectual," I told people at 16.  I wanted to do it all.    A heaven full of books would be the perfect place for me. 

And really, I don't think my idea of heaven was too far off.  because that's what dying means, really--once you die, you know everything.  Whether you believe in Heaven or Nirvana or Shangri-La or not when you're living, you finally find out if you were right.  And if heaven doesn't exist, and you decompose, the particles of You become a new part of the ever-changing universe, just another component in the Law of Conservation.  So if you find that heaven does exist, and if yours is like mine, you join every living thing...with the added bonus of a squashy chair, a hot hearth to warm your feet on, a dim lamp, and a hot cup of tea.  Oh yeah, and a good book.  Lots of them.

The Laundromat

Mannequins

So, on Saturday I walked home 4 miles from the library and took about 200 photos along the way.  Not as many as I'd like to have taken, and not as many good ones as I'd like, but it was the first time I'd really taken my camera out for a ... jaunt, and these photos of wig-wearing mannequins were some of the better ones I took.  I won't be including all of these either, because photos take forever to upload, so consider this set "Part One" of a series.  Hopefully I'll display progress as I take more and more photos.  Oh, and I love (and appreciate) constructive criticism (and compliments if they're warranted!), so please leave some!  (Photos are copyrighted, as is the writing on this site etc. etc.)                                          

       

 

 

   

 

 

                                                   

Oh Buddy

Oh man. Buddy Wakefield AND Anis Mojgani AND Mindy Nettifee in the same show? This is so amazing. I first heard Buddy Wakefield almost two years ago at a local reading and he blew my mind. He's a funny-looking white, bald man who's got something of the boy about him, but oh man oh my his voice stole away my blinks and my breath for about 45 minutes, and took hold of my mind for about six weeks, during which I wrote him a long, long poem, and he's lodged himself singing somewhere in my frontal cortex ever since. He's an international slam poetry winner, and if you get the chance to see him live, then do. Because you won't be disappointed. He will compose syllabic sonatas in your brain. But don't watch his youtube videos. Because even the well-shot ones can't capture the wonder you sense when you see his finicky jittery person performing, when you shake his hand.