Gnap!

A Beavercentric view

2011-11-21T17:01:00.038-05:00

Provenance is a concept that describes one's ability to trace the ownership and existence of a particular item, and generally is used for things of substantial value, such as paintings by Titian and other well-known artists. Often, painting and other objects de art which are of certain provenance are considered more valuable than similar items of uncertain provenance for the simple reason that one is never quite sure what happened to the latter. Plus sometimes they get kind of dinged up.

(Below--Diana and Actaeon by Titian c. 1556. A valuable painting of certain provenance and with some naked ladies in it)
According to Wikipedia, provenance is not to be confused with "provence" which is a scenic location in the south of France--and is in fact the south of France--which is, itself, of fairly certain provenance because it's been pretty geologically stable throughout recorded history and has not been hidden in a warehouse, painted over by the "nouveau riche" or accidentally mislaid during any armed conflicts.

(Left) Map of France. Provence, which is also of certain provenance, is toward the lower right)

Provenance is generally less likely to be applied as a term or concept to things like food, because the food we eat often doesn't have a long enough history to make its general whereabouts at all uncertain. Or at least we hope it doesn't.

Of course, the cultural habits we bring to foods and cuisines might have a long history, but since those aren't always all that tangible, it's not terribly common to really discuss provenance. (I think the right word for this is "foodways" but the theory is a little complicated and I frankly don't quite get it all.)

At least, these are the sorts of things my friend pointed out to me when I expressed some discomfort about the "provenance" of some beaver meat he was offering to allow me to eat. Or, rather, was explaining that he had gotten as leftovers from a guy during a kind of historic "interesting and edible animals" or "exotic and edible animals" or some such event in New England. He assured me that even though he forgot the beaver one night in the car, that it had been pretty cold out and it was perfectly fine. (And I should explain here that there are legal venues for obtaining beaver meat and that not all beaver species are endangered and that the beaver in question was handled humanely.)

I had an image of a juvenile beaver stuck in a car seat in the back of my friend's car,

gnawing on leftover bags of fast food refuse and cheap paperback books. (NB: my friend never eats fast food and took umbrage at my imagination placing the beaver in the back seat of my own car.) In any event, the hapless beaver did not gain in culinary succulence from this explanation.

(Right) Big Mac--a type of fast food that neither contains, nor is routinely consumed by, beavers.

When I was studying early American Literature, I learned a lot about beavers as cultural artifacts. I had not really been aware, for example, that the entire country of Canada was a result of the early fur trade, and that one of the reasons that Quebec is still francophone is that the first trappers were from France and had become very culturally enmeshed there.

Beavers remain pretty popular in Canada, and "Roots" uses one as its mascot or logo or what have you...on my last trip there I even bought a really cute cuddly toy beaver wearing a shirt with a beaver on it for my niece (She promptly "killed" it with one of the plastic dinosaur 'chompers' I bought her brother. I understand that the plastic dinosaur found the cuddly beaver to be "yummy.")

(Left: a beaver skeleton. Still good even if it has been left out in the car overnight.)

The day after I bought the cuddly beaver, I was at Lake Louise with a group of Italian colleagues after a meningitis and septicaemia meeting (it was much more fun than it sounds), and one of them asked what was up with all the beavers in Canada. I explained about the fur trade and the trappers and mentioned that the economic basis of the founding of settlements in North America was based on the beaver as a major export. It was probably somewhat boring, especially when compared with the lake and the cuddly toys.

He termed my explanation the "beavercentric view" of America. I kind of liked that as a term, but I could not really find a good way to work this into the beavercentric conversations I was having with my friend as the beaver in question languished in his freezer. Six months later, he was still offering it to me and told me I had only myself to blame if the beaver was getting freezer burn because the initial offer had been made as soon as he found it in his car. I was having a hard time arguing with this logic.

(Below) beaver lodge. Beavers spend a lot of time building these to create small ponds because beavers like small ponds. People who own trout streams do not appreciate the level of achievement this entails (beavers being only rodents) because they would prefer to be able to fish for the trouts and not have their parking places flooded. Some of these are brook trout.

Unfortunately, the beavercentric conversation took a turn at this point because I used the word "provanance" and my friend (like most of my friends) has a much better vocabulary than I do. He is also a bit more literal.

I was, in the tradition of Humpty Dumpty, paying "provenance" extra to mean not simply "I have no real idea where this beaver came from or how it has been handled since it was humanely killed" but also "I do not think of the back seat of your car as a place that I'd like to store food overnight."

He, on the other hand, made a point of explaining all the activities of the beaver from the time of its humanely handled death.

It made my life look quite boring and humdrum.

(above right) 1871 illustration of Humpty Dumpty by John Tenniel, a really good artist (although this copy might not really be art because it's mechanically reproduced). This is the Humpty Dumpty that pays words extra. Others just dance around and fall off things.

My friend took the opportunity at this point to tell me that it was more likely that there were items of uncertain provenance in all the fast food I was eating.

This was kind of a low blow, because of course I have read quite a number of books about fast food and how the industry can be quite mean to the animals and that my hamburger or hot dog might really be made of an unpleasant combination of snouts and corn syrup.

I don't believe this, exactly, but I have been eating kind of a lot of hot dogs since I got back from Ljubljana, which I blame on the nice man from the comic book store and his tale of the hot dogs of Ljubljana.

I'm still not consuming any beavers.

All images are in the public domain. beaver photos, Humpty Dumpty image, and map of France are in the public domain because their copyrights have expired. big mac photo by evan-amos.

hamburger and hot dog images by the National Cancer Institute of the United States.

A learning experience

2011-11-08T18:11:00.048-05:00

The panino is an Italian sandwich of any type, usually made on a bread roll or what we might call a sandwich, grinder, or even hero. It can also be served on ciabatta bread.

In other parts of the world, the panini is a sandwich made on flat bread that has been squished between two heated metal plates to toast the bread and heat up the fillings. In Italy they call this "a squished sandwich"... only they do it in Italian (and likely they don't really say "squished" but "pressed" or "toasted").

In the US and other parts of the world, the panini is its own special little slice of ... sandwich. There's even a whole blog site devoted to the making of the "happy panini." (Interestingly, in Italy, "panini" can, in fact, refer to comic books and comic book heroes like Spiderman and X-Men.) One can also find a version of the panini in the delightful "Louvre mall." They are quite tasty, and the lady who squishes them in the little hot pressing machine is really, really nice and pretends that your French is not hurting her ears, which is a rare thing in Paris, where normally people in the service industry yell at you for pronouncing things badly.

I used to get to visit a friend in Paris a few times a year because I had a job that brought me to France. It's amazing what you can learn from someone who lives in a city. For example, the Louvre used to be a royal residence and the site of many fine musketeer adventures.

One of the things that I learned was that, if you walk past the nice panini lady, the Louvre mall food court also has a gratin bar and a tapas place, each of which is quite a bit more enticing... and affordable, given that the sweater you just purchased at Benetton was en solde, and considering also that you forgot that the euro is worth a fair bit more than the dollar. But I digress.

One of the myriad sights to see on the way to the food court below the Louvre. Some people just go for the art.

I encountered a more disturbing instance of the panini near Camden, NJ during a blind date that took place at a trendy Italian-themed combination bistro and sports bar. At the time, my response to the offer of a blind date was "That sounds fun." I realize now that this is not always the correct initial response to a proffer of a blind date, but one must learn somehow.

In any event, I entered a trendy little bistro-type place in my at the time go-to outfit of skirt, boots and black top, passing a very, very tense looking man in a bright, pastel cashmere sweater. It was the type of garment that simultaneously screamed "easter egg" and "dry clean only." It was not the sort of thing that could be pulled off except by an Italian--or possibly French--man, perhaps holding a panino. The sweater would be worn draped over the shoulders with calfskin shoes in a interesting shade of some neutral color (or matching the sweater) and no socks. Or perhaps with a pastel shirt underneath, collar pulled up at a jaunty angle. The tense man in question was wearing the sweater with jeans in the style of a sweatshirt, accessorized by clunky brown oxfords and socks, which were appropriate to the weather.

I paused for a moment to be stunned by the sweater, tried to edge by unobtrusively. Sadly, the tense man turned out to be my blind date.
Ah well... on to lunch. "Sweater man," was a very voluble physician. At first he seemed cheerful and pleasant.

Then he assured me that even though he was smarter than me, it would be all right and I didn't need to feel bad at all. Ok--well, maybe I'd learn something.

He knew a lot about sandwiches because he was immediately able to identify the panini from the menu. He then asked if I knew what a panini was, and as I was opening my mouth to say I'd had one in the Louvre Mall the preceding week, he explained, at some length, that the panini was a pressed sandwich. My mouth fell open as he explained, and being a man who was--as he had already explained--well acquainted with the burden of speaking to those of far, far less intellectual ability than himself, he kindly repeated his explanation. Verbatim.

He then asked if I'd ever been to Europe, and as I was opening my mouth to explain that I'd in fact just returned from a weekend in Paris where I'd visited a friend after a work trip (and had a panini, since he'd asked), he launched into a loving description of a 10-day package tour to Italy.

I realized that I was not a required participant at the lunch and nodded attentively as "the sweater" (I had, sadly, already forgotten his name) regaled me with explanations about how they can actually get cheese from pecorino sheep and then instructed me on the proper eating of bread and butter, which I wasn't doing right.

This photo was hand-massaged by Jeff G.

Fortunately, his lecture on Italian foodstuffs was interrupted by the waitress. He ordered a chicken, portabello mushroom, and american cheese panini on ciabatta bread (so, in fact a panino although I felt it would be petty to point that out given my own marked deficiencies in the area of eating). They didn't normally offer the american cheese on the paninis and paninos because it was for the kid's meal cheeseburgers, so that needed to be sorted out. I ordered pasta.

By this time, I'd decided to set about the best sort of dating triage I knew, which was to slap a big, fake perky smile on my face and keep talking randomly. I later learned that Rachel Ray has been known to advise would-be cooking show hosts to do this...although she also advised them to keep talking about the food. (That would have been helpful to me to have known at them time.)

This held us through the time it took for the food to arrive, and the sweater was suggesting a follow-up date. I was trying to frame a noncommittal but perky response to this, at which point the sweater looked at his sandwich in some confusion. It was certainly the bulkiest panini I had even seen, and I supposed he was wondering how it could possibly fit into a human mouth. He peered between the slides of bread, as the waitress leaned over to give me my pasta. I picked up a fork, blithely unaware that I would be learning something very important in just a few moments.

A look of rage suffused the sweater's features and he burst out with some venom, "Isn't there supposed to be some sort of topping on this?"

The waitress and I both jumped a bit. She was standing next to him and got a good bit of distance in the hop.

At the time, I worked at a job where violent verbal outbursts were a daily event, and the best way to meet them was with calm and intellectual analysis. And withering sarcasm if the person had yelled something considered "stupid." At my workplace, the sweater would have been roundly mocked because the category of food topping includes things like cool whip, which do not normally go well with american cheese. Or possibly anchovies, which would have become a "filling" once put between two slices of bread.

(Pumpkin pie with a whipped cream topping...hold the anchovies.)

The waitress, however, was not used to being yelled at and was visibly shaken. She looked at me questioningly and I raised my eyebrows in a "got me" kind of gesture and mouthed "sorry." Poor impulse control aside, the sweater had, as he explained, been to medical school and was no idiot. He remembered that he was among those of inferior intelligence and was busily apologizing when the waitress bent down and patted his easter-eggy cashmere shoulder reassuringly. "Don't worry," she said brightly, "I'll get you some nice ketchup." She smiled, pleased to have come up with a solution to his panini needs.

I was impressed. She managed to convey her contempt of his panini in a way it would be impossible to complain about. The sweater's mouth opened a closed a few times.

It was with some difficulty that I did not burst out laughing. "Wow," I said. "What a helpful suggestion." The waitress and I beamed at each other and then at the sweater.

I kept chattering, and the waitress, exuding perky good will and extreme cheer arrived back at the table with a large soup bowl simply brimming with ketchup. As she put it on the table a little blob of the ketchup got on the sweater's dry-clean-only pastel sleeve. Oopsies! The red clashed with the easter-eggy color. She apologized profusely.

The sweater looked uncomfortable. He was, in fact, in a bit of a bind. He clearly realized that he might not be getting top marks on his dating behavior, and he'd been making some noises, as I noted above, about a follow-up date. One could almost see the wheels spinning in his head.

Given his earlier outburst, he had to pretend that it was perfectly fine, refuse her offer to reimburse him for the sandwich...and eat the ketchup.

We kept looking at him and smiling until he took a nice, big helping.

He only got a little more on his sweater. (The bowl was really full.)

After the date, I drove around the block and went back to give the waitress an extra tip.

Ketchup image from the Heinz web site. Image and logo subject to copyright. The Heinz corporation does not endorse the use of its ketchup or any other product to mock bad dates.

Panino image by Xavier Snelgrove. Pecorino cheese by Jeff G. Louvre photo by Vinceesq. Pumpkin pie by Nukkus. easter eggs by NaJina McEnany. These photo files are all licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.

Cashmere sweaters: public domain image.

Mello(w) Yello(w)?

2011-11-02T08:01:00.025-04:00

(above A Homer Simpson doll suspended outside a shop window in Iceland... or Island as properly spelled.) Definitely yellow. Probably not all that mellow.

Back in the day, a European performer known as "Donovan" popularized the idea that yellow could be a mellow color, even if it is kind of bright and sunny and generally rather exciting. Apparently, he even titled a whole record album after this concept. According to a rather disjointed and lively entry on Wikipedia, various origins for the identity of the mellow yellow object were originally suggested. None of them seem particularly cheerful.

Although clearly not the original "mellow yellow" object, the discussion brings to mind Andy Warhol's banana image for the Velvet Underground. Further research shows that people interested in bananas can be pretty intense, as there are quite a number of databases devoted to recording the genetic data and other information associated with this tasty fruit and its cousin the plantain.

A citrus-y soft drink called Mello Yello is also somewhat popular in the US, although probably not quite as popular as Donovan. One wonders if it's actually "mellow," however, as the whole point seems to be that it's caffeinated but does not taste like cola. Several other rival yellow caffeinated drinks are also available, but their advertising suggests that they are more intended for an edge-of-your seat, bungee jumping, cliff diving type of crowd.

The phenomenon of caffeinated but not cola drinks is a bit different in various countries. In Europe, citrus-y caffeinated soft drinks, like Kinnie and San Pellegrino Chino actually also look like cola and are not yellow. They do not really taste like cola. And some people have gone so far as to suggest that they do not taste good, but that is a matter of... taste. The citrus-y drinks definitely do taste interesting, although not quite as interesting as Thums Up Cola, which briefly ousted Coca Cola from India, only to be later engulfed by the now multinational "pause that refreshes."

Another interesting phenomenon in Europe seems to be a fascination with yellow-colored US cartoon characters. For example, both Spongebob and the Simpsons feature in shop window displays in Siena, where they also seem to be friendly with Smurfette.

I'm not sure what the representations are like in Europe, but I don't find the Simpsons or Spongebob or the Smurfs to be particularly mellow. Frolicksome, antic, perky, wacky, and lively, yes. Mellow. Not so much.

It is, of course, worthy of note that many of these cartoon images seem to play into a generally European notion that Americans are comical figures who pattern their behavior after such notable celebrities as Jerry Lewis after his split with Dean Martin or Soupy Sales.

Perhaps it's time for some further research?

fair use rationale for the images of copyrighted materials: use of these images as an illustration for purposes of criticism or comment, is not an infringement of copyright based on: the purpose and character of the use, which is not for profit, uses only a small portion of the copyrighted work, and does not infringe upon the commercial use of the original work.

image credits:citrus slices by Scott Bauer, USDA. public domain image
citrus wedges image from the US National Institutes of Health. public domain image.

Zombies--does anyone really need one?

2011-10-30T14:49:00.011-04:00

The time of Halloween is upon us and thoughts naturally turn to such things as sugar skulls, chocolate candy, plastic pumpkins and, of course, zombies.

Sugar skulls from sugarskull.com.

The theory is that zombies are a type of undead monster that has been reanimated from the dead and lurches about insatiably eating brains or human flesh and generally acting in a socially inappropriate fashion. This is even worse than the faux pas committed by Sheldon Cooper when he accidentally picked up some cadaver brains instead of sashimi. It is worthy of note, that he is afraid of zombies and therefore cannot watch the Thriller video that heralded the advent of MTV.

Zombies are also quite dangerous in other ways. If a zombie bites or scratches you, the choices are to allow yourself to be eaten or to become a zombie yourself. This tends to make other people rather nervous and shy of the company of zombies and also leads to activities like mass burning the zombies or blowing them up. All of which is a bit yucky, to say the least.

(left and below) image of zombies from Night of the Living Dead. Images from the film and its advertising are in the public domain in the United States

As you can clearly see, zombies are not fun and do not make good pets. They also dress badly.

The treatment of zombies in film is generally straightforward; however, literary depictions range from the rather simple range of fast and slow zombies in The Forest of Hands and Teeth, a young adult novel that has enjoyed a great deal of success and spawned two sequels and a companion book. (Many people like this book. MightyIsis was up for three days after reading it, which is a testament to the power and realism of the prose.)

