Protest and Hyperbole

My Farewell Concert

2011-10-17T17:08:00.003-06:00

If you are having a hard time at work, here are a few songs to sing really loud and dramatically (possibly while picturing your boss squirming with shame at his own incompetence).

The Silver Fox!:

Flaco Jimenez on the accordian!:

And for when you want to shout obscenities to a very catchy tune!:

Nothing like a good kiss off song.

What He Said

2011-10-15T15:24:00.002-06:00

For the first time ever, I own me a cell phone. Had to have a number to put on my resume, so any potential employers can get ahold of me at any time.

I'm considering this song for my ring tone.

Too obvious?

Suburban Malaise

2011-01-08T09:08:00.001-06:00

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I just got the DVD of the first season of Mad Men, and the timing is odd. The show and this book seem to have a lot in common. It's about a young couple in the '50s, living in Connecticut and he works in Manhattan. The book has the same sort of underlying feeling of menace as the show. The same anxieties are apparent in the characters. The experience of WWII looms. The uncomfortable gender roles chafe everyone.

The central couple in the book seem to match Don and Betty Draper in outward charm and attractiveness, but their self-delusions run very deep. They seem to have drifted into a suburban lifestyle, despite their (outward, at least) contempt for it. They are often enumerating the ways that they are different than their neighbors, to make it clear (to themselves, at least) how they are more worldly or less conventional. They are desperate for something meaningful, but can't admit to their desperation. Their inability to be honest with themselves or anybody else means they are not likable characters, but they are pitiable. It's a fairly depressing read.

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A Familiar Place

2011-01-08T09:03:00.003-06:00

Downtown Owl: A Novel by Chuck Klosterman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is amazing. I wasn't sure what to expect from fiction and Klosterman. I read Fargo Rock City and I'd faulted him for an Aspergers-like lack of empathy in that book.

But he is certainly aware of the people in his hometown. (I assume this is mostly drawn from his childhood, since it's about a small town in North Dakota.) He nailed it. We spend most of our time with three characters, and they are all authentic and believable. As are all the supporting characters. His descriptions could have been of the town where I grew up, and many of his observations felt like things I'd thought before. It'd be interesting to hear what a reader without that background would think of the story -- whether it would be just as compelling for them.

I especially liked his theme of the "universal" knowledge of a small community. His characters are always describing the history or character of some person, place, or thing, and saying, "Everybody knows this." He even compares what "everybody knows" to Orwell's 1984 and the idea of the thought police. A high schooler wonders how Orwell's world of everyone being forced to think the same thing was different from living in Owl, North Dakota. Good times!

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There are Four, Dammit!

2010-10-22T06:05:00.001-06:00

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Well that's over. It took a long time to get this book read for bookclub, partly because of an injury that makes reading a bit uncomfortable. But the book wasn't helping. Shallow melodrama isn't really my cup of tea. It's like the script for a really long cartoon. Everyone's either wicked or honorable, with no middle ground, and why they might be good or bad is not delved into. They seemingly fall in love at the drop of a hat, but express it in the most overwrought language. The wicked people are ultimately more interesting than the honorable, but it's hard to care about any of them.

And anyway, there are four musketeers! And the fourth is essentially the lead character! Whatever dude-mas.

Rogue Scribes

2010-10-17T08:18:00.002-06:00

Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'd prefer to give this book 3.5 stars or something. The writing is super pedantic and repetitive. I listened to the audiobook and it was fairly easy to space out and not lose the thread because of his writing style. While the book might be disturbing for those who take the Bible literally and believe all of it is the inerrant word of God, for the rest of us, it's interesting as a history of the actual text of the Bible. Ehrman describes what we know about how the books of the Bible were written, which ones were chosen to be part of the New Testament, and how they came down to us, since the original manuscripts are unavailable. He goes into great detail about how the Bible was transcribed before the invention of the printing press, how the text was translated and changed over the centuries, and what kinds of variations can be found among the various early manuscripts. As a scholar, his goal has always been to try to recreate the original writings -- to the degree that's possible.

The variations and changes made by the scribes who copied the early manuscripts of the New Testament are not insignificant, but mostly related to matters of doctrine, it seems. I don't think they would change most people's main conceptions about Jesus and how he lived. But the book offers a great broad perspective on how Christianity grew from a Jewish sect into a major religion. And it gives important historical context for the compilation of what must be the most influential book in history.

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Kinda Gross

2010-08-09T10:45:00.003-06:00

Lord Grizzly by Frederick Manfred

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a book I've been meaning to read for decades. My niece reminded me about it recently, when she was raving about it. It was handed about and admired in my family, and it's a fictionalized account of a bit of South Dakota history. And Manfred came and spoke in a literature class I took in college, so I feel sort of connected to him.

He's a great storyteller. His writing is very vivid, at times too much so. The time he is writing about includes a lot of fairly disgusting things -- early 19th century, frontier hygiene; festering wounds; eating of freshly killed and uncooked animals; maggots and lice; bloody battles in which men are scalped; buckskin clothing crusted with sweat, old food, blood, etc. I like that the author doesn't pretty it up for us, but it makes for an uncomfortable read, sometimes.

The main character, Hugh Glass, is presented as an experienced and careful mountain man with extraordinary resourcefulness. But he's not emotionally complicated. I liked the way Manfred wrote him as a whole person, with regrets and strong affections and blind spots and rage. But he didn't make him into a deep thinker, by any means. The author hints at some of the larger issues at work in the story, like the white trappers viewing the Indians as amoral for doing the same things that the white men were doing. Interestingly, we also see Glass railing internally against the settled East where he came from, which he thinks of as ruled by harpy-like women who force men into nice clothing and stifling jobs. But Manfred doesn't dig too deeply into these issues, so his story feels authentic. We're left to ponder the right and wrong of the characters' actions ourselves, which is just fine.

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A Christian Country

2010-07-15T06:32:00.001-06:00

The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sarah Vowell doesn't disappoint. This book wasn't quite as enjoyable as Assassination Vacation, but I blame her subjects for that. The Puritans are even grimmer than three assassinated presidents. She focuses specifically on the Massachusetts Bay Colony, which was founded several years after the settlement at Plymouth Rock and differed from them in some key ways. One of her main themes is the dissenters within the colony (dissent taking the form of theological differences of opinion).

I especially liked her portrayal of Roger Williams, a man banished from the colony for his loud-mouth opinions. Though even more purely Puritan than most of his neighbors, he ended up in hot water on religious grounds. He advocated for a separation of religion from government, fearing that civic involvement would just drag God through the mud and get him involved in lowly dealings. He was ultimately banished and went on to found the first settlement in Rhode Island (the first settlement to get a charter from the king that codified freedom of religion -- the oldest American Jewish temple is in R.I.). Vowell's portrayal of Williams is engaging because she captures how, though he would have been a pain in the ass to live with, his ideas were important. (He even said that the King of England didn't have the right to deed land to the colonies -- the colonists should have purchased it from the Indians. He paid the Indians in Rhode Island for his land there.) Vowell gets at the idea of how dissenters upset day-to-day routine, which would have been significant in a new settlement in the wilderness where people are just trying to survive the winter. But we have to make room for them in a free society. Vowell says about Williams that is hard to like him, but easy to love him. And she makes her case.

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Failing to Fear the Reaper

2010-05-10T11:36:00.003-06:00

Righteous: Dispatches from the Evangelical Youth Movement by Lauren Sandler

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I probably shouldn't read this type of topical nonfiction. It relies fairly heavily on the idea that some ominous cultural or political activity is getting bigger and bigger and is about to threaten our Very Way of Life. But while I am a naturally anxious person, I'm totally on to these yahoos that need to make me believe that swine flu/homophobes/feminists/Republicans/immigrants/China/Muslims/etc. are about to bring about some sort of dystopian future. I get that there are threats in the world, and people with whom I completely disagree. And people with bombs and guns and stuff. But fear is counterproductive. It's not a good basis for a worldview. It does, however, sell lots of books and magazines.

The author of this book is talented -- she writes engagingly about the young evangelicals. She looks at many different parts of the whole: "alternative" ministries reaching out to pierced and tattooed types (I like to think of them as Bedazzled) with slang-filled but still very conservative messages; the home-schooled ultra-conservative politicos at Patrick Henry College who are looking to take over Washington; the evangelicals in the military that believe God brought about the Iraq and Afghan wars so that they can bring Christianity to the Middle East; the goth church in Texas run by Jim and Tammy Faye Baker's son; the folks trying to get "intelligent design" into the public school curriculum; Stephen Baldwin and the Extreme Tour; and many more. And it's alarming stuff. She interviews many people along the way, and I found myself arguing in my head with many of them. How can you believe women are to be subservient? Why do you think other people must believe as you do? Why must this be a "Christian nation" -- there are people of all faiths here.

I think the author did a good job of showing how religion was of personal comfort to many of her subjects, while still decrying their political views. (She made no bones about being alarmed by the whole movement.) She notes that evangelism is clearly popular because so many young people are unclear about how to have meaning in their lives, feeling disconnected from their communities. But she wants her readers to be really freaked out and, basically, to create something similar on the left. She calls for the secular liberals to have their own versions of the Christian rock festivals, skate ministries, political colleges, and self-help books she describes here, only with life-affirming messages from the left wing. Oy.

I'd try something a bit more basic. How about public programs and educational institutions that support the health, safety, and growth of our citizens? How about some regulations that prevent Wall Street banks from putting our economy in the toilet? How about an economy that does not depend almost entirely on the consumption of consumer goods for its "health"? Fanaticism, fear, and intolerance are often born from insecurity, poverty, poor education, or economic instability. Maybe if our country did a better job of supporting its most vulnerable citizens and working toward fairness and justice, we'd all be a little less susceptible to the fear mongers.

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Meth in the Midwest

2010-04-25T15:47:00.001-06:00

Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town by Nick Reding

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This author clearly did a lot of research for this book, including many, many in-person interviews and on-the-spot observation. And the information is good and many of the insights he draws from it are valid. His goal is to tell the story of meth's rise in rural America and around the country, using Oelwein, Iowa, as his main case study and microcosm of the whole picture. But except for when he's telling stories of specific individuals, his writing style and his inability to avoid the stereotyping of small, Midwestern towns and their residents make this a kind of infuriating read.