Another handling of zombies can be found in American Gods, an acclaimed fantasy novel by Neil Gaiman, who is best known in some circles for the Sandman graphic novel series (that also kept MightyIsis up at night). In American Gods, zombies are described as men who think they are dead and therefore can use this knowledge as license for their various zombie activities. Disturbing as this is, it is also quite an interesting statement on human nature.

None of which, of course, explains why a friend once told MightyIsis, "sometimes you just need a zombie." Really? Outside of the context of making a horror movie?

This was a bit of a stumper (note: not a good word to use while interviewing to become a professor), but MightyIsis gutted through it and finally came up with a zombie needing scenario.

The acapella group Rockapella is perhaps best known for the the theme song to a children's program called "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego"? However, they also do a really interesting version of a song called "Zombie Jamboree." The performance is adorable...

sometimes you just really need a zombie jamboree....?

Well, maybe not.

Of course, there is a social situation in which zombies are actually needed, which is the zombie walk. MightyIsis accidentally attended one of these recently while looking for Faniuel Hall with a friend. But most of the zombies there were regular people dressed as zombies. And none of them were eating brains or human flesh.

Fair use rationale for sugar skull image: use of this image as an illustration for purposes of criticism or comment, is not an infringement of copyright based on: the purpose and character of the use, which is not for profit, uses only a small portion of the copyrighted work, and does not infringe upon the commercial use of the original work.

Benchtosis

2011-10-29T16:30:00.058-04:00

In The Big Bang Theory, Howard Wolowitz posits that his friend, Sheldon Cooper, is most likely to reproduce via mitosis, a process generally reserved for cells. Theoretically, Sheldon would consume mass quantities of Thai food (although perhaps not quite as much as the Coneheads would), then divide into two separate Sheldons. The humor value in this little joke is considerable, although I understand that explaining it would ruin the fun. Suffice it to say that mitosis was offered in lieu of sexual reproduction.

(Left) Image of cell life cycles, including mitosis (labelled as "c"). Public Domain image by EB Wilson.

Of course, there is no evidence that people can reproduce by mitosis or that Thai food can cause unusual reproduction. At least not on Wikipedia. (I'm not really planning to research this.)

Nevertheless, there is a possibility that unusual reproduction, or even mitosis, may occur in other contexts. Well, mostly cells, but what if other things didn't reproduce the way we all thought?

Take for example, the benches of Ljubljana, a lovely city in Slovenja (which formerly was part of Yugoslavia, although that was only after it had been dragged behind the Iron Curtain rather against its will). Ljubljana is a really beautiful and delightful city that has many fine features (and book stores). It is also the home of Slavoj Zizek, who is a really remarkable theorist and apparently quite fond of the word "qua."

The nice man from the Comic Book Store (no, the new one) even recommended the hot dogs, which were just fine. The hot dog vendors actually carve a tunnel into the bun, which makes the application of toppings a bit interactive, but there's less squirting than you'd get with a Nathan's hot dog.

Arial view of Ljubljana (photo taken by MightyIsis's alter ego RegularIsis). Pretty.

One of the interesting and distinctive things about Ljubljana is its dragons. There are four of them, and they guard the bridge a little ways from the town center. They all look exactly the same, possibly because they came from the same mold. This would be a kind of reproduction, but not mitosis. In fact, if Walter Benjamin is to be believed, these dragons, nifty as the are, might not really be art because of the way they were mechanically reproduced. Marcel DuChamp, who is well-known for putting rather-more-than-slightly-used urinals on display at museums under the cheerfully deceptive title of "fountain" might probably have disagreed if he were asked. Although he may just have casted some in chrome and displayed them himself. (Note: Art Historians get upset if you refer to him as "that urinal guy.")

(Left) one of the four guardian bridge dragons. Not produced by mitosis or sexual reproduction. Also, possibly not really art.

(below, right) "Fountain" by Marcel DuChamp. Public Domain image. Not terribly hygienic and undoubtedly mass produced. However, definitely art.

Another interesting thing in Ljubljana is the presence of many cute, glossy little benches. So adorable. Also quite convenient for eating any hot dogs you may have happened to have bought. They provide a nice surface for setting down your cola so you can apply ketchup (or the topping of your choice) to the hot dog you just bought.

(below) Another cute bench. One of many such benches to be found, displaying another option in the plethora of bright, shiny colors to be seen.

Around the city, particularly in the major pedestrian shopping zones, the little benches sit perkily waiting for a weary walker. They have, as you can see, different little color combinations as well.

This all seems innocent enough... doesn't it?

MightyIsis had been given to understand that most benches do not reproduce, but rather are mass produced (no, not really like mass quantities, although those can be mass produced as well), and therefore do not have to engage in mitosis.

...but then, it seemed that some of the benches were not just hanging out waiting for tourists to find a safe haven for consuming hot dogs, coca-colas and possibly a nice packet of "crisps" (which is a fancy foreign word for "potato chips").

(Above, left) a nice little bench with red and blue slats. Very handy for sitting.

Of course, some of the benches seemed to have friends. Which could be handy for sitting with larger groups of people... and hot dogs.

(left) two little benches. Convenient for sitting with a friend or maybe two, and able to accommodate several hot dogs or perhaps a pizza.

Some locations, like the central area where several streets come together had longer benches, more like the standard park bench one might see in London or New York.

but then... the longer benches started acting a bit strange...

Since the benches lacked any obvious means of propulsion and were extremely heavy, it appeared that something quite serious was up....

indeed...

There was definitely some movement.

I am given to understand that benches are not terribly quick-moving, so this much have taken some effort.

After a day or two of pondering this movement, I decided that I was just imagining things.

And then, what to my wondering eyes should appear...

Perhaps next time I'll eat elsewhere...

Figure credit: Mitosis: Figure 2 of: Wilson, Edmund B. (1900). The cell in Development and Inheritance, second edition, New York: The Macmillan Company.

The Story of Dave and the Lilac Bush

2011-10-23T12:39:00.037-04:00

Lilacs, part of the olive family, are the state flower of New Hampshire and a common feature of the suburban landscape in the greater New York metropolitan area. In fact, I first encountered the lilac as a child, in the back yard of a suburban house and my parents currently have a couple of lilac bushes growing near the red maple tree. The lilac is an early flower and a harbinger of spring, which explains its frequent presence in Easter bonnets and early associations

with colored eggs, lilacs and chocolate bunnies that taste a lot like the plastic they were wrapped in.

Popular culture representations of the lilac are, I think, rather infrequent. The first one I noticed was in the Doonesbury comic strip, where it provided a comic statement on investigative reporting--when Roland Hedly III submitted a photo of a lilac bush as strong evidence of marijuana use in communes. This was my first exposure to the possibility that the lilac bush could provide an ironic or comic value, rather than merely signifying the spring or perhaps the impending deluge of chocolate and jelly beans that meant "Easter" to me as a child.

My second unexpected encounter with a lilac came during my first semester of college. I'd chosen a school that described itself as "off the beaten track" by which, at the time, I supposed was meant "has no pavements." (They have since been supplied.)

I moved into a dormitory that had been built into a ravine on stilts and swayed alarmingly whenever there was a stiff breeze. On the plus side, there was a small waterfall outside my window, which provided soothing background noise for a restful sleep, at least when it wasn't frozen. At the time, I was not certain that it fully compensated for the fear that the dormitory could tip into the ravine, travel in the creek down to the Hudson River and be well en route to Lisbon by the time I awoke.

After my first not-so-restful night in the swaying dorm, I was at lunch with a kind woman who went on to win the women's studies prize the year we graduated. The food was a bit strange, and my tray said "tray of redundancy tray" in indelible ink on the tray. We were having a mildly pleasant conversation when the person who would become a good friend catapulted himself into a chair. He was unshaven and strangely dressed, and accompanied by a friend. They looked at us expectantly "You're new" Dave announced. His friend laughed and slapped him playfully on the arm, a fine moment in homosocial bonding (they had a lot of these).

We had an interesting lunch and I wandered off to "Set Theory" which was an interesting course. It had a lot of Venn diagrams in it.

Later that night, on consulting with my friends in the swaying dorm, I learned that Dave was regarded as a comical figure by many and that he and his friend felt it was imperative to greet all new young women, even though they were a couple (They weren't). Later that evening, while walking backward down the ravine road with another friend (we didn't have television and had to make our own entertainment), she said that Dave and his friend could be seen in their bathrobes on the wall outside the dining commons on weekends before breakfast. I also learned that he liked to talk a lot in class, especially if he had not done the reading. Little did I know that he would become one of my best friends.

A few weeks later, having seen the spectacle of Dave and his friend in their bathrobes first-hand, I was in the waterfall--not the one outside my dorm room (there were a few falls on campus)--deciding that I should put my sneakers back on to deal with the sharp rocks when Dave came crashing out of the woods carrying a huge stick firmly in his right hand. He saw me, stopped and said "would you like to see the fish?"

Well, why not? It's not every day that you get such an offer. The fish were located among the rocks just above the falls, where (I guess) they were hoping not to be dashed to bits. As I wedged my feet, now protected by Keds, between the stones, I found myself hoping that I, too, was not dashed to bits. As we hovered over a fish, Dave told me knowledgeably that it was "some sort of trout." He couldn't have known, because I really don't like to talk about it, but I had been engaged to a real outdoorsy guy and I'd spent many hours watching the sun rise over (optimistically) fish-laden waters. So, I said that it was a brook trout (because it was). Dave reacted to this bit of intelligence by nimbly hopping back to the shore, leaving me stranded in the middle of the falls. The fish looked kind of amused, but I wasn't.

That might have been the end of that, and I would have missed out on a decades long friendship with a truly lovely person who has a heart of gold, which possibly explains how he was able to win the affections of a truly lovely and remarkable woman (I'm referring to his partner).

And then came the lilacs, although there must have been some other contact or I doubt he would have stopped by that afternoon just to be pelted with information about fish. Dave found me on the back porch, reading a book against the backdrop of waterfall, flowers and trees that was the ravine that particular afternoon.

He spoke. I jumped, then turned, and Dave offered to show me "something amazing."

I could have replied that he already was, since he was dressed in his bathrobe--which he to this day insists was a kimono (although we all agree that it was blue)--which he had left open over a very impressive chest of hair and a pair of cut off shorts that was much shorter on one side and had strings hanging past his knees. They looked like they'd been cut off with a steak knife. He was also wearing a pair of hush puppies that had the soles cut off and replaced with a functional layer of duct tape. He called these his "moccasins." I would come to know them well as "those things," a name originally bestowed on them by his mother.

Oddly enough, I had been nursing a little bit of a crush on Dave before the "fish incident," so I happy trotted along behind him to see whatever amazing thing this was. we progressed down the row of swaying stilt dorms (there were quite a number of these) and found ourselves by the ruins of an old chapel. Dave passed this and waved his arms triumphantly at... a lilac bush.

It was, I suppose, rather a nice lilac bush, as lilac bushes go. But it was actually not really at all "amazing." I found myself in a quandary because there was really nothing I could say as Dave stood there beaming at having shown me something amazing (assuming he found nothing out of the ordinary about his outfit). Thankfully, he then dove into the bush, immersing himself in the blossoms and acting in a highly gruntled manner. This was truly quite amazing.

We then went back to my room and played "cootie" and Dave ate my chocolate Easter bunnies. Yes, the ones that tasted like the plastic wrappings they had come in. He bit the heads off first and got chocolate all over my ABC's comforter, but it seemed less important to me than the amazing fact that he had never seen a cootie game before.

All images from wikipedia. Lilac images are all in the public domain. Credits: Anthony Appleyard, Wouter Hagens.Trout image from the department of fish and wildlife by Eric Engbretson. Bathrobe is a public domain image by Hmwith. Roland Hedley image and Cootie game image: The copyright for these images is most likely owned by either the publisher of the comic or board game or the writer(s)and/or artist(s) that produced it. It is believed that the use of low-resolution images of a single panel from a comic strip to illustrate the copyrighted character(s) or group(s) depicted on the excerpted panel in question or low resolution images of a board game; where no free alternative exists or can be created, hosted on servers in the US without person profit qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law so long as they are without profit and do not affect the use or other value of the original.

Totem Poles, Classical Music, Dinosaurs and Santa

2010-11-27T14:36:00.024-05:00

In The Librarian, a series of films starring Noah Wyle (the first was directed by Peter Winther), we learn that being a librarian can be a dangerous quest for knowledge involving enchanted spears, swords and other dangerous paraphernalia. Apparently, knowing the Dewey Decimal system, being nerdy and wearing horn-rimmed glasses is no longer an adequate qualification.

(Below, the John Rylands Library Reading Room)

The 'humble librarian' as action-adventure hero is a much-done theme, as shown in a truly wonderful set of Australian horror books by Garth Nix. As National Treasure and the Night at the Museum films also teach us, museums are much the same. Not only do the collectors have to brave pits full of snakes and giant boulders in such productions as the Indiana Jones films, but they have to manage the evil cleaning crews headed by such unsavory characters as Dick van Dyke. There's even a comic book, Rex Libris, about a librarian who has to go into the past and the future and outer space to retrieve stolen library books.

These books and films show us that the quiet, dusty, book lined buildings filled with boring people wearing thick glasses attached to their necks with gold-toned chains that we think of as "libraries" are, in fact very exciting places. Not the parts that we get to see, of course, those look like the the Rowlands Library

In these books and films, beneath the book-lined interiors of these majestic buildings, saints were martyred, spies made vows to protect antiquities and bad guys of various sorts built their lairs. Enter one of these halls, and you never know quite what to expect. There's even trees and suns and stuff down there, hiding angry monsters that would like to eat your brain.

MightyIsis, despite her wallflowerlike personality and liking for quiet evenings punctuated only by the sound of crunching Oreo cookies, loves libraries and museums. Of course, she has never been in danger of having her brain eaten, even during a behind-the-scenes tour of the herpetology department. (The taxidermied turtles are scary for a host of other reasons, though)

Take, for example, the John Rylands University Library, where you can see the oldest existing piece of bible...MightyIsis did (See below).

If you believe these movies, then the nice lady who buttered the scones in the tea shop is actually a deposed Egyptian goddess who is working off her 1000 years of community service for feeding parts of her dead nephew to another family member during a particularly nasty fight about whose turn it was to put earrings on the sacred crocodiles or something. And Vikings are lurking behind the poetry display looking to carry off any likely looking maidens to help them catch a unicorn so they can get it to poke Teddy Roosevelt in the bottom. Meanwhile, the oldest piece of bible verse carries a secret code that contains the combination to a locker that holds a bunch of lightning bolts.... Or something like that.

Of course, these old bits of parchment, like the Dead Sea Scrolls, are often kept in museums as well. Which gets a tad bit confusing, actually. I mean, how are you supposed to know where to go to look for what? Below: Dead Sea Scroll, last seen by MightyIsis in a museum in California.

This problem is only compounded when you start thinking about the different types of museums. Say you want to see some African art. Do you go to a museum of natural history...like the Royal Ontario Museum, or an art museum like the Metropolitan Museum of Art?

MightyIsis likes both. And in some ways, natural history museums are a lot better. For one thing, they are friendlier for kids, which means that they have things like bat caves and tunnels where you are the same scale as a worm, and petrified wood. Also, they have dinosaurs, which are very special, even if MightyIsis has seen better examples elsewhere.

And who else has such a nice Quetzlycoatlus?

So imagine the joy of MightyIsis on wandering back into the lower level of the Royal Ontario Museum after viewing a truly spectacular exhibit of 20th century African art. Although she had just learned that she had been trapped for another hour by the Santa Claus parade, she spied a totem pole in sight of a dinosaur, just as an orchestra began to practice for a concert.

Sublime.

Manuscript images in the public domain. Image of the John Rylands Reading room: file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license. Photograph by Mike Peel(www.mikepeel.net)

The bat cave--all it's cracked up to be?

2010-11-24T18:29:00.027-05:00

As everyone knows, Batman, otherwise known as the Caped Crusader, has his very own cave, the Bat Cave, which is located beneath the stately Wayne Manor, home of his playboy alter ego Bruce Wayne, just outside of the perpetually troubled Gotham City. In the classic--or at least the "cool"--film Batman Begins, we learn that as a boy Bruce Wayne was traumatized by bats and used his superhero persona as a way of overcoming that and the even greater childhood tragedy of losing both his parents to violent crime.

(Below, Bruce Wayne and sidekick. NB: They are definitely not gay and there is nothing even remotely weird about them sleeping in the same bed. Or their clashing pajamas.)

The Bat Cave is full of technological gizmos and gadgets that range from the sublimely ridiculous “Bat Shark Repellant” that Robin whipped off his utility belt during an undersea adventure when “Superfriend” Aquaman was not available to use his sonar powers, to the rather nifty full-body armour that the Dark Knight sports during his myriad feats of derring-do and whatnot. There are many large computers and other items with blinking lights and bat costumes, and probably even a few actual bats. Or would be if Batman wasn't scared of them.

The Bat Cave also has cars—the Batmobile, of course, but all of the many iterations of it, some fancy sports cars that Bruce Wayne is tired of, and things like little Bat Tanks that need someplace to be while they’re not outside vanquishing foes or zooming up to Batman in his hour of need like a cross between Trigger, the faithful mount of Roy Rogers, and Kit, the self-aware car of Knight Rider. Plus any planes and gliders that Batman and Robin are using or working on also have a place in the BatCave. It is worthy of note here that Batman is cooler than David Hasselhoff and also that the Batmobiles are cooler than Kit.

Of course, the Bat Cave is a made up story and no one really believes it exists.

Except MightyIsis… and then, only a little.

Sometimes.

After a few beers, mostly.

And while watching the Superfriends,

or any Batman movies,

or reading about Batman…

or Spiderman, actually,

or any other character popular at the Comic Book Store,

and well…

Ok, MightyIsis is a bit silly about Batman.

Luckily, Batman is not the topic of today’s blog or things would begin to get a bit soppy at just about this point.

This past weekend, MightyIsis visited an actual “Bat Cave” at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). It was a bit of a disappointment. The museum itself was marvelous, but the bat cave was not as good relative to its billing as the rest of the exhibits.

Of course, an obsession—well, let’s say a healthy interest—in Batman does not lend itself to realistic expectations of other Bat Caves. It rather places them at a disadvantage. But the bat cave literature—not to mention the helpful signs—indicated that this “new” bat cave was “bigger, better, and scarier than ever !” With bats…and animatronics.

So, as a lover both of bats and of animatronics, MightyIsis made haste away from a truly gorgeous exhibition of twentieth century African art to the bat cave, eagerly tamping down all thoughts of Batman Begins or “It’s a Small World” as she went. After all, why set up the ROM bat cave for failure? That would be unfair.

The bat cave had a lot of plastic bats on what appeared to be elastic strings…and some other more detailed plastic bats, and a lot of red lights. The cave walls were nice, and the bat cave sounds were realistic-sounding for a person who had never actually been in a bat cave.

But it was less good, certainly than the “Masters of the Night” exhibit that showed tons of real, live, actual bats and flying foxes. Which are pretty big. Or the World of Darkness at the Wildlife conservation society, or even the bat that got stuck in the hallway at MightyIsis’ last job.

Surely this is not the fault of anyone at the ROM. The children right in front of MightyIsis seemed to enjoy the bat cave very much, actually. Until they reached the end and wanted to know where the real bats were. Below: a bat--not the type at the ROM.

MightyIsis just went and looked at the totem poles. Admittedly, there are tons of bigger, nicer ones in the Field Museum in Chicago (they are left over from the World's Fair), but the ROM had some simply delightful classical music.

Images: Batman and Robin: This low-quality image which represents a single panel from a larger comic book work and is for illustrative purposes is in no way an infringement of the copyright holders' rights to the property, nor does it limit the copyright holders' ability to sell reprints of the entire work. All DC Comics characters and the distinctive likeness(es) thereof are Trademarks & Copyright © 1954 DC Comics, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Batcave: limited use of this copyrighted image in as an illustration directly pertaining to it is a fair use. It depicts a fictional subject (such as a character) that is copyrighted. It would be impossible to create a replacement image which would not be subject to the original author's copyright. The image is only used to illustrate the fictional subject. The purposes are not for profit and in no way reduce the value of the original or limit its use. characters and the distinctive likeness(es) thereof are Trademarks & Copyright © 2006 DC Comics, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Organichasms

2010-01-22T07:56:00.016-05:00

In reading the last, hurried, guilty food-oriented posts, I came to a decision: food diarist is not in my line. Or at least "regular food diarist" is not really my thing.

I like to read a lot and experience a lot and then synthesize all of that experience with a healthy dose of something whimsical. Like a plastic dinosaur or two. I like plastic dinosaurs...especially the fancy ones.

(Photos of my kitchen counter...thanks iPhone!! [left] iguanadon with eucalyptus in commemorative Weinachts glass from Cologne and 100th anniversary Milka tin)

So, although I've not been blogging regularly about my food exploits, I have not fallen off the better eating wagon entirely...bruised and battered I may be by the temptations of the Hostess cupcakes (so yummy), and even more so by the prose of Peter Singer (can that man evoke a more horrifying image of cruelty to swordfish?), I have persevered to present: this blog post. All right, even I am a bit underwhelmed by this, but what can we do?

[below] stegosaurus, purchased in Siena, Italy (at a store brimming with Smurfs) and posed with eucalyptus leaves. The little human being trampled underfoot is just for scale and was not harmed in the making of this photo.

[right] parasaurolophus with owl "whimsy," pigeon pea can, and huile de salade dispenser. The huile de salade dispenser is complete with recipes... albeit en francais, which requires a bit of doing to figure out.

Ok, not very much to show for 6 weeks of dietary efforts, but what can I do?

Over the past few weeks, I found it very hard to eat foods that Peter Singer described as being raised cruelly. So, eggs and chicken have been largely off the table, as well as anything I know has eggs in it, unless I can verify that they are organic.

I was wondering about this weirdly visceral reaction. After all...I've been hearing about egg production for years. Melanie Joy in Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows offers the explanation that as we conjure up images of nonfood animals, we experience disgust at the thought of eating them. I seem to be having the same experience with eggs. And, as I learned while eating lunch at Whole Foods yesterday, Michael Pollan in his recent, slim how-to-eat volume indicates something similar: if you can't picture the animal and know it was treated humanely, you're better off not eating it.

I am wondering if I am scarred for life. I used to be able to eat prepackaged baked treats, and when I had a packaged cupcake on New Year's Day, all I could think about were stacked cages of beakless chickens.

And going organic is a total pain: it's hard and expensive. Organic food spoils almost instantly and it rarely comes in single-serving sizes. And it's deceptive: organic cheddar bunnies say they're organic, but it's only the wheat. Who knows how the cheddar was produced? And organic frozen waffles (my sister left some eggos at my house and I got hooked)? Where did the eggs come from? And, by the way, "flax" is not a tasty waffle flavor, especially for those of us who like Twinkies but can no longer eat them.

In my out-to-eat with work life, I'm eating more beef now because it's raised less cruelly than other animals. And I'm struck by how difficult it is to find light meals and options that aren't packed with bacon of mysterious origins. Ok--I know it's from pigs (or turkeys...or maybe tofus), but which pigs? did they have names?

Frankly, I was a bit happier when I was chivvying my family about whether or not the apples were "free range" or the potatoes were cage free. Then I started to wonder--are the mouse-shaped cucumbers at Disneyland cruel to plants? Or are the plants better off because they are being tended by hydroponic specialists in perfectly controlled conditions?

So, I guess it's back to the Pocono diet: lots of dried fruit and green beans and tomatoes, almonds, and some pasta on the weekends. Tons of chips and salsa with cheese on the side and bags and bags of those little carrots.

Of course, There will be some changes. I discovered the wonderful world of arugula--what a tasty green. I'm also now spending $4 per half gallon of milk to get organic (it tastes a lot better, which means I'm drinking it) and supporting the local cheesemakers of Vermont, who if they are not already blest, in my humble opinion should be.

What is art?

2009-11-26T10:19:00.008-05:00

I realized this morning that the "existential" portion of this blog has been a bit lacking, except perhaps for the cow. I like cows. Especially the chocolate cow in a chocolate field by a chocolate stream...the one that gives chocolate milk. No. It does. I saw it on the television and it has to actually be true.

I do not like to drink chocolate milk for a number of reasons, including the insightful commentary by Sandra Boynton that it (like chocolate ice cream) does not actually taste like chocolate. However, my extensive research (read: "Google") reminds me of another "chocolate cow" phenomenon...a popular 1980's drink.

My brother and I once had a rather heated falling out over the meaning of art at Christmas brunch in the early 1990's. At least, I do remember him screaming, cursing and storming away from a plate that still held bacon. That was a pretty strong measure of the seriousness of the situation. Tony, like Jeffrey Steingarten, is of the opinion that bacon is a food that always improves everything.

I do not remember what we were actually arguing about.

images: Yoo Hoo, owner of the Chocolate Cow drink popular in the 1980's public domain image from Wikipedia.

Good things and other things

2009-11-25T12:29:00.011-05:00

Day three of better food choices... Began oddly. I had read a really distressing little book by Neal Schusterman (If you have not, you must read The Schwa was Here...) and had weird nightmares afterward. Oddly, the involved the logo from Elephant Walk, a Cambodian restaurant in Cambridge, MA, and the work scene from Dumbo (yes, the Disney movie)...

...I woke up humming "we're happy, hearty roust-abouts" which may or may not be the right words.

Choice 1: Finish

milk with a lovely bowl of Frosted Flakes
cage free eggs
free range chicken with onion, tomato and pineapple over pasta
organic chocolate bar

Choice 2: Avoid

Yummy hut
highway convenience foods (missed McDonald's a leader in humane animal welfare and avoiding deforestation)
mystery eggs

Day 4 began with "expired food bingo" at my parents' house. I never notice how much expired food is squirreled away in my house until I move or I visit a family member and see what they have. At least I come by this tendency honestly.

I then annoyed the waitress at the Irish breakfast place by asking where the eggs came from. (She might have offered "hens" as an answer, imho). Ate porridge and a lovely scone. For lunch, peanut butter and jelly on "whole wheat" type packaged bread.

Dinner: Cheesecake factory. Stunning selection of lovely-looking food. Arugula salad (yummy and with imported cheese) and guacamole (generous portion) and chips. Nice crusty bread. I've never been to Cheesecake factory before. Lovely.

Day 5: Bagels from the local bagel place....also Thanksgiving day. ...we shall see what happens

Cheesecake photo by Pilauricy posted to Wikipedia and used under creative commons license.

The Teletubbies of Siena

2009-11-25T12:03:00.016-05:00

My cousin Erin and I share very few cultural connections for people who grew up in the same family. Even our taste in Adam Sandler movies is completely nonoverlapping (we have not seen the same ones, apparently), and really, when you come to think about it, there is not very much range in Adam Sandler’s movies. (No offense--they’re generally quite cute--I’ve seen The Wedding Singer about nine times—maybe twelve—but really, there is a working formula there that is just not messed with too much.) So, it came as something of a surprise when I discovered that Erin and I were joined in mutual and enduring dislike of the teletubbies.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Teletubbies, they are small, color-coded creatures who squeal and giggle a lot and talk weird baby language. Each one has a different shape on its head, and they also happen to have little television monitors implanted

in their little tubby tummies. Tele-tubbies. Get it?

The Teletubbies were first created by Anne Wood and Andrew Davenport and have won several prestigious awards because the program had unusually high production values and generally promoted wholesome good fun that was also educationally sound. It is designed for pre-school children.

I find the Teletubbies very hard to watch.

My friends find this a bit odd. Likely because I have some rather juvenile likes, and also because I do enjoy many items that are not well-produced or educationally sound.

(Right: Teletubbies, Dipsy, La-La, Po and Tinky Winky)

I can sit contentedly through almost any non-horror type movie that does not feature John Candy or Bill Murray (I'm not so much with pratfall), although I have watched Groundhog Day and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles each several times with a high degree of enjoyment.

I can watch 4.5 hours of “Spot” videos without losing my composure. I like Smurfs so much that I went to the Musee de Bande Desinee in Brussels to buy French-language Schroumpf comics (three times). I watched the Care Bears movie without gagging (the art by Elena Kucharik is really pretty).

And I even sat several times through Land Before Time VI in which a group of young herbivorous dinosaurs find a baby tyrannosaurus, whom they name “Chomper,” and proceed to bring it back to its large and voracious parents despite the fact that it keeps trying to eat them. It’s a musical.

No, I’m not kidding.

Yes, several times.

In one weekend.

So, I think it is fair to say that I have a fairly high tolerance for the saccharine.

(Left: Care Bears from American Greetings.)

I can’t watch the Teletubbies. It’s something to do with the squealing, the television tummies and also the uptake among the gay-lesbian-transgendered community about the purple Teletubbie with a triangle on his head. He carries a purse. I'm fairly certain that the program's creators did not intend for this to happen.

For those of you who don’t know, a purple or lavender triangle was the Nazi symbol for homosexuals, who they were made to wear their symbol much like the Jewish community were forced to wear a star. Personally, I think that the gay-lesbian-transgendered community deserves a better mascot than a squealing, giggling part-television animal that doesn’t seem to be able to speak articulately. Earring Magic Ken is a bit limited, I know, but still, we’re talking about a community of reasonable adults, who deserve a more dignified mascot. In my opinion, of course, which is only worth as much as anyone else's opinion.

Which brings me to Siena, a lovely city and the capitol of the province of Siena in Tuscany. It’s still a medieval city because it was conquered by Florence, which halted all building in the 14^thor 15^th century, so the city is quite authentic except in a few particulars, which make it kind of like Disneyland but without the animatronics.

(Above) Tuscany.

For example, no one throws excrement and vegetable peelings out into the streets, which would have been a highly authentic and accurate medieval touch. Of course, there are not a lot of animals out and about the streets, except for dogs, which are all on leashes.

The streets are cleaned every day.

There’s also a lot of pizza and Coca-Cola (the nice European kind in those cool tall cans) to be had, which is probably a bit post-medieval. Although I do understand that there were medieval versions of Coke such as "wine" and "mead."

Before I visited Tuscany, I had an idea that it was all stuccoed and rustic, in muted ochres and in all ways far outside the commercial interests of, say, the local shopping mall in Camden NJ or Conshohocken PA. Not that I do not love Camden and Conshohocken, but still, do they have to be everywhere?

Imagine my surprise at finding a Mc Donald’s right near my hotel (Ok---in a rustic stone building, but still...) within minutes of arriving. It seems to be closed now, but at the time it was teeming with Italians. I had followed directions from the taxi driver for the discount clothing store because my suitcase had decided that it would prefer to stay in Frankfurt rather than joining me in Italy. So, I was prepared for a certain amount of commercial US culture… and then I saw the teletubbies.

I was walking back from the office into the walled section of the city, looking back from the Neon-haloed Virgin—no, it’s not tacky at all. Think typical, rustic-looking Tuscan street, rough-hewn stone buildings here and there, a medieval arch a couple of blocks ahead, and a picturesque little church. Outside is an old and charming little statue of the Blessed Virgin, crowned with a blue neon halo. The color of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s light saber before it was digitally remastered.

Trust me, it’s simply charming.

Anyway, I was looking back from the Neon-haloed Virgin into the Singer sewing machine store, which was having a soldi, when there to my wondering eyes appeared…teletubbies. Several teletubbies, jammed onto a shelf, and not at all part of the soldi. Once I saw those, I saw teletubbies everywhere. Well, not really, but there were a huge selection of teletubbie-realted products in the toy store near to Piazza del Campo, and I saw a few here and there in some other stores.

Compared to Smurfs (which I saw only in the toy store) or dinosaurs (ditto), teletubbies were the most popular children’s item, aside from Hello Kitty!, who also happens to be popular with young adults and features in some juniors boutiques and bookstores.

And Italians are just so…stylish, what with bella figura and all. I mean really, Ferragamo v. teletubbie should be self-evident. When I first spotted the teletubbies I thought about how Erin taught her daughter to say “yuck!” and make a Mr. Yuk face whenever teletubbies were mentioned. I manged not to do this in Siena, which is good, because I wouldn’t want anyone thinking Americans are weird and inelegant. I did trip over my own feet, though, which probably didn't help. When it struck me…the French absolutely love Jerry Lewis. And why? Because he is a stupid American—or at least that’s what my friend’s sister-in-law told her. Could this have something to do with their teletubbularity?

I’m just relieved that the teletubbies were a British import.

Images: Duomo in Siena. Image from Wikipedia by Ronen Perry. Used under Gnu license. Provinces of Tuscany. Public domain image also from Wikipedia.

Teletubbies. Also from wikipedia: a screenshot of a copyrighted television program or station ID. The copyright is most likely owned by the company or corporation that produced it. Care Bears, copyright American Greetings. Original art by Elena Kucharik.

Fair use rationale for copyrighted characters and images: The use of a limited number of web-resolution screenshots for identification and critical commentary qualifies as fair useunder United States copyright law. This use does not limit the commercial value of the original and is nondefamatory.

Sacrifices du jour or "Good Things"

2009-11-23T19:57:00.010-05:00

OK-- perhaps that title is a bit melodramatic and smacks of Martha Stewart. I used to love her magazine before that design show came on and showed that young editor who yelled at the furniture buyer. It's too bad...I bought every issue at the supermarket (full newsstand price), and then I had to stop because the yelling just bothered me. Not in general, as a New Yorker, I'm OK with general yelling, but Martha Stewart, for me, is an island of peaceful muted pastels in a sea of blaring primary colors.

I hope I get over this soon.

Speaking of which....Day 2 of better food choices started with

1. Avoiding chicken tikka masala at favorite Indian place. Will go back once I figure out where they get their paneer from.

Cow photo (note lovely grass) from US Agriculture Service. Image is in the public domain, and provides reassurance that we, too, are nice to cows.