He also does some serious over-reaching in terms of trying to place the significance of his material. Sars over at Tomato Nation is dead on in that respect: http://bit.ly/deE89G

But the thing that effs it all up for me is the tangly, overwrought sentences he uses when he's trying for significance and the unnecessary "othering" of his subjects. For instance, he's forever telling us what the local call things, as though it's an exotic practice. "The police station or 'cop shop' as it's called." "The Hub City Bakery, or what is referred to the regulars as simply 'the Bakery.'" Yes, how strange that the only bakery in town would just be called "the bakery." Shut! Up!

But then he confuses me by genuinely getting to know several main players -- a young prosecutor, a town doctor, former and not-so-former addicts, the mayor -- and telling their stories in a compelling way that includes an obvious affection and a level of complexity that shows respect for them and their lives. And his analysis of public policy issues, the changing nature of the drug trade and its players, and the role of the rural economies and large corporations all seems well researched and sound.

I guess what I find so infuriating about this book is that it would have been relatively simple for a competent editor to correct it's flaws. A few cuts and a bit of rewriting, and it would have been really outstanding. Makes me so mad!

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I Liked The Stuff About the Dogs

2010-03-28T07:33:00.003-06:00

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book was very enjoyable and a real page-turner, but sort of unsatisfactory in the end -- partly because I kept making unfair comparisons to A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley. That book is also set in the rural Midwest and based on one of Shakespeare's plays (King Lear). Wroblewski's book is based on Hamlet and I don't think it works as well.

Edgar Sawtelle (who is born mute) and his parents raise a special crossbreed of dog on a farm in Wisconsin and do intensive and specialized training with them. The details about the work and about Edgar's relationship with the dogs and one in particular (who stands in for Ophelia) is really compelling. We hear the story of two generations of Sawtelles before the Hamlet plot kicks in. And Edgar's family life is portrayed as sort of an idyll, with the only sour note struck by his uncle, Claude, who stays with the family after being released from prison.

The problem, to me, is that Hamlet feels awkwardly grafted onto the story. There is a rather abrupt change in tone when Edgar's father dies, as though what came before is unrelated. Everything gets dark and sinister -- the family's grief gets magnified and twisted. Things start getting a little too crazy. My dim memories of studying a bit of Shakespeare in school include some stuff about tragedy. Didn't tragedy have to do with a person's essential character? What make events a tragedy is that those involved can behave in no way other than the one their essential natures dictate. Maybe I'm thinking of the Greeks? Anyway, it felt like some of the Hamelt-ian plot and character was forced on this book. The essential natures of the characters seem to change. He could have written a more believable and devastating story by just leaving the Danes out of it.

I may have felt differently about this book, if I'd never read A Thousand Acres, which took King Lear and his three daughters and put them on a farm in Iowa. Smiley transposed the machinations of Lear into the internal politics and secrets of a family farm. Having experienced a family farm, I was blown away by how clearly she got the details. I felt like I knew her characters -- they were SO familiar. And the conflict was not at all stagey. She is scary good. So, you know, Wroblewski was handicapped with me. But he's obviously talented, so I think he should just go it alone.

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Sticking It to the Victorians

2010-03-14T21:26:00.003-06:00

The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book was amazing, and I had a hard time putting it down, even when I was being sort of rude. I took it with me when I visited friends in Florida and kept picking it up whenever I could. It's about a child's emergence from a childhood with abusive and controlling parents into a confused early adulthood and ultimately rational manhood. Apparently, the author meant the book as a condemnation of certain Victorian views, especially about religion. The main character's father is a deeply flawed clergyman who takes his bad moods out on his son.

I really enjoyed the progress the main character makes and the sort of emotional puzzles he has to solve, like figuring out that the path that's been set for him is one he hates, and how hard it is sometimes to discover the things you really like to do. Or how unpleasant or hateful people sometimes don't get their comeuppance. I dearly love books like this that are all about the observation of human behavior and relationships. And moralizing. I can tell I'm going to be re-reading this one several times.

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Crazy Family

2010-03-05T23:26:00.002-06:00

The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Just got back from our book club on this book. It launched many discussion tangents about racism, which was cool. The story is compelling -- about a Jewish woman who left her extremely unpleasant family as a teenager. She moved to New York and eventually married a black man some time in the 1940s. The book alternates between chapters about the author's upbringing with stories from his mother's life. There are a lot of aspects and layers to the whole thing: immigration (she was born in Poland), Jews and African Americans living in the south, the author's identity confusion, his mother's complete silence about her own upbringing (until he pried it out of her for the book) and general stoicism and abrasiveness, her embracing of Christianity, her having 12 children, her two beloved husbands, the family's struggle and poverty and ultimate success. The book wasn't flawless by any means, but it was a fascinating story.

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Suspicious Therapeutics

2010-03-05T22:53:00.001-06:00

Dibs in Search of Self by Virginia M. Axline

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This book sat on the bookshelf at home when I was a kid and I read it a few times. Lord knows where it came from as nobody in my family was especially interested in psychology that I'm aware of. It's about a form of play therapy meant to assist emotionally troubled children. The kid she describes (and gives the very weird alias "Dibs") is the child of affluent but apparently clueless and emotionally distant parents. The therapy seems to have a fairly dramatic effect on him in a short period of time (the length of a school year). It's satisfying in a way that the therapy I'm aware of is not: Dibs experiences beneficial changes that last. I'm not sure I believe this is nonfiction. Anyway, I ran into a copy at the used bookstore and felt the need to re-experience it.

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Snake Oil

2010-02-15T16:31:00.001-06:00

The Management Myth: Management Consulting Past, Present & Largely Bogus by Matthew Stewart

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I really enjoyed this book. The author explores the history and claims of management consulting. He exposes many of the professions most well-loved stories and gurus, including Frederick Taylor, Peter Drucker, and Tom Peters. He criticizes the pseudo-science used to "prove" the worth of management theory and the lack of real research from business schools. The arguments are fairly dense, but persuasive, and alternate with his own experiences as a management consultant, which are dishy and fun to read.

He wrote an article for the Atlantic several years ago that was the basis for the book. It's a great read:
http://bit.ly/10be6W

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Axe

2010-02-01T21:12:00.003-06:00

This is my new guee-tar. Isn't it pretty? Thanks to all the Christmas and birthday gift givers who contributed. Now if I can just manage to keep it from falling apart in my unevenly heated and dry house. It has a deLIGHTful sound.

Irritant Author

2010-01-15T11:29:00.002-06:00

Ghosty Men: The Strange but True Story of the Collyer Brothers and My Uncle Arthur, New York's Greatest Hoarders by Franz Lidz

My rating: 1 of 5 stars
I'm not sure I can properly convey how irritating this book is. I picked it up because I've become mildly obsessed with a show on A&E called Hoarders, and I wanted to see what the famous Collyer Brothers had to offer. I'd heard about them -- Homer and Langley Collyer had crammed a Harlem brownstone full of tons of stuff in the early part of the last century and lived as recluses. But instead of giving me the Collyer brothers, this yahoo decided to make every second chapter about his Uncle Arthur, who was also a hoarder. And despite what it says above, there is no "and My Uncle Arthur" in the book's subtitle. I was promised "The Strange but True Story of the Collyer Brothers, New York's Greatest Hoarders."

The list of this author's crimes is significant:
-He apparently didn't have enough material on the Collyers to even write a book. The book is short in the first place and half is about his own family. The Collyer material is minimal and cribbed from other writers. One Collyer chapter is really about the history of Harlem, which the Collyers were not really involved in, since they very rarely left their house. But at least his redundant writing style fills up extra space.
-His writing style is forced and strives too hard for atmosphere. Here he is on an evening in the Bronx with his uncle: "Nightfall flashed hot and jittery, full of frenetic longing that never seemed fulfilled." Ugh. His syntax and narrative twist around so that the chronology becomes unclear. He also repeats himself. Frequently.
-He doesn't confine the non-Collyer material to his Uncle Arthur, but writes extensively about his whole family—including passages of very bad poetry by his relatives—despite having written a whole other book devoted to his uncles. Apparently, he just Can't. Stop. Writing. about them. In fact, the photo on this book's cover is of his Uncle Arthur. IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT THE COLLYERS. God.

Around chapter 11, we finally get to some interesting stuff about the Collyer's and their piles of junk, but I'm not sure it was worth it.

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Boris and Natasha BS

2010-01-13T08:31:00.000-06:00

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith

My rating: 2 of 5 stars
This book was apparently originally intended to be a screenplay, and you can kind of tell. It's a story of the repressive society in Stalinist Russia; the main character is a member of the state police force and we follow him through his transformation from good soldier to skeptic via an investigation into the murders of children. But the characters are all shallow -- motivation is sort of passingly accounted for, and we are told what the characters think and feel rather than given believable reasons for their actions. And his portrayal of the evils of Stalinism is a little heavy handed. I'm sure it was no cake walk, but I don't trust his account -- it was too black and white and his villains are like cartoon villains, with no nuance or complexity. And the ending was ridiculously abrupt and tidy, with the main character impossibly finding a happy ending. In other words, it's easy to see this as a Hollywood screenplay. The book, though, is tedious and annoying.

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Tangled Affairs

2010-01-05T11:32:00.000-06:00

A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I listened to this audiobook on the trip to S.D. for Christmas. It was very enjoyable -- a story about so-called sophisticated people trying to manage their love lives with multiple relationships and extra-marital affairs. The main character seems more concerned with "behaving well" in response to his wife's infidelity than getting angry. In fact, his mild reaction tends to belie his repeated avowals of love for her. That and the fact that he's been cheating on her for some time as well. Ultimately, the strength of his romantic relationships is contrasted with his fairly violent and more encompassing passion for an unlikely character. I really enjoy Murdoch's take on morality and human relationships.

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Wanted

2010-01-04T16:18:00.003-06:00

It seems like nobody in this freezing burg is happier to see me than the folks at Memorial Blood Centers. I'm on a regular donation schedule with them (give once, and they will hound your ass), especially now that I'm more than a year past that very suspect trip to Central America. Blood people are like the CIA when comes to your travel to malarial regions.