2. did not buy mini Babybel cheese, Tillanook cheddar, white Singles, or string cheese (products of USA) as unsure how cows were treated. Instead bought Kerrygold (product of Ireland), as EU people kinder to innocent farm animals, allowing them to thrive on lush farmland, according to web site. (Decided to look Tillanook and up on web as they refuse to give cows growth hormones according to the label...good...and Babybel is sold at Whole Foods, so must be OK? Will check.)

3. avoided New England Clam Chowder (clams OK, but bacon might have been from abused pig)

4. did not eat possible slave labor chocolate, but got organic variety instead

5. avoided delicious tasty cookies with dark chocolate filling...so yummy, but head filled with visions of depressed-looking children picking beans (of course this might be confused with coffee in my mind)

6. did not buy favorite crackers, favorite vanilla cookies (eggs), favorite candy bar (chocolate), sushi (nonsustainable), yum-o-riffic shrimp skewers at fun restaurant near MIT (unsustainable possibly as shrimp provenance unclear)

7. did not go to Yummy Hut for vegetable fried rice because could not trust self to avoid egg rolls...(so tasty)

Food ethics… OR …yes, chickens have feelings, too

2009-11-22T17:21:00.009-05:00

When I was in college my dear friend Susan told me that egg production was the cruelest form of animal management. I believed her…after all she should have known because she was phi beta kappa in animal husbandry at a very good program with a working farm and everything. And I remember the working farm part because of the cow that stepped on my foot at “ag” (short for agriculture) field day.

Ag field day was a pivotal day for me because it was the day that underlined for me the complete impracticality of my educational choices. I chose a very crunchy sort of a school to attend, one where I could fully express my eccentric, hermitlike, bookish leanings as much as I wanted as well as have my very old room in a stone building with very bad heat. I loved it, but it was not practical. I was studying things like ancient Greek (…I decided on that because I loved the Rosetta stone and my friends, impractical as I was said “cool” and not “are you nuts?!!” when I declared that I would study a dead language…good friends), Dante (infernariffic), Dickens, and “independent study” which involved reading a lot of thick, fat, useless Victorian Novels. So fun. And chock full of people who cared deeply about the fates of cows and baby veals.

Anyway, Susan, who is now a bird keeper at one of the leading wildlife conservation institutions in the world, was learning how to do cool stuff, like how to keep cows from dying, to shear sheep, to manage pigs (very smart animals). Her job now is to keep very important endangered species animals from dying. I write things up and negotiate with other people in how to write them up. Not really substantive.

I remembered what Susan said to me about egg management again when I was flying back from Frankfurt (or possibly Munich—business trip connections—because writing cannot be done on computer and emailed all the time in these confusing times) reading a book by Peter Singer, leading ethics guy and activist-type person. For the first time I am sorry I never tried to attend Princeton (not that I would necessarily have gotten in—it’s highly competitive—but at least should have tried.)

Photo of baby chickens dyed strange colors, but at least not stuffed in a cage with beaks seared off with hot irons.

Don’t get me wrong. Over the years I have read dozens of books on food and food ethics. Beyond Beef, Fast Food Nation, Omnivore’s Dilemma, The Jungle…. And as a relatively rabid Gordon Ramsay fan, I have learned over the past few years about human animal management by watching The F-Word. (Food)

I have stopped eating eggs, then forgotten why and then been reminded of why at least a dozen times. I tended to buy the “cage free” eggs, thinking that I would prefer to have Foghorn Leghorn type chicken eggs than ones from Poindexter-like chicken who would have been happy enough in a cage. Singer explained, finally, why exactly, I had been doing this all these years.

Finally, I am listening to Susan and vowing (now that I live in a city full of Whole Foods Markets) to start making more ethical food choices.

To wit: In the past two days I resisted the urge to buy Hostess chocolate cupcakes—yummy but possibly tainted by slave labor (chocolate not listed on the slave-free chocolate web site) and caged chickens; chicken salad at Bruegger’s Bagels (delish bagels, BTW)—unsure of the provenance of the chicken (of course idiotically forgot what was in bagels then remembered they do not always have eggs—whew); and vowed only to buy European, local organic, and Mexican cheeses because they are from places that are nicer to cows. I bought free range chicken, fair trade tea (twice at local bookstore), and then realized why this is so hard. Even if I do manage to be better about food, I am still possibly buying goods made by slave labor, leather byproducts of various inhumane industries, and let’s face it, I live in a society where my ability to buy organic, fair-trade, and other better things is in fact somehow predicated on the fact that my nation is wealthy and able to exploit other nations to make these choices possible. I therefore turned down a few cunning products from sketchy provenances, and vowed to seek advice from one of my political scientist friends.

But enough negativity.

I was quite excited when I read that McDonald’s had adopted high standards for animal ethics (I do find their cute little burgers to be so delicious), but a bit sad when I realized that even McDonald’s was having trouble controlling its suppliers in the US.

I am now vowing to make at least one ethically better food and goods choice each day, and I will try very hard to list them here on my blog.

Bagel image from National Institutes of Health is in the public domain. Chicken image by nsaum and posted in Wikipedia used under creative commons license.

rebogging after all these years...months

2009-11-22T16:41:00.006-05:00

Even though this blog is really for Jayne, my cool friend at the bookstore, I should credit my friends of the North Rhine Westphalia region for getting me started back again.

OK—both of my friends are not from the North Rhine Westphalia area although they both live there now in a beautiful new house.

One is from Quebec, and he lives in Germany, near the Dutch border even though he speaks neither Dutch nor German. He teaches in Flanders, even though he does not speak Flemish, either.

My friend is brave. I admire him. In fact, I admire him so much that I once went to MiniEuropeagainst my will because he said it would be a good idea.

Mini Europe photo by gregd1957 posted in Wikiepdia and used under creative commons license.

Lamb Bites

2008-12-13T14:05:00.014-05:00

The history of eating little lambs for dinner is long and complicated, especially among the ovine community.

Some sources state that lamb is the least popular red meat sold in the United States--although I have a funny feeling that really that distinction belongs to things like the muskrat or the porcupine which are considered red meat on the basis of their being mammals but aren't always terribly nice to eat. And, no I have no idea how rabbits got to be white meat.

(Right... and left Spam through the ages. Images copyrighted by Hormel. Use of low
resolution images may qualifiy under fair use as they do not imapct the market value of the product or substantially impinge on current trademarks.)

In any event, little lambs get eaten for dinner, particularly in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine, which is one reason why the famed M*A*S*H "Spam lamb" came from Greece. Check out the Spam web site...but be careful--it's loud! Personally, I like a nice lamb dinner from time to time, and I was enjoying a yummy lamb saute from a local Pocono establishment just last night when one of my fellow diners began to talk about how cute and fuzzy and cuddly lambs are.

And they are. But I felt guilty. Because eating cute fuzzy cuddly things is pretty mean...even polar bears eat relatively uncute animals, and, as Sarah Palin warned us, polar bears can be bad news. Just take a gander at Lost. Once the polar bears were removed form their fish-biscuit puzzle cages, they went pretty hog wild and adopted some really troublesome behaviors, like eating airline passengers and possibly suitcases. Those fish biscuits must have had calming qualities. (Above--fish biscuit from a really cool blog by Kung Foodie )

So, I invoked the food lamb. (Not to be comfused with Harriet Lamb, who could also be considered a food lamb). The food lamb is a bad-tempered, fanged creature that bites its keepers and generally deserves to be made into burgers, sautes, and chops. Food lambs are bad news, boy.

My fellow diners felt that the food lamb idea was somehow ... "silly." Personally, I was shocked at their attitude.

As it turns out, one of my friends has been "keeping company" with a nice (and fairly buff) farmer. I was a bit surprised to learn that, although they have been seeing each other socially for over a month, she had no idea whether he had ever been bitten by a food lamb. I was alarmed, because those bites can be nasty. Luckily, her friend is a vegetable farmer, an added benefit of which is that his farm is not a possible vector for pandemic influenza mutations, since he does not have chickens, pigs, or other poultry, none of which is, according to him, a vegetable.

whew!

Now I just have to check the food pyramid for replacement vegetables.... (left--flu vector. Public domain image.)

Psycho Panda Psychic Incident

2008-12-04T18:39:00.009-05:00

In the ear liest version of the fairy tale "Snow White," the evil queen is not a stepmother but the little princess's own mother, which is pretty creepy when you consider that the whole reason Snow White was so very fetching was that she was her mother's daughter. Those Brothers Grimm were not terribly cheerful guys, methinks. Of course, they lived in a different time and perhaps didn't get out much, which may have been depressing for them. And I suppose that their stories do clean up nicely for Disney films.

Above. Evil Queen.

Illustration from Snow White (Mjallhvít) from an 1852 icelandic translation of the Grimm-version fairytale. Landsbókasafn Íslands w:Project Gutenberg eText 16846 Drawing believed to be by Theodor Hosemann. Image is in the public domain because it was published over 100 years ago.

For me, the idea that the evil queen was able to detect her daughter's whereabouts only through the agency of the magic mirror bears some examination. Would a real mother really need a magic mirror to detect her daughter or might they have a psychic link that the Brothers Grimm changed into a magic mirror for purposes of marketing and suchlike? Perhaps a simple 19th century marketing decision led to the development of the evil stepmother.

(Left) This image is a screenshot made from a public domain movie trailer. Trailers for movies released before 1964 are in the Public Domain because they were never separately copyrighted.

Case in point: The Incident of the Psycho Panda.

This Thanksgiving, while my family and I were eating lamb with my sister-in-law's parents (who are really super nice), my mother suddenly related with the story of a crazed panda that grabbed some guy's jacket and ripped it off. Interestingly enough, only days before, I had posted a link to the video of the panda incident in this very blog. Coincidence?

Maybe.

Perhaps, however, it's evidence of psychic connections.

But it's just possible that Snow White's mom was really just a bad cook and a lousy dressmaker. What if Snow White's mother came to her senses and was trying to make amends with some really cool magic combs and a tasty beauty apple and just mixed up the recipe? Sure, it could have still been subliminal murder activity, and it would detract from the Disney movie (although I think the dwarves would carry it without Snow White), but maybe the first queen wasn't quite as bad as she's made out to be.

Thankslambing

2008-12-02T17:41:00.010-05:00

This Thanksgiving, my brother made a lamb for dinner. It was the first time he made dinner for a family holiday, and his wife made the Yorkshire pudding to go with the lamb. The food was yummy in general, and the lamb was yummy in particular. Yum.

When I got back to school after the holiday, I was informed that the consumption of Thanksgiving lamb was yet another example of my lack of conformity to usual practices.

I wondered if it was really fair to note that I was being nonconformist. After all, I always make a turkey when I host Thanksgiving. Can I help it if my family is full of renegades?

(left) Lamb. Image by Peter Shanks from Lithgow, Australia. This work was licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Of course, I could have pretended that I had really only had turkey, which may have been the point....

The Squirrel Man of Throgs Neck

2008-11-21T12:58:00.008-05:00

Robert Stroud, the "Bird Man of Alcatraz," was well known for raising and selling canaries, an activity that led to the idea that state penitentiaries could be used for rehabilitation instead of punishment (Ok, I know, Bentham thought of it , too...) in the United States (and yes, I know that there is an actual panopticon in Philadelphia). Stroud got so famous, that he was depicted by Burt Lancaster in a film called, unsurprisingly, The Bird Man of Alcatraz. Oddly, some people liked Burt Lancaster so much, that they wanted Robert Stroud to be freed, which was deemed to be a bad idea, given Stroud's activities when he was not yet in prison (like the ones that got him into prison in the first place).

Robert Stroud, public domain image taken by a federal employee in the course of business.

So, this seems like a rather sinister little tale, the charms of Burt Lancaster notwithstanding. OK, the considerable charms of Burt Lancaster, especially at that period, notwithstanding, hubba hubba.

The problem with the story of the Bird Man from Alcatraz, in my own humble opinion, is that it then casts a sort of sinister light on other people who seem to have a special connection with the animals. Take, for example, the nice man who was feeding the squirrels when I got lost on the Bronx the other day.

(left) A squirrel eating a nut. Image by Aaron Logan, from http://www.lightmatter.net/gallery/albums.php. Used under Creative Commons license.

Now, I know I should probably not be driving in the Bronx with Out-of-state plates on the car. It's still not terribly certain why I was even in the Bronx--probably I wasn't paying attention and missed the exit for the Cross Westchester Expressway.

Be that as it may, I wound up in a neighborhood of those little Levitt mini-Cape Cods that were rather popular after WWII. Outside one, which had a picture of a rather vicious dog on the gate, was a man feeding a couple of dozen squirrels and pigeons. His pockets bulging with nuts, he told me that I was in the "trahg's neck" section of "da branx," which I interpreted to mean that I was close to the Throg's Neck bridge and not the Tappan Zee bridge or even the George Washington bridge as I had hoped. He then helpfully went into the house and pulled out a map, while continually feeding squirrels and pigeons, and sent me on my way.

(Right) An original Cape Cod (some of the Levitt versions were smaller). Public domain image published in 1920.

The whole scene put me in mind of the nice man who left out a bag of nuts for the squirrels in Joy in the Morning, a much less successful novel by the author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

Obama-Nation

2008-11-05T14:06:00.007-05:00

In the Hollywood film National Security, government agents engage in wacky high jinks qua "police work" that ends favorably when the protagonists overcome personal prejudice, racism, crime, and ineptitude to become contributing members of society. It's heartwarming, or at least reminiscent of those old Disney movies with the bumbling FBI agents, like That Darn Cat. Apparently, the FBI did not take kindly to Disney's representation--as indicated in a fairly lengthy repository of information.

Hayley Mills in That Darn Cat.
It is believed that the use of a limited number of web-resolution screenshots for critical commentary and discussion of the film and its contents qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law.

I generally think that national security is a great reason to vote for a president. After all, it seems good, in a certain way, to have a country within which to debate the social and political issues that are near and dear to my liberal-leaning heart.

In the recent presidential election (ie, the one that ended yesterday with a new president), I began to think about national security in a new way. Instead of thinking about how the Democratic candidate liked trees or cared about education, I found myself thinking about how the nation may actually be a safer place today because President-elect (then-Senator) Obama and his campaign encouraged all of us to reengage in the political process.

The Grain that Built a Hemisphere

2008-09-13T15:26:00.006-04:00

In The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan describes the dominant supermarket culture in the United States as creating a nation of corn koalas (that'd be us). Apparently, eating only one type of food makes you a koala...or maybe a panda...they only eat one thing, don't they? Of course, koala and corn both start with the same sound, thus producing a more alliterative quality than the corn panda, which actually sounds a little weird. Plus koalas are slightly cuter, although pandas are pretty cute as well.

(left) Koala and baby...look how cute...public domain image by Brian Dell.

Hmm...the panda and the koala do have a lot in common:

1. both are "bears" (while not really being bears)
2. they each have a limited, plant-based diet
3. neither is native to the United States
4. both are depicted as cuddly toys
5. both appear in action movies

Now, my understanding of the koala is that it's one of those "harmless plant eaters" that, once again like the panda, has an unexpected nasty streak. According to Wikipedia, koalas get violent when they're disturbed and should be left to sleep for at least 16 hours a day, preferably in a nice eucalyptus tree where they're free to nosh if they wake up. You would never know this from popular depictions of the koala as in Jackie Chan's First Strike, in which he hugs a koala, then dons some really interesting-looking koala underpants before (or maybe after) going out on a snowmobile without a coat. Which makes me wonder "Would Sarah Palin approve?" And what about the practical impact of underpants (check this out).

But I digress... The point is that Jackie Chan snugs up with a koala which is just hanging out placidly in his hotel room, when in fact a real koala would be very cranky and probably draw blood if anyone even suggested checking it into the Best Western.

And pandas aren't always that much better. Just look at this panda, attacking some guy to get his jacket. A kinder interpretation might be that the poor panda was bored and didn't have any money to get to the Gap and buy its own jacket, which presents quite the mental picture. Even Kung Fu Panda, while cute, seems to get a bit testy as times.

Which brings me back to my own personal identity as a corn koala. Sure I like action films and I have a limited diet, rich in corn and other plants. But I, unlike the koala, come from a species that is rather clever in its application of corn.

Image by Sam Fentress, used under the GNU Free Documentation License,^[^1] Version 1.2 or later, and the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license version 2.0.^[2]. Attribution is required.

Take, for example, high explosives. In my travels, I came across a lovely little propaganda film called "The Grain that Built a Hemisphere" that explains, for the more ignorant among us, how corn caused the rise of the Americas and can be used for various applications such as feeding pigs, making flapjacks, justifying widespread human sacrifice ...oh, and blowing up Axis tanks. Pollan didn't mention this particular use for corn in his book, although he does mention ethanol, but I think it's important. Just think--no koala is going to blow us up with a eucalyptus bomb.

The no show

2008-09-04T15:26:00.024-04:00

In “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” John Denver warbles movingly about the evils of being an internationally-acclaimed musician whose main squeeze is much less mobile. As with all John Denver songs, “Leaving on a Jet Plane” is subject to various spoofing issues (although Peter, Paul, and Mary did an OK job with it), as in the highly amusing scene in Armageddon in which the drill crew qua astronauts do an a capella rendition before boarding space shuttles, thus demonstrating their lack of aerospace knowledge. In fact, one character remarks that the safety of the world is in the hands of a bunch of men he wouldn’t trust with a potato gun.

(Right) An early jet. Probably not ever boarded by John Denver. Image by WyrdLight http://www.wyrdlight.com and distributed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License.

…which got me to thinkin’… who would I trust with my safety—or a potato gun?

Not Surly Airline Lady, an unfortunate (and no doubt underpaid) person who tried very hard to leave me stranded in Florida at the site of the Giant Cockroach and the Closet Lizards.

Why, you may ask, should I have been stranded? The answer is simple—two airline tickets had been paid for on my behalf.

To my mind, if you buy an airline ticket for a flight and then your company (or other sponsoring organization) buys you another ticket, you call the airline and they reassign one ticket. That sounds simple. So, I called, and Nice (but possibly not terribly computer savvy) Airline Man said everything would be great, and it was, but then I had to change the return date. This reactivated all the tickets. Normally, the airline people should tell you when you have two seats, but they just crossed out the duplicate name and sold the seat again.

Oopsies!!

(Left) Toy Potato Gun. Image by Richard Wheeler 2007. Used under gnu license (link below).

Then, because I did not show up for my flight to Florida—although technically I was on the flight because of the other ticket—when I tried to check in via phone the day of my return flight, Surly Airline Lady told me that I was a “no show” so I would have to buy a third ticket costing as much as the first two tickets combined in order to get home.

Needless to say, I was unhappy. I pointed out that this policy seemed ridiculously advantageous to the airline, particularly since I had been on the outgoing flight and she was withholding my return on a technicality. Wasn’t it illegal to sell two tickets to the same person for the same flight? Let alone to demand payment a third time?

Surly Airline Lady was having none of my so-called “logic” or "business ethics” chat. Who did I think I was, a paying customer? Yeesh! I was a "no show," which is apparently a category of people somewhat less trustworthy than Ghengis Khan, the Unibomber and Jeffrey Dahmer.

Luckily, someone at the hotel told me to show up at the airport with the tickets and they would have to put me on a plane. If not, I was supposed to cry.

(Image of an airline ticket or "flugschein" by Matthias Sebulke, released into the public domain)

The airport people, who had already had a terrible day, put me on the next plane before I could even sniffle. The gate area was full of extremely surly (if not aggressive) people who had been delayed for 7 to 14 hours because of weather—people flying back to certain major metropolitan areas from Florida are not pleasant in their reactions to delay. In fact, despite my high level of crankiness, I was actually nicer than the other passengers and the airport people looked in the computer and told me the correct secret code words to use to get my old ticket back.

The next day, I called the airline to explain. They seemed unmoved until I pointed out that I felt a bit distrustful of my personal safety among a group of people who couldn't figure out how to handle a duplicate ticket. How would she feel?

I got back a flight and double sky miles.

...which brings me back to trusting someone with a potato gun....how's about this baby?

(image of potato gun by Scott VanPala used under GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2)

Booger cookies

2008-07-26T15:58:00.001-04:00

In the first Harry Potter book, Albus Dumbledore laments his poor luck with Bernie Bott's every flavor beans, before tasting a bean that proves to be ear wax-flavored. Harry is amused, but grateful that he avoided both the ear-wax bean and the booger-flavored one that Fred and George once found, at least according to the possibly too-gullible Ron Weasley. I still feel a mild thrill of horror when I see the Bernie Boots blend of Jelly-Belly gourmet beans featuring those flavors. After all, don’t parents spend a lot of time acculturating their children not to eat these substances?

(left) Bernie Bott's "every flavor beans" Picture by Coolmallu. Used under Gnu Licen se.

I prevented a friend from eating what I termed a “booger cookie” in public the other day. Perhaps this was unfair, but cookies do have empty calories and the aforementioned cookies were out in public in close proximity to children who potentially had boogers on their hands.

Don’t get me wrong....

Children can be quite cute, especially other people’s children when they are all dressed up cutely for purposes of travel and fun. And there is no better place to see cute children dressed for travel and fun than in the lounge/breakfast area of a Best Western or Hampton Inn or other similar type of hotel chain after a big event, like a wedding. Often these chains do fun special things, like give candy to children who are checking out that day, or leave cookies and coffee out in the lobby all day and night for the occasional snacker.

(Right) Plateful of cookies. Image by meniscus (is that not the coolest personal moniker?). Image used under Gnu license.

Personally, I think this is a nice touch. It gives a homey feeling and shows the guest that the hotel chain cares. And then the guest is less fussy about things like the accidental dirty towel left in the bathroom or the mildew on the soap dish—this is almost impossible to keep up with in the dead heat of summer in older buildings despite strong evidence of continual cleaning and really frequent regrouting. So, at least one hapless soul is going to see a teeny bit of mildew on a soap dish at some point before the regrouting people have a chance to get in and fix the problem.

And I found the cookies working for me the other night when I checked into a hotel chain place in one of the red states and found not only a dirty towel but also a spot of mildew on the soap dish in the shower. Instead of thinking “eew, gross,” the way I may have, I thought “at least it isn’t a giant killer roach,” and I know it was as a result of the cookies and coffee.

Not that I would actually eat the cookies. I’ve seen children looking really really cute in their outfits in public places and then forgetting that the nose is not to be cleaned in public (at least according to authorities like their Moms), and then reaching into the cookie bin without a napkin. And then, some of then also forget not to touch every single cookie before making a selection. Yuck.

Land Shrimp

2008-05-16T10:27:00.005-04:00

My friend Dave has the only land shrimp business in the US.

No, I'm not kidding.

According to Dave, who recently ate a land shrimp on the Colbert Report. Colbert did not want to eat a land shrimp, or "bug" as he called it, but decided to try and make a writer eat one.

No, I'm not kidding. Look at the video. And, no, it isn't funny.

(Left) Abigail Adams, a writer, not eating a bug in this picture. Painting by Benjamin Blythe, 1766, is in the public domain due to copyright expiry.

As a writer, I wondered whether Colbert fell into the common colloquial trap of using the term "bug" to refer to all insects. MightyIsis once had a grade school science teacher who was especially ferocious on this point.

Let's find out....

According to that font of all internet knowledge, wikipedia, the "true bugs" or "hemiptera" actually include cicadas, incidentally, the precise type of insect that Dave ate on the Colbert Report.

Not bad.

MightyIsis is impressed.

Cicada. One of the "true bugs." Not the exact one eaten, which was probably toastier. Image by Bruce Marlin, distributed under the Creative Commons ShareAlike 2.5 license.

Old Friends

2008-04-30T17:15:00.008-04:00

Simon and Garfunkel described old friends as sitting on a park bench "like bookends" in their song, "Old Friends." Luckily (perhaps) MightyIsis is not yet sitting on a park bench with old men, letting newspapers blow on her shoes. That's rather a depressing image, actually, when I think about it. Sitting on a bench with my old friend, and having garbage blow on us. Yuck.

(above right) Park bench. Image by JF Perry. (below) New York Times, a newspaper. Hopefully, not crumpled up on anyone. Public domain image (copyright expired in the US due to age).

In fact, this puts me in mind of the continual barrage of garbage on video monitors in the American Museum of Natural History. They have a lot of footage of landfill being bulldozed, which appears in films about evolution to show how we're killing species by smothering them with our old pop-tops and candy wrappers.

(right) Phylogenic tree of items we are probably killing with leftover plastic bags and motor oil, even as I write this. Public domain image by Tim Vickers. At least they no longer have to deal with pull tabs.

Remember pull tabs? They're a pre pop-top thing. No, really.

(left--pull tab. Image by Gam3.)

They used to litter the landscape, when they weren't being made into funky fashion accessories. As a child, I was particularly taken with the pull-tab vest. Although they are now making clothes out of pop-tops, the little doohickies that replaced the pull-tab. Yes, you can buy a pull-tab belt or bag. (No, I'm not kidding, but I'm not sure whether it's permitted after Labor Day.)

But I digress. This post is about old friends, and not just my oldest friend, who is an expert on recycling, and in fact, prevents me from throwing out trash during car trips until recycling centers are available. I'll bet she agrees with the Museum of Natural History staff that biodiversity is being limited by our trash. I agree with them also. We are limiting diversity by creating so much habitat that is fit mainly for things like roaches and rats, and not really great for other things like butterflies and songbirds. Not that roaches and rats aren't great in their own way, but how many piles of garbage does on planet really need?.

(right) Four of Darwin's finches. An example of biodiversity--note the differing beaks. Public domain image (copyright expired) by Charles Darwin.

In any event, some old friends have gotten back in touch, and now I may get to see them. Which should be fun, as long as we avoid talking about trash, but not pop-tops.

Chili peppers

2008-04-26T09:39:00.010-04:00

Jamie Oliver, aka The Naked Chef, is, even as I type, cooking chili peppers on his show about home cooking. Right now, he's making pork and chili peppers...yum! OK--actually they are bell peppers, which are sweeter and less pointy.

Bell peppers--Image by Aldipower (used under Gnu documentation license)

It's ironic that Oliver, who is British...or at least made his debut on BBC...is using a food generally regarded for it's 'hotness' when the local cuisine, like bubble and squeak, is generally regarded as cabbage or potato-based, boiled, and rather bland. Of course, he is using words like "wodge" to describe this Hungarian-based dish, so perhaps it is rather more British than I thought.

Cubanelle peppers--large, relatively sweet chilis. Public domain photo from the US Department of Agriculture.

What on earth is a "wodge" anyway ....

{Skip to Hermione-Granger-esque scene of MightyIsis surrounded by cookbooks and the OED}

..."chunk, lump, or amount"? Hmmph.

(Right) Spot the "wodge"-- no, not the tater tots (yum). Public domain photo from the US Department of Agriculture.

In any event, a wodge of chili peppers, particularly a big one, most often evokes Mexican, Southwestern, or other spicy cooking. Just think about the Morimoto-Love Iron Chef battle--chili-o-rama, and Love, a Texan chef, won. Not that Asian cuisine doesn't use a lot of chilis...maybe my North American biases are coming out here.

And I love curry. It's really yummy, and there's this great Indian restaurant nearby, in a train. A pink train, with green trim (no, it's not really preppy at all...) . But they do have great food, and a full bar, and a pool table (no, really, a pool table).

(left) John Bull--an early locomotive. Public domain photo (copyright is expired). This train is not pink.

Anyway...

Chili peppers also have another function--the hotness evaluation in Rate My Professor. MightyIsis is "hot" on the chili pepper scale (why, I don't know), as indicated by a red chili pepper.

But isn't it ironic that students use the red chili pepper for this function when they don't probably listen to the Red Hot Chili Peppers?

I think so. ...no, they're not a vegetable, they're a band.

No-ahleans

2008-04-04T09:20:00.005-04:00

At least, that's how I think you're supposed to say it, really, if you're from here. I'm not, so I enunciate and the locals look at me pityingly as if to say..."poor white lady clad in black from head to toe (NB: this is bad because it's too hot here to wear black from head to toe, which means I can't dress myself) who can't even talk right." It's a sad statement on my adaptability that I can blend in Brussels but not here.

The first (and last) time I was here it was 2001 and people were still pretty freaked out about September 11th. Now it seems worse, like Katrina was so bad that no one's bothered to be freaked out because they're just too tired. But maybe I'm projecting what I think I would feel and am just being uppity (and talking wrong).

I'm here, in New Orleans (as we northerners say), at a lovely conference full of smart people. They're also nice, which is good because I don't have the emotional stamina to deal with mean smart people while I'm badly dressed and talking funny.

Yesterday, I made a ven diagram.

Fun.

Food of the Gods

2008-03-05T18:47:00.006-05:00

Recent commercials for Ferrero Rocher indicate that it is a food of the gods fallen from the heavenly heights to the profane depths of your local supermarket, where it is now available for daily consumption.

How nice.

Unfortunately, the phrase "food of the gods" brings up other images for those of us old enough to catch "Giant Animal Week" on the 4:30 movie. In fact, "food of the gods" like "Frankenstein" has a sort of "don't mess with that-there" cache shared by items like thermonuclear devices, angry skunks, and manhole covers with black goo oozing up out of them.

In fact, a truly weird movie called Food of the Gods (1976) demonstrated that all manner of bad stuff could happen by tampering with nature. A bad sceintist, who was not interested in nuclear weapons decided to make a master race by feeding a mysterious substance called "food of the gods" to experimental animals, like rats. Among other nasty things, the rats got REALLY big...like bigger than the ones you could see in New York City in the bad neighborhoods c. 1985, and some of those were bigger than a house cat. The movie poster shows rats with red glowing eyes who are generally up to no good.

(Left) Zucker Rat by Joanna Servaes (Gnu licensee)...this rat is overweight and appears kindly, so probably was not eating food of the gods.

The kicker in this film is that at the end of the movie, when all the monster rats are killed and the evil scientists who was bent on creating a master race have been vanquished or imprisoned or what have you, the extra food of the gods falls into a river where it gets drunk by some cows who give milk that is then served in a day care.

Rachel Carson would have been very upset. She tended not to like environmental evils like pollution and PCBs and stuff.

Cow photo by Daniel Schwen. Used by Gnu licence.

The taste of love

2008-02-20T18:19:00.005-05:00

I am afraid of the cookies in the lunch room.

It's a sad statement, but true. The cookies are just plain weird-looking...not all the cookies, mind you, but the dark chocolate ones with the pink candy buttons. That cotton-candy pink color. It makes the cookies look like they escaped from a poodle-skirt wearing June Cleaver Wannabe woman who got sick of making corn flake winkies some time in 1954.

But that's just me.

One of my colleagues, who seemed somewhat nicer to me before he made this statement, told me that the cookies tasted like "love." Which is also scary, given the tastes I associate with love:

tuna
asparagus
beef and tortillas with cheese and grilled onions
eggs with vegetables in them
dark russet potato chips
gingerbread
m&m's
goldfish crackers
slightly burned fish
thin-crust pizza with sausage
fried ravioli
sweet tarts
pixy stix
american cheese sandwiches
Italian wedding soup
artichokes
olive oil

These are not good cookie flavors, by the way.

Valentine's Day Love...and stuff

2008-02-15T10:10:00.009-05:00

Where did Valentine's Day come from? Well, the world will never know, because these events are shrouded in the deepest recesses of history. However, there is some substantiation for a few things:

there was a Roman Saint named Valentine

he possibly sent some letters to a lover

Chaucer wrote: "For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne's day
Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate."
in Parliament of Foules

the British Museum owns the oldest Valentine (from the middle ages)

Valentine's day became popular in England hundreds of years ago

people today feel a lot of pressure to deliver a good Valentine's Day experience to new romantic partners

Just as a side note, because MightyIsis is fond of digressions, the top 10 British treasures seem to contain a lot of hoards.

Judging from the last point, there is a lot of room for bad things to happen on Valentine's Day. A lot of room.

However, MightyIsis had the very best Valentine's Day ever. Fancy breakfast, fancy dinner, flowers, candy, and mint chip ice cream...yum!

Images are in the public domain because they are not copyrighted.

Mission Impossisquirrel?

2008-02-13T11:58:00.003-05:00

I found this gem on a friend's web site. It shows the lengths to which squirrels will go to get acorns or candy bars.

(right) Picture of a squirrel by Diliff. Used under terms of gnu license.

I find myself asking, however, if this means that all candy machines can get squirrels in them?

(left) Candy buttons by Gila Brand, with, unaccountably, a jelly bean in the middle. Used under gnu license.

Who's got the point?

2008-02-12T13:50:00.001-05:00

When MightyIsis was a child, her father would sing, "button, button, who's got the button?" whenever something got lost. Being an earnest child, she did not find this behavior very amusing, especially when she was trying to look for something. However, nostalgia being what it is, she now thinks of the button song with fondness.

(left) A button. Public domain image taken by NickGorton. (below, right) More buttons. Photo by Richard Wheeler (Zephyris) 2007, used under gnu license.

Ah, the healing power of time, even when there are no wounds.

In any event...MightyIsis finds herself asking "point, point, who's got the point?" in response to her "stealth thumb" post.

Stealth thumb is supposed to be ridiculous, which is what makes it such an effective strategy. But certain commenters seem to have missed this...shall we say "point" in a discussion of rules and regulations, which....

[pause]

[other pause]

...is obviously a trick!

HA ha!

Killer Putti

2008-02-11T11:08:00.000-05:00

In an earlier post (see "fairy flower children," below), MightyIsis extolled the virtues of the putti...or at least comments that they were pretty darn cute, and cuter even than cherubs.

Putti in a 1750 paiting by François Boucher, "Birth of Venus." (Venus is the big one--the little ones are the putti.) Image is in the public domain.

...well, not all putti, apparently. In Magnetic Rose, a couple of evil, or at least highly violent and poorly socialized, putti try to kill the protagonists...or at least one of them. (It's about a minute and a half into the youtube clip.)

And MightyIsis asks..."is this fair to putti?" Could Magnetic Rose be a misrepresentation of all putti? And, given that putti are, in fact, imaginitive works, closely related to cupids
and angels, doesn't this mean that they can't defend themselves?