But it's not just that I'm a willing donor; I'm a friggin' universal donor! That's right. I'm type O- so I'm attractive to EVerybody. Even better: I'm negative for this one common type of flu virus, so they can use my blood for the preemies. Yeah, I'm all about saving babies. And my shut-in-like lifestyle means I can breeze through all those "risky behavior" questions -- no sex, no needles, no previous sojourns in dirty places like western Europe. My blood is like gold, y'all! And here I am trading it for juice and some Lorna Doones. Is there any way to make money on this deal?

More About Your Fat Ass

2009-10-20T07:01:00.001-06:00

Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss--and the Myths and Realities of Dieting by Gina Kolata

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Man, I feel like such a chump. I've been swallowing the line on dieting for years without question, and this book really blows it up. The author reviews the past several decades of research on obesity and dieting and lets us in on the results -- diets don't work and your weight in genetically predetermined. You heard me. All that fat shaming and blathering about lack of personal responsibility that is done by public health folks, diet gurus, and Dr. Phil? Not relevant. The reason the vast majority of people can't keep weight off after dieting is that your body is working against you to get you back to whatever weight is your "set point." We have decent control over maybe 10-20 pounds. And you know what else? It's unlikely that being overweight has a significant effect on your health or longevity.

I've just blown your mind, haven't I?

The author, who's a science writer for the New York Times, does a good job of reviewing the research and explaining the different studies. The writing is a little technical at times, where she explains how scientists uncovered various hormones, peptides, and DNA. She also talks about the resistance the media and other researchers have had to certain studies that refuted the conventional wisdom about obesity. She explains this by pointing to the vast amount of money that dieting advocates, obesity researchers, and government entities stand to lose if the "obesity epidemic" is disproved.

Here's the deal: While improving your food choices and getting regular exercise can have a positive impact on your health, they probably won't make you thin. So if we can stop beating ourselves up for being fat, ugly, and unlovable, if we can make peace with our size and use all that time and money we spent on dieting for something else, if we stop letting people tell us we should be ashamed of ourselves...that'd be something, huh?

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Love Your Fat Ass

2009-10-06T05:57:00.004-06:00

Lessons from the Fat-o-sphere: Quit Dieting and Declare a Truce with Your Body by Kate Harding

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book puts forward the life-changing idea that perhaps you ought to accept your fat self and put away the mirage that one day you will be thin and perfect. The authors, who are both fat-acceptance bloggers, go some way to dismantle misinformation about the health risks of fat and the so-called obesity crisis. Their first and major point is that diets don't work. The vast majority of people are unable to lose weight and keep it off for more than five years, so why are we being continually told that it is our first duty as fat human beings to shed the weight? They advocate the idea of "health at every size": don't be fooled into thinking that you can't be healthy as a fat person, don't let your doctor blame everything on your weight, listen to your body when it comes to eating, find an exercise that you actually like to do, and don't assume you are unattractive or unlovable because of your weight. To accept their ideas would be a major shift in outlook, but incredibly life affirming.

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The Differences

2009-10-06T05:54:00.001-06:00

Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A moving account of Germany before, during, and after WWII, told from the point of view of the residents of a town near Dusseldorf. The main character is a woman with dwarfism named Trudi. The story touches on the nature of physical difference and belonging and looks at how German civilians dealt with the realities of Nazis and the war. It's a beautiful book -- delicately told -- compassionate and touching.

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For the Ladies

2009-10-06T05:49:00.000-06:00

Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages by Phyllis Rose

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This was an amazing look at five marriages from a feminist perspective:

-Jane Welsh and Thomas Carlyle
-Effie Gray and John Ruskin
-Harriet Taylor and John Stuart Mill
-Catherine Hogarth and Charles Dickens
-George Eliot and Geoge Henry Lewes

The author gives a brief account of each courtship and marriage and views much of what has been said previously about the couples through a sort of corrective feminist lens. Many of these people knew each other and we get to compare how they've conducted themselves--in very different ways--in essentially the same time and place in history. Very readable.

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Irish Hell

2009-08-30T09:04:00.003-06:00

Angela's Ashes: A Memoir by Frank McCourt

My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I took an almost instant dislike to this book, and I'm not sure why exactly. I suppose it was like approaching an over-hyped movie. Titanic or whatever is never going to live up to the way it's been talked about, so there's sort of no way to enjoy it. But it didn't help that virtually everyone in the book was a child abusing ass. Aside from a priest the author met once, an uncle, and a kindly hospital janitor, everyone McCourt encountered--his parents, clergy, teachers, employers, doctors, relatives--were constantly screaming at him, beating him with sticks, neglecting him, blaming him, taunting or witholding. I suppose it's a simplistic way of appreciating a story, but it's hard to care about it when you're wishing all the characters straight to hell.

Meanwhile, McCourt's description of it all struck me as sort of flat. That's probably not surprising, but it makes it difficult to relate to him, too, despite his having almost no one on his side. My feeling is that if you're going to write the book of your ghastly childhood filled with unrelieved misery and neglect, that you should be offering us some perspective about it. This seemed to me just an unenlightened reliving of the damned thing, which serves no one but McCourt's therapist. Maybe he got some relief from just writing it down. I at least hope he is resting in peace now.

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The Magic of Summer

2009-08-30T08:58:00.001-06:00

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a long but very enjoyable book. It tells the story of two men who are trying to bring "practical magic" back to England during the time of the Napoleonic wars. The author lends the story a sort of biographical credence with footnotes on the history of magic (within the world of her novel) and descriptions of one magician's service to the Duke of Wellington fighting the French. It's a fun read and I'd definitely recommend it.

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Target Women

2009-08-01T06:41:00.003-06:00

Talking with a coworker yesterday about Sarah Haskins reminded me how much I lurve her. Check her out:

She does ones about yogurt commercials, jewelry commercials, cleaning product commercials. She's a lady-ist delight. Search "Target Women Sarah Haskins" for all the awesomeness.

iChing

2009-07-28T20:23:00.005-06:00

OK, so I've been dreaming lately about being self-employed. Starting a business, working from home, peddling crap out of the trunk of my car . . . something like that. And, because I'm enamored of the shuffle option on my iTunes, I've decided that music should tell my fortune. We'll give it three chances to tell me where I should invest my life savings. Good times, eh?

1. If I Wuz U -- P.M. Dawn
Well, right off the bat the hinky spelling the title would seem to suggest that I wouldn't be doing any editing.
"Mirror mirror whatcha got for me?
Since I'm you and you're just so me
I know they've lost themselves instead
I know that destiny's face is red
I can see my rainbow's real sweet"

Oh, P.M. Dawn, you hippie weirdos. (I don't even know how this album got on here -- did it come with my computer? Does that happen?) Perhaps this choice just reflects my own lack of direction. But I don't like the idea that destiny's face is red. What does my destiny have to be embarrased about?!?

2. Come to Me -- Otis Redding
Otis wants me to come to him and be his love for he loves me so. He sounds kinda sad. Do you represent my potential sugar daddy, Big O? You know I'm not that kind of girl. He's down on his knees, though. Sigh.

3. Fox Confessor Brings the Flood -- Neko Case
Great, more obfuscation and ambiguity:
"Of the fox confessor on splendid heels, And he shames me from my seat"

Whatever dude, was the question too broad?

Fine, maybe we should just do a yes or no question. I really like the idea of running my own junkyard. Is that a good idea?

1. Mule Train -- Maddox Brothers & Rose
"Clippety clop clippety clop clippety clippety clippety clippety clippety and so on, etc."
"They'll keep going 'til they drop"

Hmmm, are you saying it might be fairly monotonous drudgery? That's not what it seemed like on Sanford and Son.

2. Right is Right -- Rufus
"Right is right, wrong is wrong." What is WITH all this equivocation. I asked for your opinion. God.

3. My House Has Wheels -- Southern Culture on the Skids
Well, that's irrelevant, but I do love a trailer. Do you think there's money in junked trailers? Winfred, S.D., would beg to differ.

Well, I believe this reading was inconclusive. If it'd been the Magic 8 Ball I was asking, it would have said "Ask Again Later." So screw it.

P.S. Send any questions you would like to put to my collection of 3,540 songs. Maybe you'll have better luck.

Soul Train Processional

2009-07-24T07:38:00.004-06:00

I guess I need to shut up about how Minnesotans don't dance:

That is some Abeln-quality performance, y'all. Does anybody know how I can hang out with these people? Please don't tell me they're all from out of town.

Take This Job

2009-07-20T20:15:00.009-06:00

Dude, d'you get that at the DMV?

It's my first day back at work, and I spent a lot of it sort of in shock. "Wait . . . this is my job? This kinda blows." I know. I'm such an ungrateful wretch. I should be glad I even HAVE a job. This is no time to be unenthusiastic. Now is the time for bright eyes, bushy tails, and ass kissing.

Also: I was so relieved when I finally found this "career." It took me a very long time to get around to it. The thought of trying to convince various hiring entities to take me seriously in some other format seems like a wearying, discouraging odyssey. Lord, preserve me. Literally. Just cook me down into a jam and seal me up with some parrafin. I could use the down time.

I think I should probably work for myself. I have trouble with authority anyway. Of course, if I was my own boss, I'd probably hate myself even more. But it seems like the sheer terror of having no safety net at all could give birth to some serious entrepreneurial brillance. Or homelessness.

If only I had the genes or temperament to snag me a sugar daddy. . . if only I could feel comfortable letting someone else take care of me. Stupid feminist work ethic.

Un-Toxic

2009-07-16T11:20:00.008-06:00

I'm off this week due to some cost cutting at work, but it's kind of a gift, the time to myself. I've been filling up the days with some different stuff. A mix of purposefulness and lounging. Good times! Yesterday, I took a ride on the Midtown Greenway:

I've been meaning to go check it out, and it doesn't disappoint. Such a lovely trail with gardens and green space, and even a Freewheel Cycle/Sebastian Joes ice cream at the back of the Midtown Global Market/old Sears building. You don't even have to go up to street level. I can now say that I've been over the Martin Olav Sabo bridge, and keep my Twin Cities cred:

The interesting thing about the Greenway is that west of Hiawatha, where the path is below the level of the street, it's difficult to know where you are. You have to rely on the signs for the exit paths and the street names on the bridges overhead. The grade is far enough below the street that you can't really see landmarks, except for all those new condo buildings in the LynLake area. The whole thing is sort of it's own separate world. A pretty, quiet, green, separate world. Very peaceful.