Poor putti.

Tree O' putti (not the name Dore would have used). Detail from an illustration of Orlando Furioso by Gustav Dore. Image is in the public domain.

Whodathunkit?

2008-02-08T10:23:00.000-05:00

Briareos has pointed out that the preceding post might advocate activities that are, in fact, illegal in tournament or competition thumb wrestling.

So, although MightyIsis is a bit flummoxed at the idea that there was such a thing as international tournament thumb wrestling in the first place, subsequent research has shown the following.

There is a lovely program, hosted by thumbs, that depicts thumb wrestling. It seems very WWF-inspired. http://www.thumbwrestlingfederation.com
There are also some less official-looking pages. http://www.gameskidsplay.net/GAMES/other_games/thumb_wrestling.htm
Wikipedia's article cites no sources. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumb_wrestling Ok...I know, Hermione Granger would not approve of this as a source...

Suitably chastened, Isis concedes, and clarifies: "stealth thumb is for home use only." However, stealth thumb is not technically "cheating" according to these sites, because it only involves use of the thumb.

Stealth thumb

2008-02-07T19:55:00.000-05:00

In the film version of Tank Girl, Tank Girl(Lori Petty) and Jet Girl (some dark-haired woman...OMG! It's Naomi Watts!) are trapped by a group of superkangaroo killer/soldiers and imprisoned in a very uncomfortable-looking room full of bowling balls.

Public domain image by S Chua.

Most people might whine about this treatment, but not Tank Girl. She settles down into a nice thumb wrestling match... fun.

Did you ever thumb wrestle? Probably. I mean, who hasn't? Anyone with a thumb can do it...if they understand the rules.

Enos the space chimp, who, like most primates, had four thumbs. Probably he was too busy doing astronaut things to thumb wrestle. Public domain in the United States (US) because was made by the US Federal Government under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code.

Of course, the question then becomes, "how do I win against a larger and stronger opponent?

The answer:

"Stealth thumb"

Stealth thumb works by "cloaking" the thumb, rather like a Romulan "warbird" or the Klingon "bird of prey."

[mandatory digressio] Hmmm...perhaps this whole "bird" thing explains why the Federation ships are not cloakable...they're all like "DC class cruiser" and not named after an animal at all.

Getting back to "stealth thumb;" however, you simply cloak the thumb, by "sneaking" it down and around the other thumb. This causes your opponent to laugh at your ridiculousness because cloaking isn't real. Then, when his/his guard is down, you strike... ha HA!

Yes, you have to say "ha HA!"

This is a procedure, after all.

The honey lamb

2008-01-28T15:30:00.001-05:00

In Terms of Endearment, we see that very contentious relationships between family members (and, for some reason, astronauts) can be, in fact, quite endearing. It's a bit surprising that such small items as neck ties and convertible tops can cause such emotional upheaval and connectedness. But, of course, that's a movie, and movies are not like real life.

....or are they?

When I think about the old days at my grad school dorm, which had once been a convent building, it does seem that that little things are more memorable than the big ones. I don't remember my classes with much clarity, or my grades, but I do remember the evening that my friend informed that that girls were stupid because I made fun of his radishes.

Turnips--closely related to the radish. Photo by Peter Presslein, used under Gnu license.

No, they were real radishes. With salt. And quite nice looking for radishes, which are a vegetable that I don't really care for, although they are usually better than salsify, which looks a bit scary before it's peeled.

...but I digress...

Terms of endearment can, in fact, be rather, well...endearing.

Take for example the honey lamb. What a sweet term of endearment, and that's even without the honey bear...which is also pretty cute, even after it's empty.

Sheep, with lambs, grazing on the south lawn of the White House c. 1918 Public domain image.

A good friend and expert in AI and endearing behavior told me that the empty honey bears lead the good recycling to a happy place.

A honey bear by Aaron Siirila (not the plastic kind). published under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike License v. 2.5:http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-sa/2.5/

I wonder what the honey lambs do?

Man Cubs

2008-01-21T15:04:00.000-05:00

In The Jungle Books, by Rudyard Kipling, Mowgli, the man cub, has to leave his forest home, where he has been raised by wolves, and join the Man Village. As with all such tales, wacky high jinks ensue...pythons are angered, apes want fire, and general mayhem seems to be the potential result.

Mowgli...public domain image by J Lockwood Kipling, Rudyard's Dad.

The Walt Disney Productions version of Mowgli's story concentrates on the wackiness (what in literary terms might be called "picaresque qualities") and omits the more sublime elements of Kipling's tale. But maybe in the United States man cubs just have that effect on people.

Personally, I think the average man cub does potentially cause mayhem and other shenanigans, but then again, they can be rather cute.

Building the dream

2008-01-21T01:00:00.000-05:00

Louis Armstrong once sang a lovely song called "A Kiss to Build a Dream On". I heard a nicely done version of it at a recital my graduate school roommate did one winter.

My roommate, who happens to be a really cool science fiction author, sings in a more classical style, rather like M Maus, who tends to sing classically in Germany. They're both really good, although I've heard M Maus more recently, and have a copy of the program on my refrigerator, next to a picture of us together...I'm wearing Mickey Mouse pants, a garment of which I was very fond in graduate school. Ok, I was a very odd dresser. M Maus is dressed as a forest, which was quite lovely on her.

Refrigerator...mine is rather more modern. Image by Magi Media. Used under gnu license.

In any event, it's interesting what a single kiss can do. When done right, it can shift the balance between friendship and something more profound. Although, there's always a risk that things will crash and burn (no, not the movie), which is not nice (the movie is not exactly "nice" either, but in a different way). That risk will tend to make certain people wary of bridging the gap. It's rather promising when someone is bold enough to reach out.

and better when there is snow.

Resolutions

2008-01-20T14:20:00.000-05:00

Neil Sedaka sang it, the Partridges covered it, and we all agree...Yes, breaking up is hard to do. Boy, Neil Sedaka is cute. He also seems rather busy.

Of course, as I mentioned in "hard to do," below, The Colonel made it easier than one might have expected, which was good.

Today we had lunch. Which was also good. Mine had a pumpkin it in.

Pumpkin...not the exact one from my lunch, which was probably smaller. Public domain image by Cdest.

Pumpkins are a very nutritious and tasty vegetable that often get made into pies, which means that some people think that the pumpkin is a fruit. It's not.

Pumpkin pie. Image is in the public domain because it contains materials that originally came from the Agricultural Research Service, the research agency of the United States Department of Agriculture. I wonder why they picked Libby's brand pumpkin?

The Colonel is a fun friend, and good company. It's too bad when things don't work out, but it's much better when people work to make sure they can at least be amicable.

Gnap gnap video

2008-01-18T14:13:00.000-05:00

This is rather cool...and French

Jealous envy of cyberhugging

2008-01-15T12:46:00.000-05:00

DG suggests that perhaps some people are jealous when others get cyberhugs. Is such a thing possible?

Maybe. The poetic workings of envy date back at least to Ancient Greece where a poet named Sappho, from the island of Lesbos described envy as making the sufferer "chlorodotoros" which can translate as either "greener than grass" or "paler than grass" depending on how creative and smart and classics-y you are.

(Left) Grass by Ed Markovich. Image is in the pblic domain.

In Sappho's world, jealousy was oriented around romantic love, which is generally limited to the one romantic object, except in the case of jerky people who are not fun to date because they are very busy also dating (read "copulating with") others.

However, friendly love should be more flexible. I'll spare you the discussion of Plato and C.S. Lewis, erstwhile author of the Narnia books.

(Right) Plato from "The School of Athens" (detail) by Raphael painted in 1509. (No--not the ninja turtle). Fresco, Stanza della Segnatura, Palazzi Pontifici, Vatican.

So, does MightyIsis have enough love for all?

(below) Image by Johntex. Used under gnu license.

The world may never know.

Geap Geap Pug

2008-01-14T11:40:00.001-05:00

Suzy Q has, indirectly of course, expressed some dissatisfaction with the fact that she has not yet had a tribute blog written for her.

This was a sad oversight on the part of MightyIsis.

Tribute to Suzy Q:

Top 10 Reasons Suzy Q was a great friend in the 6th grade:

10. Shared Hostess treats

Twinkies (Hostess Twinkies is a trademark of Interstate Bakeries Corporation). Source © 2005 Larry D. Moore Used under gnu license.

9. Encouraged the young Isis to disobey rules and not tell authority figures
8. Didn't stop talking to me when I failed to help her out of a freezing cold stream in the middle of winter

Creek in Australia-- Not the Creek in question. Photo by FIR 0002, used under gnu license.

7. Passed notes surreptitiously
6. Made amusing comments about orthodontia
5. Was the best shrinky-dink partner ever

Shrinky-dinks. Public domain image by Wrzfreak. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are copyrighted by Marvel Comics, Walt Disney Studios and other license holders.

4. Had a cool little sister to play with
3. Lived across the street from a park
2. Told great jokes
1. Was the most fun ever

Top Ten Reasons why Suzy Q is a great friend now

10. Shares candy and camomile tea
9. Is forgiving of faults and flaws
8. Listens when I'm sad
7. Congratulates me when I'm happy
6. Understands when I'm weird
5. Comes through in a pinch
4. Has a cool sister to hang out with
3. Knows how to fight and make up
2. Recommends great books
1. Is still the most fun ever.

I hope we're all happy now. I know I feel much better now that I've been reminded of how lucky I am to have such a friend.

Visions of sugarplums

2007-12-24T21:17:00.000-05:00

In "The Night Before Christmas," the children who were all snug in their beds had visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads.

But what, exactly is a sugarplum? Apparently, it's either a piece of candy or a real piece of fruit.

(above) An extremely fine example of plums, and a featured photo from wikipedia. Taken or Created by User:Fir0002, used under gnu license.

I personally like to think of sugar plums as candied plums, rather like those lovely sugared cranberries that Paula Dean and Kat Cora made on Iron Chef America for the dessert battle, except with plums.

A more commonly-recognized Christams candy. Public domain image by Kathleen French

Fairy flower children

2007-12-23T12:22:00.000-05:00

My brother got married recently to a lovely, talented and really remarkable woman. They had a beautiful, charming wedding, which was mightily enhanced by the cutest flower girls ever.

Fairies of the meadow by Nils Blommér (1816-1853) Image is in the public domain. While these fairies are ethereal and dancing nicely, they are not terribly cute.

I’ve seen plenty of children who work as professional models acting like wedding flower girls, but my sister-in-law’s nieces were even cuter than that. Just imagine, three cherubic-faced pink-complexioned girls with curly blonde hair in gauzy golden dresses with training ribbon bows. Now imagine that they behaved perfectly throughout the wedding, strewing petals as directed, sitting nicely during the ceremony, and generally looking like fairy children. Now imagine that my cherub-faced nephew, resplendent in his pint-sized tuxedo is screaming and generally acting like the 2-year-old that he is.

A digression here is in order, because my nephew is actually much cuter than a cherub. Also, what I tend to think when I think "cherub" is really not a cherub, but rather a putti, which is cuter than a cherub.

(Left) What I normally think of when I think "cherub"...a putto. Photograph by Jürgen Hornschuh, used under Gnu license.

(Below)More putti...In a painting by Rubens, often considered to be a well-known artist.

I firmly believe that my nephew is one of the cutest, funnest children ever. He also has a really healthy pair of lungs. Really healthy. Those girls were unfazed. They were the cutest, best-behaved flower girls ever.

Ironically (or perhaps not), my brother has long been rather fascinated by flower fairies. He even has a couple of tattoos. The fairies are not as cute as my brother's nieces and nephew, but still worth looking at.

American Cheese Guilt

2007-12-21T17:28:00.003-05:00

After reading Dave's comment about my cheese entry, I feel compelled to list some of the many reasons why I disagree that Dave is an idiot.

Top 10 reasons why Dave is not an idiot

10. He teaches prisoners how to read
9. He convinces ordinary North Americans to eat bugs for dinner

Deep fried bug stall at an Asian market...yum. Image copied under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. Photo by Takoradee

8. He orders a mean Thai entrée
7. He shares his cookie-dough ice cream

Roman ice cream (probably not cookie-dough flavored). Photo by Alessio Damato. Copied under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.

6. He is more educated than 80% of people worldwide
5. He managed to live in Wyoming for two years without serious cultural mishaps
4. His “pears become wet” poem is a universally-recognized college alumnae/i cue

Moist pears. USDA photo by Keith Weller. Image Number K5299-1.

3. He wrote a couple of Spark notes
2. His daughter seems to think he’s the smartest man on earth
1. He picked Kim to be his life partner

So…not too shabby, if you ask me, any nonsense with burger shacks notwithstanding.

Making assessments

2007-12-20T14:37:00.001-05:00

Photo by Moriori for Ruler article, released into the public domain by same.

Things don’t mean terribly much unless you can measure them. Well, in most circumstances. Luna Lovegood, one of Harry Potter’s good friends, would tend to disagree on the grounds that it’s pretty hard to measure a crumple-horned snorkack, possibly because there aren’t any available specimens to measure.

However, in the more workaday world inhabited by MightyIsis, most things can be measured and should be. Take, for example, the humble pint glass.

(Left)Photo by Will Murray (Willscrlt), released into the public domain.

It’s hard, though, especially when you would strongly prefer to let things be a little more free-flowing, like chocolate chips.

(Right) The origins of chocolate chips. Public domain image by Medicaster.

Of course, assessment is more than simply measuring. It also means evaluating, as in these chocolate chips are "yummy," as observed by the "mmmm" sound that consumers make while eating them. And, by that measure, the snorkack can be assessed, possibly as "elusive."

But is it really necessary to assess the number of chocolate chips you’re eating? They’re so yummy. They remain yummy even after you find that, of the four pairs of jeans that fit last month, all are unacceptably tight and two will no longer button. In this situation, and assessment of the benefits and expenses of eating an unlimited number of chocolate chips, going to the gym more frequently, and buying new jeans might be in order.

Godmother by mail

2007-12-18T21:13:00.000-05:00

Illustration for Charles Perrault's Cinderella from Histoires ou Contes du Temps passé: Les Contes de ma Mère l'Oye(1697). Gustave Doré's illustrations appear in an 1867 edition entitled Les Contes de Perrault. Image is in the public domain.

In the fairy tale Cinderella, the heroine's godmother is curiously absent until she appears to give fashion advice, support and transportation to the venue where Cinderella finds herself a husband, thus getting out of everyone's hair forever. I wonder sometimes where the godmother was...why didn't she write? And even if the evil stepmother was intercepting Cinderella's mail as evil stepparents are wont to do, Cinderella's godmother was a fairy. Why didn't she bibbity-boppity her way over and help her godchild out?

My dear friend kissmiley is expecting her first child in far-away London. Kissmiley is bearing up under the pressure quite well, especially considering that she is all alone in a foreign land full of mini washers, seeking medical care and day care.

(Right) The Buckingham Palace in England. Picture relased into public domain by Misterweiss. Kissmiley does not live here.

I am lucky enough to be the godmother of babysmiley, but find myself in a quandary: how to be a godmother by mail?

It’s a bit hard, especially when one has superstition to deal with. Personally, I feel that it is tempting the fates to decorate the nursery too early or send baby gifts before the baby is available outside the womb to receive them. Maybe I’ve read Anne’s House of Dreams one too many times, but I can’t erase the image of the young, bereaved mother unable to even take a walk alone in their grief while simultaneously needing to deal with arriving baby gifts. I get all weepy whenever I think about it.

Prince Edward Island map 1765, somewhat before Anne of Green Gables was published. Image is in the public domain.

Another difficult issue is day care. My understanding is that many day care agencies have waiting lists of up to 3 years, which, if my calculations are correct, actually would require the parents to have planned child care over two years in advance of the baby’s birth. How is such a thing possible? I mean, OK some people might be able to plan with in vitro fertilization, but that can have some unanticipated effects, or babies. Just look at Jon and Kate…plus 8. It’s a great show, and they seem to be muddling along fine, but I really can’t believe that they were planning to have 6 additional children. They certainly aren’t claiming that they originally wanted sextuplets, although they pretty clearly wanted them as soon as they showed up in the womb. Most people in that situation would probably be prepared to have 2 or 3 more babies¸but 6 is certainly a handful, even if they are that cute (and those kids are pretty darn cute).

Which brings me back to kissmiley. Is it unreasonably superstitious to refrain from giving any gifts until babysmiley arrives in the light of these day care issues?

The Silent Treatment

2007-12-17T20:37:00.000-05:00

Some ostraka from the Agora Museum, Athens--names such as Aristeides and Kimon can be read. Such shards were the basis for the earliest forms of ostracism. Photo from traumwerk.stanford.edu:3455/Archaeopaedia

According to Dr. Kipling D. Williams, a professor at Purdue University, giving someone the silent treatment is more psychologically (and even physically) painful than actually striking them. This is because the brain responds in the same way to both actions. In fact, Kipling D. Williams (is that not the coolest name ever?), suggests that raising one’s voice is a better alternative.

I feel a little bit bad now.

As an introvert, I often shut down in situations of high stress, like being confined in the same car with one person for over 4 hours, which is when I find myself desperately needing a break from high-intensity interaction. I now feel pretty bad about this, because I’ve been unintentionally harming loved ones by shutting down.

I do not feel bad, however, for giving the silent treatment to a certain boyfriend who said something nasty about two hours into our first (and last) car trip. I asked what, exactly, he meant by that, and he didn’t want to answer on the grounds that he didn’t want to discuss it, he just felt like saying it. I told him that I was made deeply uncomfortable by what he’d said, and that I’d be unhappy and upset if he didn’t clear the air. He didn’t respond, and two minutes later tried to change the subject. I didn’t answer him, even when he insinuated that I was overreacting. He tried the new subject a few times. Three and a half hours later, he finally caved in and apologized.

It’s really not easy to give someone the silent treatment when you’re all alone in a subcompact car (all my friends are very energy conscious), let me tell you, boy. I think it's just easier to say "sorry" and stop saying nasty things.

1996 VW Polo at Bristol Car Show, The Downs, Bristol, England.
Taken by Adrian Pingstone in June 2004 and released to the public domain

I also feel much better about my tendency to speak firmly and loudly in situations of conflict. Unfortunately, women who get even the slightest edge to their voices when upset are “hysterical loons” (which I think is a bit mean, since loons are really very nice, and not terribly edgy birds), and don’t tend to be treated seriously.

Arctic Loon (Gavia arctica) on Nest by Robert Bergman United States Fish and Wildlife Service. Image is in the public domain

Hopefully Kipling D. Williams will have some answer to that in the coming months. For now, he has quite an impressive array of titles.

Of course, I still need a strategy for getting some mental space during road trips.

Top Ten Reasons People Hate Road Trips

2007-12-16T20:10:00.000-05:00

Pavement markings on Old Route 66 on on Cajon Blvd. in San Bernardino, California, August 29, 2001. released into the public domain by Philip J. Erdelsky

10. passengers who forgot to shower

9. getting stuck in rush-hour traffic with no juice boxes

8. tacky gift shops at road-side facilities

7. aunts who refuse to eat at any restaurant with the words "road kill" in the name

6. paying $4 per gallon for gas

5. needing a potty break along an isolated stretch of highway

4. getting stuck in the back seat with a four-year-old who is pretending to be a bumblebee

3. drivers who try to stop at restaurants named after road kill

2. glares: sun, spouse, snow, small child

1. that 99 bottles of beer on the wall song

I’m not 100% sure that these are the top ten reasons people don’t like car trips. Personally, I find it really difficult to maintain my temper while in rush hour traffic with an impatient passenger who is angry because we’re lost ( usually this is my fault--I get lost a lot), but refuses to read the road map and also complains when I pull over to read it myself. (OK, this has only happened a few times, but it was not fun for anyone involved.)

I have asked a few people why they don’t like reading maps. Most of them think maps are hard to read. Others are afraid of getting us lost. And, although this might seem weird, many people are afraid of folding maps incorrectly because of some past experience with an authority figure who had rather forceful views on keeping maps as pristine as possible. This experience has a way of making people actually afraid that if they misfold any map under any circumstance, then something very dire and bad will happen to them.

This won’t happen in my car. I really don’t care if my maps get “messed up”…bending, folding and spindling (ok, spindling is less frequent) are all par for the course for a map in use, and frankly, I think the maps should just grin and bear it and stop making people nervous. My friends are good, kind, intelligent people and they deserve better than to be bullied by maps. Unfortunately, early conditioning is pretty powerful—just think about Pavlov’s poor dogs, drooling when they heard a bell, even if they didn’t get any treats.

Celestial map from the 17th century, by the Dutch cartographer Frederik de Wit. Image is in the public domain. I doubt that it was ever folded, bent, spindled or mutilated during a road trip.

When I think of trouble with map folding, I always think of Colonel Parmander of F-Troop. He had a lot of trouble with maps. And, given the number of other problems he had, like the antics that Larry Storch’s character was continually getting up to with the local “Indian” tribe (I don’t mean to be offensive here. This term should be understood as indicating a bizarre Hollywood construction based more heavily on Peter Pan than any actual Native Americans past or present.), you’d think that maps would be the least of his worries. Not so. Apparently, when setting out for battle, much like setting off on a car trip, it helps to know where you’re going.

Hook and loop meets isolation monkey

2007-12-04T12:22:00.000-05:00

There are several ways to look at the idea of attachment. For example, Velcro, which is the trade name for a particular brand of hook-and-loop fasteners. See: <"http://www.velcro.com/ ">

Velcro was developed as an improvement on items like zippers, buttons, and laces because it has a not of interesting properties, works better in some cases, and also makes a cool ripping sound.

Photo: Alberto Salguero (Pablo Alberto Salguero Quiles)

Usually this type of fastening isn't what people mean when they think "attachment" in their relationships. Ok, most people aren't really talking about Velcro or other nonbranded hook-and-loop fasteners on dates at all, although there's a great scene in Next Stop Wonderland in which Hope Davis's character goes on a blind date with a guy who markets little miscellaneous rubber widgets for the "Crilex corporation" in Waltham. He admits that they're not terribly exciting, but intimates that bad things could happen if we didn't have those little rubber nubs on the bottom of the phone. Hope Davis' character doesn't go on a second date with Rubber Nub Man, but she does look at the nubs more frequently after that scene. Too bad for Nub Man we've all moved to cell phones.

...but I digress...

It has been suggested that an attached person in a relationship would be like Crazy Glue. Interestingly, Wikipedia's expert, notes that there is a generic name, "cyanoacrylate" that describes both super glues and medical glues, a category into which crazy glue falls.

Cyanoacrylate. Public domain image from wikipedia.

According to psychological attachment theory, the 'crazy glue' attachment between romantic partners could be described as "anxious/preoccupied" attachment or "clinginess." This research into attachment included those poor baby monkeys that were kept in isolation from other monkeys and then dumped into suburban-type monkey habitats by Harry Harlow. None of the monkeys were particularly happy about these proceedings.

Vertical chamber apparatus, called the "pit of despair" where baby monkeys were kept in isolation by psychologist Harry Harlow.

In fairness, Harlow tried to make the monkeys better, and succeeded fairly well with a lot of them.

...yes, that was another digression...

When considering adult romantic relationships (See Fraely and Shaver http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/labs/shaver/publications/fraley00.pdf), securely attached partners are comfortable depending on each other, accepting help and support and then giving it back in return. This is a normal expectation in human relationships, and people who are able to find and maintain a balance in this area are happier and healthier.

Clingy partners get unreasonably upset if they feel neglected, which they can often imagine, rather like poor Mary Musgrove in Persuasion. They are not fun to date. On the other hand, avoidant partners diss their mates and then blame them for not being happy enough about being dissed. This behavior is especially lacking in charm when a mate has been seriously ill and the avoidant partner feels like going bowling instead of calling to make sure everything is all right.

To reiterate, an appropriate level of attachment looks like this:

Image by Kelly Cookson Used under Gnu license

So, what does this mean, exactly? let's take the example of a blog that is used primarily as a platform to communicate and entertain friends and family and as a primary means of self-expression. One might reasonably expect such a blog to contain mention of things that are important to the author. Hence, when MightyIsis was romantically attached, this blog contained mentions of the attachee where appropriate, like during events where both partners were present. In contrast, the blog of an unattached person would have little to no mention of a romantic partner in it.

Source for "pit of despair" photo: PhD thesis of Steven Suomi, University of Wisconsin believed to have been released, but fair use is claimed. The image has no commercial value; it is widely available and iconic; it is being used for educational purposes in articles about the experiment and its creator.

It's really all my fault, dammit!!

2007-12-02T16:34:00.000-05:00

Was "Great adventures in cheese -OR- Why I should have read Paul Fussel 10 years earlier"

What upper-middle class people think of when they hear the word "cheese."

Cheese on a market in Basel, Switzerland by Alex Anlicker

In my family of origin, the American cheese slices that were not wrapped in plastic were considered, if not "fancy," then at least "better" than the plastic-wrapped ones. (Wispride, the pride of Wisconsin, was "fancy" guest fare. My mom even had a special little crock that exactly fit the plastic container. No, I'm not kidding.) In fact, I was unaware that any cheese product came without a branded outside label until I was 5 years old and met my grandmother, who lived in Europe and made her own cheese from milk she milked herself from her very own personal set of goats. (No, I'm not kidding.) I thought this was an idiosyncratic quirk.

When I went to college, I started interacting with people whose social class identifications were rather different than my own. Many of the students in my high school were far more well-off than I was, but their tastes and cultural assumptions were quite similar. Not so, my college friends.

One of my dearest college friends, DG, has what I now view as distinct class assumptions from myself. In the past, this caused some problems because I just didn't get it. Over the years, he refused to eat at Burger King or McDonald's (this made road trips a bit challenging). When I started dating his best friend from high school (BFFHS), I started to suspect that these preferences were symptoms of deeper differences.

BFFHS and I went out for about a year, and he was a very courteous and considerate boyfriend. He opened doors and paid for dinner and made sure I didn't get run over when I accidentally stepped off the curb in front of taxis. He was also way out of my league class-wise, as I discovered on a trip to IGA.

We were planning to go hiking, so we were a bit off the beaten path. In some municipalities, the IGA, which is an independent grocer (see http://www.iga.com/home.asp), can be a bit more downscale than the large chain supermarkets. This particular IGA was graced with signs that welcomed users of food stamps and recipients of WIC (a special program for women, infants, and preschool-aged children). It was a small, old, and battered-looking store, and the dairy case was also small and battered-looking. I didn't think anything of this, until BFFHS said, "I can't find the gourmet cheese section."

When I was in high school, I probably would have just handed BFFHS a canister of Wispride and called it a day. However, by this time of life, I had acquired what I liked to think of as "cosmopolitan flair" despite my Mickey Mouse leggings. I knew what "gourmet cheese" meant, but I viewed gourmet cheese sections as a hallmark of "fancy" supermarkets. For me, the IGA was certainly not fancy, although it was very clean. I said that I didn't think there would be a gourmet cheese section, which BFFHS poo-poohed because all supermarkets have gourmet cheese sections.

As I wrestled with the new concept that people actually lived in communities where all supermarkets were fancy, BFFHS went to find the manager--there were three. They took one look at BFFHS, turned as a unit and glanced accusingly at me, as if to suggest that I should have known better than to bring him into an IGA in the first place, then directed BFFHS to the gourmet cheese store in the nearby mini mall. I thought the cheese shop was quite fancy, personally.

BFFHS and I broke up, years passed, and DG came to visit me at graduate school. I brought him to a burger shack-type place by the lake--the kind of burger place full of pimply teen aged kids behind cash registers and in front of grills paved with hamburgers and cheeseburgers. There were gigantic plastic pails of pickles (sweet and dill), and the menu was posted up on the wall in individual removable plastic letters. Someone had mixed up several colors and sizes, and a few "e's" had been rendered by using a backwards "3." A sign taped to a bucket of pickles indicated that onion rings were "special" and required a trip to the last register with your receipt. For me, this was a perfectly normal American-cheese oriented venue, much like Burger King and McDonald's, except more "fancy" (because of the free pickles.)

We arrived at the cash register after a long line of people whose orders were like: "3 cheeseburgers, 2 fries, and 3 cokes." Just like at McDonald's or Burger King. (See above for the names of restaurants where my friend would not eat.)

I turned to my friend who said, "I'll take a cheeseburger, make that medium rare, but a little bit more on the medium side. Oh, and where are your selections for cheeses?" The pimply young man behind the cash register looked up, bewildered. His mouth flapped open helplessly. I had a recollection of getting a "gourmet" burger at a Bennigan's that had been cooked to order. "Cheese or no cheese," I said, still not understanding why my friend was looking at the menu again.

"But what type of cheese is it?" My friend asked. "American." I said, looking at the cashier, who nodded. My friend shuddered, then helped himself to pickles. I ordered him a burger, and when we sat down to eat, my friend noted that it had not been cooked to his specifications. I thought of the Bennigan's again, and then about the burgers at "steak and stein" a now-defunct restaurant that sometimes had cheddar or Swiss cheese on the burgers (this was beyond "fancy" when I was a kid.)

What I think of as a default when someone says "cheese."

Ilmari Karonen Processed cheese slices individually wrapped in plastic

There was an object lesson here that I didn't get until several more years later, when I read Class by Paul Fussel, who explains social class divisions in the United States. I found the book interesting, and wished that I'd read it before inflicting the burger shack and the IGA on my friends. After reading Fussel, I also understood why the IGA managers looked at me accusingly. BFFHS was wearing an argyle sweater vest.

Who knew? ...well, probably I should have

An argyle sock turned inside-out to show the technique better. Taken by me in August 2005. Don Blaheta (aka blahedo).

Mammaliciousness

2007-12-01T16:15:00.000-05:00

A good friend of mine does not like to eat mammals for various moral, personal, heath, and ethical reasons. It's hard for him because he, like Homer Simpson, really really enjoys the plethora of products that come from the magical source of bacon, pork roll, ham, pork chops, and spare ribs--the pig.

Sow and five piglets from http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/graphics/photos/

I respect my friend's decision, mostly because he doesn't get all weird when I chow down on a nice, juicy hunk of bleeding red meat. Yum! He also doesn't lecture me about the morality of the beef industry while wearing leather.

A porterhouse steak on the grill. This is a public domain photo from PDphoto.org

So, on this trip we stopped at Cracker Barrel, which I find to be a truly delightful spot for lunch, despite any allegations of bad practices. You can find the nearest at http://www.crackerbarrel.com/ (No, I'm not getting paid to advertise--I just like them.) The Cracker Barrel of Broome County, NY is my personal favorite. They are SO polite and the food is extra-yummy.

However, it's not the greatest place to bring a friend who doesn't eat mammals. Why? Well, there's bacon in some of the vegetables. Personally, I like bacon-y vegetables. Chef John Besh noted on Iron Chef America, that he didn't know what a vegetable without bacon tasted like when he was a child. And if Chef Besh likes bacon-vegetable combos, why shouldn't I? Yum! (or did I already say that?)

My youngest brother is rather fixated on bacon, and by that I mean that he likes bacon rather more than my other two brothers and Jeffrey Steingarten. Which is rather a lot. He (my youngest brother, not Jeffrey Steingarten) likes to send out bacon-related web sites.

Here are some bacon-oriented sites. http://iheartbacon.com/ http://www.baconunwrapped.com/ http://baconshow.blogspot.com/

I also know some people who like Francis Bacon....erm, not to eat, but to read. Possibly to read about. I don't know that much about Mr. Bacon (or Sir Bacon?), except that he dressed in a way that I would think of now as funny, but at the time was rather fashionable.

This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

Just think...someone had to sew all those buttonholes by hand. Likely, that someone was a mammal.

I love blogthings

2007-11-30T20:06:00.000-05:00

Your Five Variable Love Profile

Propensity for Monogamy:
Your propensity for monogamy is high.You find it easy to be devoted and loyal to one person.And in return, you expect the same from who you love.Any sign of straying, and you'll end things.
Experience Level:
Your experience level is high.You've loved, lost, and loved again.You have had a wide range of love experiences.And when the real thing comes along, you know it!
Dominance:
Your dominance is low.This doesn't mean you're a doormat, just balanced.You know a relationship is not about getting your way.And you love to give your sweetie a lot of freedom.
Cynicism:
Your cynicism is low.You are an eternal optimist when it comes to love and romance.No matter how many times you've been hurt - you're never bitter.You believe in one true love, your perfect soulmate.And if you haven't found true love yet, you know you will soon.
Independence:
Your independence is high.You don't need to be in love, and sometimes you don't even want love.Having your own life is very important for you...Even more important than having a relationship.

The'>http://www.blogthings.com/thefivevariablelovetest/">The Five Variable Love Test

You Are 31% Scary

You scare men off ocassionaly, but only very weak men.

You're a normal woman. You're not perfect, but you're pretty darn close.

Do You Scare Off Men?

The closet of lizardly delights

2007-11-30T16:05:00.000-05:00

After my experience with the high-end cockroach of Fort Lauderdale (see post, below), I found myself situated in a truly beautiful suite of rooms. It was absolutely lovey...spacious, with a deck and fuzzy bathrobes.

...And some lizards.

They were not quite as spectacular as the lizards that grace Tom Spinker's delightful web site.
http://www.southalley.com/index.html

However, they were, indeed, lizards, running around in the bottom of the closet.

After having encountered a cockroach who was larger than the combined closet-dwelling lizard community, I wondered if I would fare better in another hotel room. In the end, I decided to see if the lizards left the closet, since they weren't really causing a problem and they were much smaller than my insect visitors.

A few factors swayed my decision. The most important of these was that the animals appeared to be moving up the food chain, and I was not eager to encounter any mammals in my next hotel room.

I warned the nice girl at the desk about the lizards when I left. I felt bad, because she seemed really upset that I'd moved from bugs to lizards. They offered another room discount, which I turned down because they'd been really nice about the whole roach thing.

Picture credit: Olaf Breidbach, Visions of Nature: The Art and Science of Ernst Haeckel. Prestel Verlag: New York, 2006. Image is in the public domain.