My biggest task this week has been a diet that I've assigned myself -- The 20-Day Rejuvenation Diet Program by Jeffrey Bland. The theory behind it is nothing too revolutionary: mostly whole grains, fruits, vegetables, healthy fats. It cuts out common food allergans like dairy and wheat (things it's hard to do without for 20 days!). But I'm trying to get to the bottom of some ongoing gastrointestinal distress and chronic fatigue. I'm trying to see if "detoxing" a bit might help me out or give me some hints about what might be going on.

But DANG this thing is complicated. There are very specific menu plans for every meal for all 20 days and very few of the dishes are repeated. I'm buying groceries like a crazy person and cooking like half of every day. If I was working this week, I don't think I could manage it. My strategy now is to slack off a bit on the menu plans but just make sure I'm eating the "approved" foods. I am feeling a bit better, so I think it's worth the effort. But, you know, a girl's gotta leave the house sometimes.

The Final Word

2009-07-16T11:12:00.001-06:00

My boyfriend Jay Smooth, not surprisingly, has a insightful analysis of MJ:

Isn't he dreamy?

Lovely

2009-07-08T20:46:00.002-06:00

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
I listened to the audio book on a road trip over the 4th of July weekend. It's a heartbreaker, but I was glad to have "read" it. It focuses a lot on the issues of women in the last four decades in Afghanistan, so .... harrowing. Especially the years under the Taliban. Not that this is nonfiction, but I assume it's not too far from the truth. I'd recommend it.

View all my reviews.

Lady Detective

2009-07-03T06:07:00.002-06:00

The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a entertaining, quick read. The main character is immensely likeable and the story or series of stories are tidy but intriguing.

View all my reviews.

Starving to Death

2009-06-30T06:26:00.001-06:00

Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia by Marya Hornbacher

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is a rather brutal book about the author's many years of bulimia and anorexia. She doesn't spare any details about the self-destructive behavior and it's consequences. It's a difficult read partly because it's easy to see yourself and most women in her thought processes about eating, weight, and self-worth. I don't really know any women who don't think that way to some extent, which is horrifying. It's, of course, also hard to follow her excrutiatingly detailed and horribly prolonged efforts to kill herself through starvation and malnourishment.

The thing I didn't like was that that was all we got. The book ended before her final hospitalization, so we didn't follow her through her more lasting recovery (we did get some of the initial hospitalizations). We don't get to hear what ultimately helped her to pull out of the mess she was in. It's like when your girlfriend spends weeks detailing the trouble she's having with her partner and you're all enraged on her behalf, then the two of them make it up and you don't hear another word. You're left with all these feelings and worries, and they are blissfully happy, but aren't sharing their secrets with you anymore.

Hornbacher's been accused of writing book that provides all sorts of "tips" for aspiring anoretics. It seems like that impression would have been blunted if she'd just let us in a little on her recovery.

View all my reviews.

The Cure for Irony

2009-05-20T09:28:00.002-06:00

This guy is like the smartest person I've ever even heard of:

Also: my new boyfriend.

Sad

2009-03-06T19:31:00.003-06:00

I said goodbye to my nearly 18-year-old kitty today. I was hoping not to have to make the decision, but he was a tough old bird and who know how long he would have hung on? He wasn't eating and couldn't move very well.

I'm sure going to miss him.

The Sassmaster Review of Books

2009-02-19T10:12:00.001-06:00

Epileptic by David B.

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is probably the longest graphic novel I've read which is probably to the author's credit as it must have been a ridiculous amount of work, but it can be taxing on the reader. The story, about the author's childhood to young adulthood with his family and brother with epilepsy, is worth telling, and he has a unique take on it. His parents search for help for their son among an astonishing range of esoteric religions, cults, alternative medicines, healers, diets, etc. is mixed with his own hyperactive imagination. As a child, the author fixates on war and violence-prone historical figures such as Ghengis Khan. His drawings show us his rich, but lonely, interior life, filled with ghosts, fantastical creatures, and reimagined reality. Despite the implied anxiety, he manages to make this bizarre landscape feel homey and comforting. The density of the drawings and the length of the book means it's hard to appreciate fully the extent of his work. But it's a worth a look

View all my reviews.

2009-02-06T23:57:00.001-06:00

Aww, the Daily Show gave S.D. a shout-out. Thune's in the house!

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=217693&title=clusterf#@k-to-the-poor-house

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Funny Political News
Joke of the Day

Oh yeah.

Surprise Party

2009-01-14T20:57:00.017-06:00

OK, so Suspiciously Pleased and I planned a party for our January birthdays, along with Elvis (or El, as SP calls him. They're tight.) The Muse was also part of our tribe, as all four of us have birthdays within a week of each other. (Capricorns rule!)

So just as the joint starts hoppin', we are shocked (Shocked!) by the appearance of Molldoll (the original Sassmaster) fresh from Florida. She voluntarily donned socks and flew to Mpls for her sister's birthday. Aww...

Once the screaming and jumping about had subsided, many party-goers wanted to be photographed with the King, especially SP in her Ann-Margaret outfit:

Some got a little frisky.

E. was looking especially fine that night.

SP made red velvet cupcakes that spelled out the names of the birthday kids, but rowdy party-goers began using them for anagrams. Damn Scrabble players....

There was jamming with, why yes, that IS an actual stand-up base. And a ukelele on the left. Yes, it IS sad you weren't there.

Elvis couldn't resist the impromtu jam:

There was dancing

Including reenacting of scenes from Viva Las Vegas by SP and her man:

And a spot-on E-personation:

C's new lady seemed to like us, despite her wary look here. We thought she was awesome.

Near to the end of the night, some minds were opened. In a complete reversal of policy regarding cold weather, Molldoll went out and frolicked in falling snow without a coat. And of course, demanded that we photograph her:

She even threw snow around with bare hands:

Is this the same chick that bitched about 50 degree weather in May for a solid week?

Aw look, she brought the sun with her.

Somehow, ck and the Muse escaped the camera all night, so here's an older one of them:

They make a mean cannellini dip, y'all!

Thanks for the good times, everybody! Let's do it again real soon.

Pipe Down

2009-01-08T12:19:00.003-06:00

Are we moving toward a yelling-based economy? I realize that my health, interests, and general crankiness qualify me as an honorary old coot, so I'm probably nobody's target demographic. But it seems like transacting commerce is requiring a lot more hollering than it used to. I stopped in at Jimmy Johns the other weekend, and the music was deafening. I had to yell my order two or three times to be heard. Same thing at Chipotle. And Starbucks does that thing where they want to "get something started" for the people in line, which means shouting "medium decaf latte" over the heads of strangers. I dislike it.

I know some restaurants actually pursue the noisiness with hard surfaces and open kitchens. The Rainforest Cafe had that whole damn fake jungle going on with the screeching monkeys and such. (My GOD was that annoying.) Apparently the hubbub acts on us like hallucinogen, making us think we're at the center of a "happening," when in fact we are just at Chili's happy hour, bitching about work. Do people enjoy this stuff, really, or is this just a phase we're all going through? Are they trying to make us anxious so we'll eat more? I think it's working.

Shut Up, SNL

2009-01-02T08:55:00.004-06:00

Live from New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live was an engrossing and sometimes infuriating read. SNL is an undeniable force in pop culture, launching career after career and influencing the cultural memes, but I still had a hard time dealing with the self-important tone of the authors and the people they interviewed. The overall impression was that they'd been participating in a cult that still held them and the rest of us in thrall. And Lorne Michaels = Jim Jones.

The book was fun for the bits of insider-y gossip it offered--everybody thinks Chevy Chase is a dick, George Steinbrenner was a terrible host--though many of the interviewees stuck to generalities without talking about specific people or sketches, which kept you wondering who or what they were talking about. You got the history of the controversies, the deaths, and the cycles of "good seasons" and "bad seasons," the network beefs, etc., etc.

Long-time writer James Downey gave some revealing interviews. He's known for writing a lot of political sketches and getting into a huge feud with one of the NBC execs. When Norm McDonald started anchoring Weekend Update in the mid '90s, Downey wrote most of his material. That always seemed like one of the most unfunny things in the history of the show to me. Not surprisingly, Downey and MacDonald had extreme contempt for the audience, more interested in doing what they thought was smart humor than getting laughs. In the book, MacDonald says, "I have more faith in me and Jim that I did in any audience. I just like doing jokes I like, and if the audience doesn't like them, then they're wrong, not me." I suppose many "comics" have that attitude and some express it regularly (hello, Carlos Mencia), but it always seems stunning to me.

That passage sort of crystalized the whole book for me, though, because it addresses the central question: Who and what was (is) this show for? Clearly it was breaking ground when it began (as they will never let us forget), but when the participants reminisce and celebrate and fulminate, they talk endlessly about the pressure, the ideas, the performances, the opportunity, the relationships. It's all inside baseball -- the rarefied air of their club. Many describe the show as a intense training ground for performance and celebrity. Which makes sense: they set it up so only a week's work goes into each show. It's performed live. If they were trying for perfection, they'd do it differently. As a member of the audience, what it amounts to is a weekly exercise in watching people improve their craft. Often it's funny and great and, just as often, it's kinda lame. The book's tone was one of reliving the glory and assuming immortality. But the glory isn't for us, it's for them and their careers. They kinda need to get over themselves.

Sassmaster and Bros., Inc.

2008-12-17T18:25:00.004-06:00

My dear aunt stuck this picture in with her Christmas letter:

It is Sassmaster and her siblings on an Easter morning in Grandma's backyard. I do remember that coat, with its candy-like buttons. Please also note the gloves, hat, and purse, which were modeled at Easter. Those two faux-prep-school red jackets made the rounds among all the boys. My youngest brother was not in the picture, literally or figuratively, so this must be what? 1969? 1970? Also, Sassmaster must have flinched when her bangs were being cut. Either that, or Mom was going for near baldness for the whole lot.

All Lit Up

2008-12-14T10:10:00.004-06:00

Suspiciously Pleased and I went to see Trailer Trash's Trashy Little X-Mas Show last night at Lee's. Oh man. Those guys are in serious danger of being stalked. Here's a little taste of awsomeness:

Do You Hear What I...

Hosted by eSnips

You're welcome.

Specs

2008-12-07T10:01:00.003-06:00

I'm experimenting in the name of saving some dough -- I just ordered my new glasses online. These are them:

I came under the thrall of a blog call Glassy Eyes. This guy Ira has become enraged by the eyeglass industrial complex and after researching and using some eyeglass-selling Web sites, recommends that we spurn our money-grubbing opticians and order on line. I also have lingering resentment over the amount of money I've spent over the years on something I can't function without, so he had no trouble convincing me.

There's a certain amount of dinking around needed: you have determine what frames you want without being able to try them on and you have to learn about measurements and stuff. And this would be a lot easier and cheaper for someone with a weaker and less complicated prescription than mine (astigmatism! prism! bifocal! God.).

However, I stopped in at Vision World and priced out my prescription with lower priced frames and the thinnest lens (they always insist I get the "super high index" because of my coke-bottle-bottom lens) and it came to around $330. And that was with their "50% off the frames and lenses" special this week. I ordered the ones shown above, without the super thin lenses for $111.51.

They're supposed to be here in about a week. I'll let you know how it goes.

P.S. The kitchen is lovely and the contractors are gone. I still haven't finished the painting, but I don't care. It'll get done at some point. You should come over and see it!

Mad House

2008-10-28T20:13:00.013-06:00

Your endless efforts to distract yourself while you wait to hear more about my kitchen are now over! I can't imagine how you filled the hours. I, for one, have been alternately quivering with rage, silently despairing, and staring blankly into the middle distance. This is what I've learned from my adventure: I hate remodeling with the white hot heat of a thousand suns.

Right! On to the photos:

A vast expanse of countertop! I imagine four people chopping vegetables at the same time--come on over. Bring carrots!

It's island-living here in land-locked St. Paul.

Dig the pull-out garbage/recycling -- so tidy!

The refrigerator is still in the dining room, but the liquor has already been stowed in the cupboard above, per family tradition:

The desk! I'm going to be redonkulously organized:

I leave you with the pretty floor:

There's lots of trim still to go up and a closet door, but I now have heat, which is a nice change of pace. I think I can see the end from here.

In eyeball news, my cataract surgery is scheduled for November 11, so there's that. Once I've recovered and the remodelers are gone, I hope to be doing absolutely nothing for weeks on end. Though that plan will be foiled by the holidays... Loafing in January. Who's with me?

P.S.: Several friends just read "silently despairing" and spit out their coffee. "Yeah, silent despair might have been nice, lady." I'd like to give a shout-out to k80, who was very supportive through all my first-thing-in-the-morning rants, Roxy, who soothed me with Ikea therapy, and Fiffy, who had the bad luck to call just as I got home from work one day, when I answered the phone with angry yelling. Sorry for the ringing ears, guys.

Out of the Darkness

2008-10-09T14:54:00.002-06:00

I've got Lights! Lots of them -- in the ceiling, under the cabinets, over the island, over the desk, outside the back door. It's a twinkling, Christmas tree of a room now! And outlets, oh my God the outlets. It's sort of ridiculous, really, how many there are. The plumbers were there today, which may mean I'll have heat and a stove tonight. Haaaaa Haahhhahahha HEEeee haa haa haaaaaaaaaa (shrieking maniacal laughter). Countertops arrive tomorrow, perhaps to be installed the same day? That seems preposterous, but you never know. Ooo, then a sink. (hehehheh ohmy woo-ahoh) I feel a little dizzy. Good times!

Twig!

2008-09-29T08:08:00.005-06:00

Winfred-ians!* Did you know that a Twig is the head of the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission (i.e. the owners of the Metrodome)? Roy Terwilliger, born in Winfred....What a networking opportunity! I'll use my questionable "press" credentials to get invited to some party he's at, sidle up to him, bond over our shared knowledge of the Winfred literati, and weasel some Vikings season tickets out of him. It can't fail! Unless he moved away at age 5 or something, and never met a Wettlaufer or hung out at Virg's.

Of course, he has other things on his mind at present.

*Note to non-Winfred-ians: Winfred, S.D., is my hometown and Terwilligers took up at least half of it.

Cabi-nots

2008-09-28T21:28:00.017-06:00

OK, so the cabinets are installed but it wasn't a slam dunk. There are some issues. I had good cry about it, then got mad, then had an idea how to fix it, then had a reasonable conversation with my remedelor. (This is known as the Four Stages of the Remodeling Grief.* It's in the DSM.) You really should wait to call, at least until after the crying is over.

But I will say this: I wish I'd ordered stock cabinets from Lowes or someplace. This "custom cabinet" business is bull. Or at least the guy doing mine is a pain.

However, on to the pictorial:

Everything is good here. As is should be. I'm not sure about my color choices now, 'cause the walls and cabinets seem a little monochromatic -- all blending into each other without enough contrast. But the black counters and dark floor may change the look?

Here's my desk area. I'm sitting here right now! With my makeshift plywood countertop. That cabinet to the left is super big, y'all! But here's where the trouble begins:

That cabinet to the right of the refrigerator opening is kind of stuck in that corner -- can you see it? The wall bumps out right in front of it to house some plumbing. A few weeks ago I said to the cabinet guy, "Are you sure the cabinet door will open in that corner? It's very tight." He assured me it was no problem. Yeah, not so much:

I guess he thought part way would be good enough? Yeah, maybe part of his money will have to be good enough. Jerk. Anyhoo, I think my GC will be able to reframe that bumped out wall with an angle to allow room for the cabinet door.

In other jackassery, the cabinet doors don't match the drawer fronts. You can kinda see on the island:

The cabinets doors are the plain, flat-panel style I ordered, and the drawer fronts are just solid with no style at all. I have no idea why, and the cabinet knucklehead will be fixing it, though he may not be aware of it yet.

Meanwhile, I spent a pleasant hour and a half ordering my countertops from Lowes this evening from Neal, a ridiculously competent and detailed guy in the kitchen department. It took so long, both because he was making sure everything was correct and because we were having a pleasant conversation. I wish to God I'd ordered my cabinets from him. Oh well, spilled milk and all.

My mood has improved, and I'm able to appreciate the presence of cabinets. (Sqeeeee!) Once the final drywall taping and sanding is done (this week?), I may even be able to put away some of my drop cloths. My lifestyle would be improved significantly at that point.

*Please note that you do not go through the Four Stages once, but many, many times during the remodeling process.

Yeeeee-Haaaw [shoots gun in air]

2008-09-18T09:14:00.006-06:00

I just talked to my remodeler and he says the cabinets should start going in next week. Squeeeeeeeeeeeeee!! OMG, I can't wait!!

We must be on the downhill slide 'cause I been paintin'. The whole room got a coat of primer and the ceiling got another coat of white. (White paint does not make for exiting photos, unfortch.) I'll apply the wall color over the weekend and maybe paint the door. Painting is super easy when you don't have to do any taping.

Maybe by this time next week, I can put stuff in a cabinet. Can you imagine? Stuff. In a cabinet! Unimaginable luxury! I'm going to pee my pants from excitement!

Name Calling

2008-09-16T12:03:00.004-06:00

If Sarah Palin were my mom, my name would be Tank Dent. And you? Ask the Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator.

By the way, I don't think the Republicans know what the work "sexist" means. Tip to the GOP: Poking fun at a candidate on SNL probably doesn't qualify, unless some kind of offensive word was used. Pundits commenting on her looks and clothes rather than addressing her policy positions? Yeah, that's a bigger issue.

And while I'm up, feminism is not about the elevation of one woman. Nominating a woman to high office doesn't make her or you a feminist. Working for the rights, equality, and well being of all women does, so you need to shut up about that, 'cause your track record isn't so good in that area.

Baby Steps

2008-09-09T05:11:00.010-06:00

A few more progress photos--new insulation with vapor barrier. Sexy!

Look at all the outlets! Also, you can see the colors on the scrap wood. The off-white is for the wall and base cabinets, the brown is the island and the gold is for the walls.

You like? I'm totally recreating my mom's kitchen of the '70s -- brown appliances, gold carpet -- except it wasn't intentional, I swear! Then there was drywall... Check out the alcove to the left of the back door, where my new desk will be:

Yesterday, the neighbors probably heard me yelling for joy -- I have a back door for the first time in a month. Isn't it pretty?:

Please note the convenient blinds, encased between two panes of glass:

Almost as exciting as outlets! (You think I'm kidding.)

My mood is only marginal, with evenly spaced nervous breakdowns. Yesterday was a bright spot, though, with the door and my friend and co-worker Denise making me a hotdish and green beans to last a week. You guys, so good. I've been fantisizing lately about the humblest of meals. Thanks D. -- they'd canonize you if you weren't Lutheran.

I'm starting to get rid of furniture I won't need. Anybody looking for a desk or a pink dresser with mirror? The latter is tres shabby chic:

Bargain basement prices, y'all!

Keepin' On

2008-09-02T11:50:00.003-06:00

Sorry for the radio silence. I'm not on the InterWebs at home now, due to wiring changes/remodeling limbo. I need to take my laptop to a hot spot and do some updating, but then, I need to do a lot of things.

But just so you know: I've got insulation, I've got new wiring (OMG, outlets!!), I've got drywall. No door yet, though. grumble, grumble, bitch, moan Also, major design change last week when the island went from angled to perpendicular to the dining room wall. Turns out the angled version restricts traffic to the back door. The island is now longer, so I'm getting one of those pull-out garbage bin drawers next to the sink. Yay! I think the floor goes in sometime. I don't know. Nobody tells me anything.

I spent the weekend in western S.D. with this lot. But we were mourning a loss, so the performances were limited to guitars and singing. Good to see everybody, sad as we were and are. Be well, you guys.