The Giant High-End Cockroach

2007-11-28T19:01:00.000-05:00

The place: An anonymous posh hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
The time: 7 am on a sunny mid-November Tuesday morning
The unwanted visitor: a 2-inch long, shiny dark brown cockroach-like insect
His friends: a number of worms
Fig. 49 from Insects, their way and means of living, R. E. Snodgrass.

Yuck.

I was not in a stellar mood when I arrived in Fort Lauderdale late Monday night. A full day of teaching, a hectic journey to Newark airport, a delayed flight, and a long taxi ride are not cheer-bringers to me. There may be people who thrive on such wonders, but I'm not among them. I was still having the tail end of an adrenaline rush when I got into bed and didn't sleep terribly well, but speaking engagements are speaking engagements, and you really do have to get up.

Imagine my surprise to find a rather large cockroach lying on his back in the middle of the bathroom floor. At first, I though he was dead, but no such luck was mine. After dropping some tissues on him, so I wouldn't have to touch his dead and possibly unhygienic insect body, I realized that my new friend was quite alive because he started scuttling madly about the travertine tiles. Then he disappeared.

Yuck.

A few moments later, as I was wondering whether to call for help, my new friend made a break for it. I breached the social contract by squishing him in a rocks glass, then got ready for my meeting and brought him to the front desk of the hotel. On the way, I discovered that a number of worms had also entered the room through the front door.

Did I say "yuck"?

Yuck.

The nice girl at the front desk was suitably horrified about my visitor and gave me a new, nicer posh room. I started feeling a little bit guilty because I'd really liked that story about Gregor Samsa when I was in high school.

Taking the bait

2007-11-27T16:58:00.000-05:00

You don't have to take the bait.

Created in Adobe Illustrator by Jeremy Kemp, 1/16/05

Released into the public domain by the author.

A wise woman told me this while I was taking the bait from a former colleague at a recent conference.

And the wise woman is correct. You don't have to take the bait.

However, you can think about why you might want to. For example, a former partner could post unflattering things about you on his or her blog. And does such peurile behavior warrant your attention?

It might, if you can use the bait as an opportunity to improve.

Irresponsible posting

2007-11-25T19:20:00.000-05:00

I've been reminded now by several people that I have been remiss in my blogging.

It's been busy. I had roaches to deal with.

Of course, it's really no excuse, but it is a reason, of sorts.

Wedding Bell Blues?

2007-11-05T18:58:00.000-05:00

Well...not blues exactly. It does seem, however, that having purchased the tallest red shoes of my life, I was taller than 75% of the bridal party in which I participated. As I'm not that tall, it was a bit perplexing. I felt a sort of nurturing instinct toward all the little people.

It made me wonder why tall people don't always seem more benevolent, but then I figured that we shorter people must get annoying.

Shoe madness

2007-10-24T15:03:00.000-04:00

Shoes on display in a shop window, Vienna, Austria, July 2005. The prices are in Euro.
Photo taken by KF.

High heeled shoes are evil. They're high, with spindly heels on them.

I realize that Clinton and Stacy are all in favor of high heels, but I'm not really.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I own high heels. In fact, I just bought a stunning pair of red suede and patent peeptoe heels for a wedding on Saturday. The heels are really high because my dress is really long.

Thankfully, I found the suede shoes, because I would not have wanted to be stuck with these:

Photo taken in 2003 at a shoe exhibition at Drammen Museum in Drammen, Norway.
Copyright Jarle H. Knudsen. Released under the GNU FDL

Horcruxes

2007-10-23T15:05:00.001-04:00

As transcribed by various sources, JK Rowling describes Voldemort's horcrux creation schedule as follows:

Horcrux -- Murder victim

Tom Riddle's diary-- Moaning Myrtle
Marvolo Gaunt's Ring/Resurrection Stone -- Tom Riddle Senior
Helga Hufflepuff's Cup -- Hepzibah Smith
Salazar Slytherin's Locket -- A Muggle tramp
Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem -- An Albanian peasant
Harry Potter -- N/A
Nagini -- Bertha Jorkins

But it doesn't make sense.

Moaning Myrtle was killed by the balilisk, and she's not mentioned at all in Dumbledore's explanations to Harry about the horcruxes, either. Furthermore, Dumbledore noted that Voldemort reserved horcrux making for significant murders, which means that the peasant and tramp also seem unlikely. And, finally, Dumbledore seems to think that Tom Riddle made Nagini into a horcrux when he killed the Riddle's old gardener, Frank Bryce, which may have qualified as a 'significant' murder.

Dumbledore also comments that Tom Riddle stopped wearing the Resurrection Stone/Peverell coat of arms ring once he turned it into a horcrux, and he's wearing the ring afterward in Slughorn's office, which seems inconsistent. It also seems somewhat inconsistent that Riddle already made two horcruxes before talking to Slughorn about the possibilities of making more than one horcrux. Tom Riddle may have been evil, but he wasn't totally stupid.

One possibility is that Tom created his first horcrux (the diary) when, at age 16, he killed his father and grandparents. This would tally with the age of the fragment of soul when Harry and Ginny encounter it in Chamber of Secrets.

Harry notices that the locket reflected Tom Riddle's handsome eyes, which seems to indicate that that horcrux predates the visit to Dumbledore when Voldemort had finally managed to efface his muggle father's features (gross). Voldemort also hides this horcrux in a location associated with his pre-Hogwart's childhood. So, perhaps poor Hepzibah Smith.

I rather like the idea that Regulus Black witnessed Voldemort making a horcrux following the death of one of the Order of the Phoenix and thought the locket was the only available horcrux.

So, do I think that JK Rowling is wrong? Or the transcribers? No, not really.

I think that Harry Potter inhabits a written universe and that one of the keys to good writing is revision. So, perhaps the horcrux schedule was revised.

and then I wonder whether or not there is actually something better to worry about...like why my last chunk of brie tastes like the plastic it was wrapped in...

Immoral Princes

2007-10-22T17:34:00.000-04:00

enough said?

Well, maybe not.

It seems that fairy tale princes are believed to be highly moral, marrying Cinderella and Snow White even though there are no kings in the picture demanding that the marriages take place. Or, at least that's the way it appears to happen in the movies.

John Moore, a truly engaging writer of young adult fiction, however, presents a somewhat different view of princes and their various moralities. Realizing, perhaps, that as a fairly diverse grouping of people, the handsome princes might not all have exactly the same views on dating, marriage, and ethics, Moore shows princes negotiating some of these boundaries while saving distressed damsels, fighting dragons, and/or getting into general princely mischief according to their several personalities.

Having recourse to Wikipedia (OK, I must stop depending on this as a source for all my informational needs...but it's SO handy!), I find that "prince" means any number of things and can refer to the ruler of a principality (think Monaco), the up-and-coming ruler of a country with a king or queen, and of course, the Half-Blood Prince of Harry Potter fame, Severus Snape, who is, thankfully, not mentioned in the Wikipedia "prince" entry, which is at least somewhat reassuring.

The Giant Deer of Long Road

2007-10-19T11:35:00.000-04:00

Not really the Giant Deer
But close.
USDA photo by Scott Bauer

While driving on Long Road after a hiatus of about 18 months, I saw the Giant Deer. He looked about the same, actually, except without the spectacular antlers that he sports during the summer months.

I thought there wasn't that much to write about deer, except why they should fear acorns (See "why acorns should be scary to deer"), but Wikipedia showed me how wrong I was.

After all, there have been some rather famous deer, like Bambi, who would never have been the star of a film had he not been the protagonist of Bambi, ein Leben im Walde by Austrian Felix Salton. I read the book (in translation) a few times, and it seems to be about the fact that love does not conquor all, life is longest if lived alone and unencumbered, civilization kills those it tames, and that, basically, it's pretty darn tough to live in nature, particularly when hunters are chasing you with guns.

Interestingly, Walt Disney's version of Bambi was heavily influenced by the same sort of people who might, even as I write this, be masking their scent with acorns and setting off to transform hapless wild deer into tasty venison treats. (See http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/paschons/language_http/essays/salten.html). According to some experts, the hunters in the Salten book were transformed into a large forest fire through the magic of animation.

The Giant Deer seems uninfluenced by concerns about hunters masquerading as acorns or apples, forest fires, or even vehicular traffic.

In fact, the deer of the Poconos, as opposed to the bears, seem generally friendly and mellow. So friendly and mellow, in fact, that they appear to make friends with cars. Why, whenever I visit my former landlords, the deer trot over the the car after I park it, presumably to see if it's OK, and how it's been doing in the lowlands. This seems pretty odd when considering that the rate of deer-vehicle collisions was highest in Pennsylvania compared with the rest of the US in 2005.

Or perhaps not.

Far cry from Vezzini?

2007-10-18T11:42:00.000-04:00

Wallace Shawn, who played Vezzini in The Princess Bride (see "Why, what in the world..."), also lent his voice to the Tyrannosaurus Rex in Toy Story. Interestingly, although the character in the film was made by Mattel (http://www.mattel.com/ ), the actual "actor" is copyrighted by Hasbro http://www.hasbro.com/.

Ironically, the Hasbro web site doesn't show Rex under their products, but an alternative "dinosaur" (actually a Transformer) named Repugnus seems to be available http://www.hasbro.com/default.cfm?page=ps_results&product_id=17570.

I would not like to be named "Repugnus," personally, but I suppose that robots have different sensibilities.

...but I digress...

Personally, I always found the scene in which Buzz Light Year glosses over the corporate affiliations of the various toys in Andy's room quite amusing, particularly the bit where Rex explains that he was actually made by a smaller company acquired in a leveraged buy-out.

Jean Baudrillard noted that we now live in a world full of copies, a world in which fakes actually set the rules for reality. That's kind of distressing, until you consider that you could possibly be a neurotic plastic dinosaur from Mattel...Hasbro...er, someplace.

Why, what in the world....

2007-10-16T18:43:00.000-04:00

...could that be?!

In The Princess Bride, the Man in Black, aka Dread Pirate Roberts, aka Wesley, pretended to fall for this simple ruse while killing Vezzini with "iocane" powder. (So much for never going in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.) Vezzini, mid mad cackle, drops dead, and the Man in Black completes his capture of the Princess.

If only the drivers of New Jersey's rush hour arteries were as savvy as Wesley, aka Dread Pirate Roberts, aka The man in Black. But, alas, at least some of them are not. If my observations are correct, many fairly ordinary sights are quite amazing to them, causing rather large traffic tie-ups near piles of dirt, construction vehicles, and dead animals.

...or perhaps there is something less troubling going on. What if one person, who has actually never seen a large pile of black dirt before, asks the driver to slow down so he/she can take a look, and then other drivers, wondering what could possibly be so interesting about a pile of dirt, slow down to see what's happening. Since it's just an ordinary pile of dirt, many drivers might linger wondering why on earth anyone else would slow down to look at a pile of dirt.

Probably that's it.

"secret" code names

2007-10-15T17:24:00.000-04:00

The lovely and talented M Maus has asked about the creation of code names in this blog.

Hmmm... MightyIsis finds this to be a bit of a stumper, actually, because she doesn't make up the names herself. Like James Joyce (and hopefully this is one of very few similarities), MightyIsis basically gleans things from the surrounding area.

Let's face it...most people make up their own names. Look at The Colonel and Kissmiley, for example. Even Mr Savior was only called that after he had cards made up that said "savior" on them.

And the cool bookstore lady is, in fact, highly cool, and works at the bookstore.

Can you make stuff like that up?

I think not.

Photo by Constantine P. Curran

The smell of truth?

2007-10-14T12:47:00.000-04:00

In Room with a View, Eleanor Lavish, a silly independent woman journalist replete with the features of the lady novelists George Eliot once decried, dashes about Florence looking for the true underbelly of Italian authenticity. Believing the Italians to be close to the earth (IMHO a common representational flaw in all of Forster's "Italian" novels), Miss Lavish mistakes dirt for culture, discovering "true Florentine" smells amongst bull droppings and carrying about a pair of Mackintosh squares to protect her from any contact with profane elements of nature, like grass and Italian coach drivers.

Entertaining as Miss Lavish's antics of repression might be, MightyIsis finds the idea of "true smells" to be a bit distressing... well, outside of restaurants and botanical gardens, perhaps. For example, the "true deli smell" of Katz's (See "send a salami" below) is lovely, if a bit too meaty for vegetarians. Even the somewhat institutional aromas of the Philadelphia Museum of Art Cafe strike a better note, somehow.

Which brings us to Philadelphia, the site of a few smells that were truly...smelly. The "genuine" smells of Fairmount Park, which appeared to be having a problem with a rather pungent form of green scum mixed with garbage, were rather offensive in a "make-your-Nestle's-Toll-House-ice-cream-sandwich-less-good" sort of way. Later, M Maus noted the aromatic qualities of the region frequented by horse-drawn carriages while standing close to "The Signer," a rather nice Philadelphia landmark near the old visitor's center and Carpenter's Hall. (Of course, now that the Constitution Center has life-size statues of the actual signers, this amalgam [these are brilliantly explained in the opening of Parenthood] of various signers seems a bit superfluous, but I digress). In response to this smell, MightyIsis and M Maus had a brief discussion of EM Forster and repaired to Bookbinder's for better genuine smells and some lovely chowders and bisques...they also have a rather nice sushi and an interesting style of adorning the lobster cocktail (yum!)--authentic lobster parts.

And smells are not the only "authentic" items at Bookbinder's--they have pictures, lots of pictures, and a far more impressive array of stars than even Katz's deli. Of particular note was Pope Pius XII, who seemed fairly grim looking for a man about to partake of Bookbinders' cuisine (such a facial expression seems impossible after that lovely food), featuring in a glossy color photograph just across from the ladies' room.

...or perhaps he had come in from smelling some authentic Philadelphia horse droppings....

Hard to do redux

2007-10-14T03:29:00.000-04:00

DG (aka "bat guy," "bug-eating guy," and "the 'wet pears' haiku poet") has asked about the status of the Colonel-Isis relationship.

Alack, alack, alackaday... MightyIsis-Colonel lovin' is no more.

Sad, but possibly inevitable. As Barbara DeAngelis notes in Are You the One for Me, the more ideological and cultural similarities between two people, the better the chances for relationship success.

Now, consider the likelihood of a military-minded, republican, NRA-membership-holding dude, sweet and heroic though he may be, and a bumbling, liberal, Quaker-sympathizing gal making a go of it. Not terribly high, n'est pas?

MightyIsis is very proud to note that DG heroically refrained from asking any probing questions about "technical proficiency" (see post of the same name, below).

Barbie's Patron Saint?

2007-10-09T11:22:00.000-04:00

On a recent trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, we saw some rather grisly little depictions of the torture of St. Barbara, one of the many blonde virgin saints who were given over to ghastly bodily maltreatment by fathers who wanted to force them to marry, possibly themselves (a theme treated very well in Deerskin). Passing over the question of why on earth it would be better to torture your daughter to death publicly rather "accidentally" poison her and make it look like the wrath of your own pagan gods, it struck me that poor St. Barbara, with her stunning good looks, "dream" bathhouse, and exciting adventures was a forerunner of the Barbie doll.

Ok, this is a ridiculous theory, and it has nothing to do with the more official stories:

http://sill-www.army.mil/pao/pabarbar.htm
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02284d.htm

Although one might suggest that the association between Barbie and GI Joe could somehow be traced to St. Barbara's connection to the military and cannons. Again, a silly theory, but entertaining to bruit about over one too many glasses of merlot.

Interestingly, a St. Barbara parish in Massachusetts has an entry "what time is 9 o-clock mass?"

http://www.rc.net/boston/st_barbara/index.htm

Send a salami...

2007-10-07T11:09:00.000-04:00

...to your boy in the Army (read: Aahmee).

Photo: André Karwath aka Aka

Yes, that's right, folks, MightyIsis, with the lovely M Maus, visited Katz's Deli, http://www.katzdeli.com/ the site of the famed When Harry Met Sally fake orgasm scene (See "technical proficiency," in July). After tasting the brisket sandwich on rye (yum!), I understand how she might have felt, had she actually been eating the sandwich. However, I noted that Sally disassembled her deli masterpiece to have a higher bread-to-meat ratio, which appears to be a testament to her lack of sensuality. At this point, I wonder how anyone could even eat the bread, because that was the best brisket I'd ever tasted, outstripping even the efforts of a post-college boyfriend's grandmother, because of whose culinary expertise, I remain the only gefilte-fish-eating "goy" known to many of my friends.

It's interesting how New Yorkers deal with tourists. Due to a lucky set of circumstances, like M Maus's superb map reading skills and ability to find parking spaces in Manhattan, we arrived at Katz's about 20 minutes before the lunch rush. Since there was a lull, the deli men were happy to lecture us about the various deli meats, the correct breads to eat with them, and why we were not to lose the little blue tickets. Whew! If we'd gotten there later, I'm sure we would have been hustled along by unruly and hungry New Yorkers trying to get back to the office before their 1 o'clocks.

We also got to meet the actual Mr Katz. He is way cool, and really nice. It made the brisket taste even better, which would seem impossible.