The Only Thing I Do Now

2008-08-17T20:02:00.009-06:00

I pulled down the wallpaper in the kitchen closet, the last remnant of the kitchen decor from when I bought the place. It's good to have finally vanquished it all. Check it:

It's sort of like a cross between a children's picture book and an acid trip. That cow always seemed slightly demonic. Anyway, that was the border at chair-rail level. It was paired with two very busy patterns, the busier one on the bottom. You can kinda tell from this:

I took that photo when I was still considering buying the place. The visual chaos obviously blinded me to the fact that the cabinets weren't attached. Oy.

Meanwhile, electrical work is being done and lighting placement happens tomorrow, leading inexorably to insulation and drywall. Woo-hoo! I picked out some pendant lights for over the island. What do you think?:

I love that red! I also got a new microwave for over the stove:

Mmmm, shiny. Now you'll have to excuse me while I go do my dishes in the laundry tub.

Structurally Sound

2008-08-13T05:39:00.004-06:00

Kitchen progress is being made. The floor is now level and the opening between kitchen and dining room opened up:

It's comforting to have a sturdy header over that opening, where there was none before. The back door was especially alarming, where some yahoo had just cut a hole. In a load bearing wall. The studs just ended at the top of the door! That? Is amazing. We now have a better solution:

I'm looking forward to having a new door in that opening in the next few days. The cat is very confused as to why I can't just let him out there.

It's Not too Dark, is it?

2008-08-06T20:05:00.005-06:00

More choices have been made -- see above for my new chestnut flooring. As of now, the cabinets will be a nice buttery cream color and the island will be a chocolate brown. I'm thinking of a muted gold for the walls. Or a muted green. Or a muted slate blue. It will definitely be muted.

These choices are very stressful! Why is that? I've survived many other poor paint choices -- what's the big? Oh, who am I kidding... it's not about the paint, it's about the money. The sheer, staggering most-of-a-year's-salary size of the bill. I'm hard wired to spend only on utility and not on pretty. If the lovely maple cabinets are $1000 more, I must have painted. I won't choose to open up that doorway, even if it would make the space more comfortable, until it becomes clear those new headers were going to have to go in anyway and the money isn't an issue. Spending money on improved mechanicals is one thing, spending money on the beautiful teak flooring is selfish. Of course, I have a budget. The cuts have to come somewhere. What am I going to do ... decide that the floor doesn't need to leveled after all? I don't think so:

Still, I realized today that I've been repeating an obscure little mantra to myself: "I'm improving the city's housing stock." Yeah, so important these days, with all the foreclosures! (Huh?) But clearly I feel I need to tie my remodeling project to the greater good in order to justify the expense to myself. If you know me, I assume you're not surprised.

Say something encouraging, y'all.

I'm No Good at This

2008-08-04T21:02:00.009-06:00

More kitchen dithering. I'm not a good shopper, people!

The original cabinets I chose -- plain shaker-style doors in a pretty lightly stained maple -- proved to be beyond my budget. So now I'm going with painted cabinets, maybe in an off-white. What do you think of this door style?

I have to go back out to the cabinet showroom -- I don't know exactly what's available. What about these? I kind of like the more yellowish cast of this color:

I'm going to ask if the paint color on the island can be different -- maybe a smoky blue or an olive green. I'm going to choose a wood floor in a darker warm tone. I love the crisp line where light cabinets meet a wood floor:

Click through for the laminate I've picked for the countertops. What is your advice people? I have no idea what to paint the walls. I wish there was some place to put it together so I could see what it would look like. My brain hurts.

Meanwhile, all the warts have been revealed in the kitchen. The floor has been torn out:

Four layers! There is now a two inch step down from the dining room:

The floor now pitches even more precipitously toward the corner (note the listing stove--not a trick of the light). The remodeling guy called it a "disaster," which was just hyperbole to justify the extra money he's going to charge me to level it, I think. Apparently, all the previous owners subscribed to the "add a layer" school of home remodeling. Somebody should have told them that plywood and drywall don't work well as insulation.

Good news: I think the anxiety has caused me to lose a couple pounds!

Corruption and Decay

2008-07-31T12:16:00.005-06:00

OK, get this: my right eyeball, the one that tried to offload its retina four years ago? Now has a cataract. Can you believe that shit?!? It's like the Ford Pinto of eyeballs. I'm only 43 years old people!

I'm actually kinda relieved. It could have been more retinal problems, which are tricky and risky. Cataract surgery on the other hand is kind of a snap, I hear. Just drive up, roll down your window, bing bang boom, you're outta there. I was diagnosed by the surgeon who did my retina surgery—he seemed almost offended that I'd come to him with such a trivial matter.

Still, I don't like reminders of my non-youthfulness. Some jerk colleague objected to my use of the term chillax the other day, on the grounds of my age, or so he implied. I wanted to give him such a pinch.

Can I get a seeing-eye dog for this?

Kitchen Krazy

2008-07-29T18:26:00.014-06:00

Oh man, my people. It is so on. I've marshalled the necessary energies and debt to finally do something about the kitchen limbo I've been living in for an age. I've signed up with a remodeler, pulled down a bunch of crumbling plaster, and bent my brain around cabinet, flooring, and appliance shopping. Lemme show ya around!

The kitchen with some elements still intact (including unwashed dishes and general squalor):

The destruction begins:

Middle-aged woman with wrecking bar. FEAR ME!

I show a couple more walls who's boss:

After the first layer of newer drywall is off, the really attractive, greenish plaster is revealed:

At this point, I can't take it any more:

But I finished off that green monster the next day:

I let the professionals take down the ceiling. I still have my sink for now, but will likely lose it in the next few days. Then it's the hose out back for me! I'm pretending I'm camping.

But oh my god you guys! Here's what it could look like (with different cabinet styles, countertop, and appliances), according to the cabinet guy's computer:

Isn't it to die for!? The party begins an hour after the last carpenter leaves, y'all!

Big Night

2008-07-22T05:49:00.003-06:00

For those of you who haven't given up on Sassmaster, here's a little something:

Yeah, that's right. Hybrid Fat-N-Sassy and I met our girl crush Maria Bamford after we caught her act in Minneapolis. She does not disappoint, y'all!

Old-School Health Class

2008-06-04T21:23:00.002-06:00

You guys, I can't believe even the mighty interwebs could cough these up. They are the Walt Disney-produced cartoons about menstruation and STDs that we were shown in 6th grade, in little old Howard, S.D. They period one is surprisingly straightforward, though somewhat dismissive of moodiness and apathy. ("Stop slouching and powder your nose!") The boys were sent out of the room when they showed it, though. The VD one is straight up hilarious (and informative!).

You have to go to Jezebel to see the STD cartoon. It's totally worth it!

Live and in Person

2008-05-31T19:42:00.004-06:00

OMG! Maria is coming to town! She'll be at the Acme Comedy Club on July 15 and 16. Do you want to go? Don't be foolish, of course you do. Call me!

City Speak

2008-05-29T09:43:00.006-06:00

Hey! Anybody still out there on the InterWebs? Sorry for the hiatus. I'll understand if you never comment again.

However, this is awesome. What message is your city sending? And someone gets in a St. Paul dis. Again.

Image via

Where "Country" Isn't a Dis

2008-04-17T11:09:00.008-06:00

If you can't get down with my grandma sweater, can you get down with camouflage formal wear? My niece and her date were rocking matching camouflage to the prom:

Dig the hunter orange sash! Aunt Becky made the dress.

Then they were named Prom King and Queen!

Aww. So great! Meanwhile, her dad seems a little stunned by his beautiful young woman:

Congratulations, A! Love you! See ya at graduation.

Advice Please

2008-04-11T19:32:00.004-06:00

OK womyns. I need you to tell me the truth about this sweater:

Is it all "Who wants to hear a story!" or can I wear it to work and be taken seriously by adults? Be brutal -- I only paid a buck for it at Goodwill.

Dancing with the Starlings

2008-04-08T12:02:00.001-06:00

This is HOT:

Happy Spring, y'all. (via)

This Just In

2008-04-05T06:36:00.015-06:00

Chantal sent some of her photos from the Guatemala trip, so we can fill in some gaps.

This is a creature we found clinging to the outside of Mario's tent one morning:

Chantal mentioned that spiders often don't have all 8 legs in the jungle, due to skirmishes. Please notice the egg sac. Zip up the tent!!

From our walk to El Peru:

This is the kitchen at the field station where we camped:

The men on staff were very nice and shared some fish stew one night. They made it from a fresh fish they'd smoked over the fire all day. So good!

We ran into some military types when we got back to Paso Caballos. Mario posed with one of their AKs. He assures me he's not into guns, but that these would impress his friends in Vancouver.

Back in Playa del Carmen, I had to go check out the supermarket down the street:

They've got a be-haloed and praying St. Fransis of Assisi selling groceries?

The free online translator I'm using isn't making sense of "Todos Los Dias Todo Mas Bajo" ("all you gave them all but low"? -- does sound mildly biblical), but "en el reino del ahorro" means "in the kingdom of the savings." Awesome.

Whatever

2008-04-01T20:23:00.004-06:00

Tolstoy Lied: A Love Story by Rachel Kadish kind of did a number on me. I finished it on the last day of my trip, when I was feeling sort of tired and a little sick. So: reading, but with vulnerabilities. The novel's heroine is a literature professor who wants to debunk Tolstoy's line from Anna Karenina: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." She says that would mean that "a person must be unhappy in order to be interesting." So she tells us her engaging love story, which is really very well done. It feels so true -- exciting but not romanticized. A fleshy sort of love story, with the realness intact. She follows it past the early euphoria, through rough patches and a separation and back to equilibrium. So as in life, it's a big old log flume ride, and you go for it, but spend a lot of time wondering if it's worth the stress. In the meantime, there's great stuff about academic politics and good secondary characters. Just an enjoyable read.

The problem for me is that she begins as a happy and contented single woman. Not shunning romantic encounters but not actively seeking them either. Good naturedly fending off efforts by friends and family to get her paired off. She got my hopes up that we might somehow return to happy singlehood, instead of ending up with, as Bridget Jones calls them, the smug marrieds (present company excluded, of course, my dear, dear readers). Which is where everybody always ends up, now and forever, world without end amen. She winds up her story with the "what I've learned" chapter, which she has earned. But there's an air of "now that I love, I'm doing life's real work" that grates. Her lover's proposal of marriage represented an invitation to "stop watching the mess of human desire from the shoreline."

Sigh. I know, it said "love story" right on the cover. What did I expect? I'm such a sponge -- I absorb all these absurd messages and take them to heart. What am I, 13 years old? I can't think for myself? But these repeated demonstrations of how I am living but half a life in my singledom are so very, very tiring. Love can kiss my ass.

Still: Yay!

The End

2008-04-01T18:02:00.002-06:00

OMG, what are we gonna do without her?

Don't go!

Hitch

2008-03-31T22:05:00.004-06:00

I picked up a very old copy of The New Yorker from the endless pile and started reading a profile of Christopher Hitchens. I'm relieved that it is highly unlikely that I will ever meet Mr. Hitchens; I'm grateful to circumstances for keeping us apart. The author describes an interaction between Hitch and another person at a restaurant gathering:

And then the young doctor to his left made a passing but sympathetic remark about Howard Dean, the 2004 Presidential candidate; she said that he had been unfairly treated in the American media. Hitchens, in the clear, helpful voice one might use to give street directions, replied that Dean was “a raving nut bag,” and then corrected himself: “A raving, sinister, demagogic nut bag.” He said, “I and a few other people saw he should be destroyed.” He noted that, in 2003, Dean had given a speech at an abortion-rights gathering in which he recalled being visited, as a doctor, by a twelve-year-old who was pregnant by her father. (“You explain that to the American people who think that parental notification is a good idea,” Dean said, to applause.) Dean appeared not to have referred the alleged rape to the police; he also, when pressed, admitted that the story was not, in all details, true. For Hitchens, this established that Dean was a “pathological liar.”
“All politicians lie!” the women said.
“He’s a doctor,” Hitchens said.
“But he’s a politician.”
“No, excuse me,” Hitchens said. His tone tightened, and his mouth shrunk like a sea anemone poked with a stick; the Hitchens face can, at moments of dialectical urgency, or when seen in an unkindly lit Fox News studio, transform from roguish to sour. (Hitchens’s friend Martin Amis, the novelist, has chided Hitchens for “doing that horrible thing with your lips.”) “Fine,” Hitchens said. “Now that I know that, to you, medical ethics are nothing, you’ve told me all I need to know. I’m not trying to persuade you. Do you think I care whether you agree with me? No. I’m telling you why I disagree with you. That I do care about. I have no further interest in any of your opinions. There’s nothing you wouldn’t make an excuse for.”
“That’s wrong!” they said.
“You know what? I wouldn’t want you on my side.” His tone was businesslike; the laughing protests died away. “I was telling you why I knew that Howard Dean was a psycho and a fraud, and you say, ‘That’s O.K.’ Fuck off. No, I mean it: fuck off. I’m telling you what I think are standards, and you say, ‘What standards? It’s fine, he’s against the Iraq war.’ Fuck. Off. You’re MoveOn.org. ‘Any liar will do. He’s anti-Bush, he can say what he likes.’ Fuck off. You think a doctor can lie in front of an audience of women on a major question, and claim to have suppressed evidence on rape and incest and then to have said he made it up?”
“But Christopher . . .”
“Save it, sweetie, for someone who cares. It will not be me. You love it, you suck on it. I now know what your standards are, and now you know what mine are, and that’s all the difference—I hope—in the world.”

Who's the nutbag? Just reading that gave me an anxiety attack.

S.D. Shorty

2008-03-30T08:17:00.004-06:00

My two-year-old nephew spends some mornings hanging with his grandpa. His mom captured this lovely triptych as he took leave of his dad and went off to do some farming.

He sat on my lap as we dyed Easter eggs last weekend. He's a cuddler, y'all!

Daily Philosophy

2008-03-26T19:43:00.009-06:00

I don't quite know what to make of The Right Attitude to Rain by Alexander McCall Smith, though 50 Books swears by him. The novel is part of a series of books about a Scottish woman named Isabel Dalhousie. She is a philosopher by trade (no, really) and, I guess, a sort of detective, only her "mysteries" are those of the human character. The plot is a bit like a Seinfeld episode, consisting of small, daily interactions, only with likeable characters and lots of insight and reflection. But the reflections can be kind of intrusive -- the protaganist is always launching into these little rhetorical flights in response to the most mundane things. Much of the dialogue and Isabel's trains of thought seem contrived and make jarring leaps. I might try another of his novels, but this one was middling. OK

Too Blessed to be Stressed

2008-03-20T19:14:00.001-06:00

Second to last episode, people!

Death on the Beach

2008-03-19T05:28:00.004-06:00

I read The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty when I was traveling. It's the story of a woman who returns to Mississippi for her father's final illness. Through the funeral and its aftermath, she tries to make sense of her father's choice of an unpleasant, inappropriate woman as his second wife, his reaction to the death of her own mother, and the previous loss of her husband. The book is wonderful, but I read a lot of it, including the funeral scene, on the beach in Playa del Carmen. The disconnect between what I was reading and where I was sitting may have blunted some of the force of the book, but I still thought it was very moving and true. Yay!

Bring It On

2008-03-14T11:14:00.000-06:00

Good information to have.

Pretty

2008-03-13T19:50:00.003-06:00

Look what Jack Frost did to the roof of my car this morning. So beautiful, how does he do that? It's nice to have some moisture in the air again.

Bridget and Jane

2008-03-11T20:28:00.004-06:00

I was in the market for light reading as I prepared for my trip, and Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding is like the quintessenial vacation read, right? And it served its purpose very well --amusing, not challenging ... good times.

Is it just me, or does everyone borrow from Jane Austen, like, all the time? (Why not me? You laugh, but Dickens came up in a meeting about estate planning this morning -- Bleak House, natch.) BJD doesn't purloin a whole plot like, say, Clueless did. She really just nods at Jane as a way to celebrate JA's influence on chick lit through the ages, I think. But check this slacker-nicity(tm A. Fish): In the book, Bridget watches the classic BBC version of Pride and Predjudice starring Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy and Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennett, and she notes that the London streets are deserted when it's on, a la all of America during the last episode of Seinfeld. So? Masterpiece Theater (ahem, Masterpiece) just got done running that film! (and it is AWESOME. Thank you for not screwing that one up, at least.) And Colin Firth starred as the BJD Mr. Darcy in the movie. Wheels within wheels. Anyway, who better to steal from than Jane, but she does seem to be everywhere.

Further BJD goodness: I finished it on my first day in Mexico and decided to leave the book in my hotel room for some other tourist, rather than dragging it along. So I stayed in the same hotel on my way out and met a woman from Quebec named Mary Emily who works on a quasi-organic farm outside of Quebec City. Yeah. She speaks mainly French, but we were rocking the English. She mentioned she was reading an English book and, yeah, you got it. She had my old room. I wonder what she was making of all the British slang, but the only question she had for me was, "What does 'perhaps' mean?"

Also: Yay!

I'm The One That I Want

2008-03-09T08:31:00.003-06:00

Margaret Cho, in her new stand-up show "Beautiful," is coming to the Orpheum on April 25! Who wants to go with me? She is determined to make us feel good about our non-compliance with the standards of beauty. Heed the call!

Awesome, Part III: The Jungleing

2008-03-08T21:20:00.020-06:00

OK, I'm back for our third and final round in which our protaganist conquers the jungle of Guatemala. They never saw me coming! Which is amazing considering how much time I spent crashing around in the undergrowth.

After spending the night at a hotel in El Remate, Lou picked us up and we went over to his house to pack the truck. He and Mario had tied the canoes and kayak on the night before. We drove for a couple of hours on a gravel road that was pretty bad, but they tell me it could have been worse. We'd be going along alright but would periodically come to a few yards of road bed that hadn't really survived the rainy season. Could have used a load or two of gravel. And some big rocks. And geosynthetics! It's a good thing Lou's truck has good clearance and four wheel drive. It reminded me a little of riding through the pasture with my dad, checking cows. At one point we got out to re-secure the canoes:

We made it to Paso Caballos, a small village on the San Pedro river where we started our paddle. The village, like the others we'd gone through, had lots of chickens, pigs, dogs, and horses that roamed around without restraint. None of them looked particularly well fed, and some of the horses looked positively suicidal.

We had an audience of local children as we unloaded the truck. Some men drove up who were taking a motorboat to the place we were going. They offered to transport some of our stuff for us:

That was nice, because it was necessary to carry all our water with us, so our cargo included two big water-cooler-sized plastics bottles. Mario rode with them, so it was just four in the canoes. The canoeing was lovely:

Dennis and Chantal went for a swim, and Dennis displayed his ability to propel himself out of the water like a dolphin:

Awesome. We saw some really cool plants:

There were lots of these sorts of tree parasites -- including orchids, but it wasn't the season for them to be blooming, unfortch. Eventually, we came to spot where we heard water rushing, though the water in the river was undisturbed. We landed to investigate and found this delightful spring with the water rushing out of a rock ledge:

We all went for a swim. After a bit more river paddling, we came across Mario fishing from a borrowed dugout canoe:

We'd made it to our campsite -- the Las Guacamayas Biological Field Station. It was far more luxurious than what I'd pictured. There were bathrooms with showers and screened buildings. Even the dock was covered:

After setting up the tents and familiarizing ourselves with the place, Lou dug out the bottle of rum and the fruit drinks he'd packed, and we climbed up to the bluff behind the station. There's a lookout tower built on it, from which we had a lovely place to view the sunset:

The howler monkeys were doing their thing, and the rum drinks were very tasty. Chantal even got cell phone reception. The wind started to kick up just as we were leaving, and before we could get back to camp, it was raining like crazy. We hadn't even put all the rain flies on yet! Chantal says, "Well, it is a rainforest." Indeed. After messing around unsatisfactorily with the rain flies, we threw up our hands and just picked up the tents and carried them into the nearest building. It was dry and screened in. And there they remained for the rest of our stay.

We did our cooking (if by "we" I mean Lou and Chantal) in the staff kitchen. A few men were working at the station while we were there. The kitchen had four tables on which you could build fires to cook over. The nice thing about roofs made of palm leaves is that you don't have to have a chimney; the smoke just escapes wherever, though it makes the building's interior rather blackened.

Lou kept us very well fed with a shrimp and tomato sauce over pasta the first night and a beef teryaki stir fry the next. He even packed in eggs for breakfast (only two broke) and a veritable bakery's worth of homemade breads -- wheat, banana, carrot. So friggin' good!

We made sandwiches for our lunch the next day and set out again -- an hour of canoeing and then two or three hours of hiking to get to El Peru, another Mayan site. Not much has been excavated there, so we only saw a few things. But the closer we got to the site, the more often we'd walk over some incongruous hill in the road -- probably ruins that have not been uncovered. So tantalizing! We passed through a military camp that protects both the ruins and the jungle (any unprotected jungle is mostly cut down and carted off). All these young men in fatigues with semi-automatic rifles. It ain't Itasca.

It was a long, hot walk, but so lovely. Lou and Mario pointed out all the birds, and on the way back, we got very near to a family of howler monkeys -- Mom, Dad, and baby. Awesome squared! The jungle seemed to even desensitize me to the existence of bats, to which we got close up on the water, in this little bower:

My camera battery died on the road to El Peru, but who needs it. After our long day in the jungle, we had a hearty meal and enjoyed a clear, gorgeous view of the lunar eclipse. The station staff were listening to a soccer game on the radio; the play by play was being given in that excitable-Spanish-speaking-soccer-announcer way. We pretended that he was announcing the eclipse; the level of action is comparable, I'd say.

We canoed back out the next day and I, for one, was very sunburned and bug-bitten. I wouldn't have it any other way. We made it back to El Remate by about 4:00 and after a quick goodbye to Mario and Lou, we immediately got in a van and headed for San Ignacio in Belize. We spent the night there at the Midas Resort -- my cabin was round!! So adorable.

In the morning, we were picked up and taken to this bucolic spot:

We tubed on the beautiful clear blue river through two large caves. It was a relaxing enchantment after our strenuous trip into the woods. Afterwards, our guide Juan Carlos drove us on to Corozal, Belize, and the Hotel Mirador. The next day we caught a bus back to Playa del Carmen and the adventure was over. So sad to say goodbye.

I recommend it highly!

Losing Your Stuff

2008-03-01T23:37:00.003-06:00

Two short stories in one volume -- The Clothes They Stood Up In and The Lady in the Van by Alan Bennett -- are both about possessions and the lack of them. The first is a rather spare novella about a staid London couple that loses everything they own in a bizarre burglary. In the second, Bennett tells the story of a Miss Shepherd, who spent several years living in a van in his driveway. They are both quick reads and compelling. I especially enjoyed The Lady in the Van; the author is rather reluctantly involved with the crazy Miss Shepherd and is simultaneously compassionate and annoyed. Bennett also wrote The Madness of King George, which I haven't seen but am interested in now. Yay!

Mayans, baby!

2008-02-29T21:53:00.021-06:00

OK, sorry for the pause in the vacation slides. I haven't been feeling well this week. I'm hoping for a tapeworm -- it'd save me a lot of money on Weight Watchers.

In our last episode, Sassmaster had just had lunch and a swim. We lounged around the dock for a while in the sun, and Chantal told me about settling in El Remate after backpacking around for a while in her youth. She was powerfully attracted to the pace of life in Guatemala and told me that even when she was quite young, she thought life in Holland was too complicated. She remembers thinking, "Just show me how to grow my own food." Such amazing self-knowledge! In El Remate, she worked on a sort-of economic development project -- a hotel and restaurant where the buildings were being made with a traditional limestone stucco spread over a wood and stone frame. The project also served as a training ground, teaching people the building method to be used elsewhere.

After our swim, Mario joined us, and Lou drove us to Tikal National Park. Lou is powerfully diverted by birds, and so it can be a little disconcerting driving with him. Case in point, he pulled up sharply so we could see some Montezuma Oropendola:

Click for a larger view. There a real photo here. You can see their sack-like nests on the right. They make this great noise while swinging like a pendulum from a branch. (Click here and scroll down for mp3 of the call.) This goes on pretty much all the time during the mating season (January to May).

We spent the night in the park in lovely cabins:

We walked around a little and saw some animals -- a small crocodile, pheasants (that look nothing like those in S.D.), more oropendola--and a tarantula. Just. Walking. AROUND. That ain't right. I was a little careful about where I put my feet after that.

We had dinner and breakfast at the terrific restaurant on the grounds:

This is one of the nicest national parks I've ever seen. Of course, they get thousands of visitors and here's why:

The Mayan ruins in the park cover 7 square miles -- one of the largest sites, I believe. We spent four hours on our tour, and saw just a small fraction of what was there. Of course, much of it has not been excavated:

They estimate that there are 14,000 structures belonging to the site. Makes you want to bust out a shovel. But some go unexcavated, not because they lack the resources (though that is an issue) but because they don't think new digs would add significantly to their scholarship; there are a lot of similarities between the way the different areas are built and laid out. Also, they figure the jungle has preserved the ruins quite well so far, so they may be best off where they are. I climbed a couple of them:

That second image is from the top of Temple IV. You can see other temples above the trees in the background. George Lucas filmed this view for a brief shot in Star Wars, and if you don't climb it pre-dawn to see the sunrise, you should be ashamed of yourself. But we had fog, so bagged it and slept in. The temple itself is not much to look at -- it is only partially uncovered and, as you can sort of see, clad in scaffolding due to restoration efforts. You actually climb a wooden staircase to get to the top.

But! As we sat at the top and took in the view, I heard this echoing roar. It sounded like a pride of lions. "What on earth...?!" "A howler monkey," Chantal says. A single monkey, mind you. It's the most unbelievable sound, and you hear it all the time in the jungle. (Go here and click on the multimedia link halfway down the page.) We walked quite close to one on our tour, and our guide Juan was egging it on with an approximation of its call. He definitely got a response. Awesome.

Juan was very good and not this blurry in real life:

He talked for hours about what could be surmised about the Mayan culture, citing the various archaeologists, writers, and academics, and offering theories of his own. You could tell he was struggling to choose what to share with us, from the vast range of his knowledge.

One thing I really liked about the people I met in Guatemala is that they all clearly feel very protective of the Mayan heritage -- they brook no bullshit theories about the Mayan people and are very aware of any first-world biases the researchers might bring to their studies. And considering how many Mayan artifacts have been carried off to the U.S. and Europe, they ought to be wary. Chantal told me about one very important piece that actually lives in her home town in Holland. But when she went to see it on a trip home, they told her it wasn't on display but holed up in the archives. If this object was in one of the Mayan museums in Central America or Mexico, it would be like the Mona Lisa at the Louvre -- one of the star attractions.

One more thing, before we leave the park:

For all you May Day fans, this tree is called a ceiba. It was sacred to the Mayans. See if this story sounds familiar: One creation myth has it that the tree was carried on the back of a turtle across water -- the tree of life. It is a "world tree"-- the axis of earth and sky. The roots lie in the underworld and the top reaches to the heavens. (For the non-May Day initiated, this story is at the heart of the ceremony that Heart of the Beast theater puts on in Powderhorn Park in May.)

We left Tikal in the afternoon and spent the night in cabins in El Remate. Pop culture reared its head on my bedspread:

Next: All this, and we haven't even started canoeing!

Everyone's a Critic

2008-02-29T21:46:00.002-06:00

Maria's getting heckle therapy:

Bitch is the New Black

2008-02-28T07:10:00.001-06:00

I just saw this. I heart Tina Fey.

Awesome, Part Uno

2008-02-26T21:18:00.005-06:00

OK, so I totally would have gotten to this sooner, but I was distracted the awesomeness that is the Midwest Teen Sex Show and the stupidity of The Biggest Loser. Why (oh why) for all the crying? I cry a lot more when I'm putting on weight. God.

Anyhoodle, the trip, she was great. Meet our cast of characters:

l to r:

Lou -- American expatriate now living in Guatemala, owner of truck and canoes, and maker of many a delicious meal in the jungle. He leads tours of the local flora and fauna and works frequently with Chantal.

Chantal -- Tour company owner and our fearless leader. Originally from Holland but has been living in Guatemala and Mexico for many years

Sassmaster -- wishing she'd worn something slimming

Mario -- Friend of Chantal and native Guatemalan, visiting from Vancouver. He joined us for just part of the trip.

Dennis -- Chantal's brother, visiting from Holland.

As perhaps you can tell, I was the only client booked for this tour and in fact the first person who'd ever signed up for it. It was a relatively new trip on the company's roster. Chantal said they thought about canceling with only one booking, but I'd signed up so early, she decided not to.

You must also meet Ismeal:

He's on the right there with Dennis. He's originally from Cuba, co-owner of the tour company, and married to Chantal. After I met these two handsome devils in Playa del Carmen, we bussed it to Bacalar, Mexico, near the Belizean border. From that hotel balcony they're standing on, you could see this:

The Laguna Bacalar. Presumably there was bathing to be had in the laguna or even the pool, but we spurned them both and spent a lovely afternoon at the Cenote Azul, eating seafood on a cool patio and swimming:

Cenotes are sort of sinkholes, formed by the collapse of underground caves. They basically go straight down with no regard for one's need for gradual entry into the water. They are beloved by divers, apparently.

Later, we sampled some facts at the Museo del Fuerte de Bacalar (the Fort of San Felipe) -- an old fort built by the Spanish in 1733:

Apparently, the prirates, buccaneers, and privateers couldn't get enough of Bacalar. And who could blame them! But the Spanish weren't having it, because, duh, they wanted all the loot for themselves.

After a lovely night in our hotel -- there were two geckos in my room chirping at me -- Ismeal escorted Dennis and I to the border, explained how to navigate the border crossings, and put us on a bus to Guatemala. Several hours later, we arrived in El Remate, where Lou and Chantal met us and whisked us off to lunch at this Italian restaurant, minus any red-and-white-checked tablecloths and chianti:

Lou and I quickly bonded over, you know, America, and I had bruschetta for lunch. Afterwards, we walked across the road to Lake Peten Itza and went for a swim; Ismael had helpfully warned us to have swim suits at the ready.

I don't think I'll do the whole trip in one epic post, so more later. Next up? Tikal!

See Jane Wrecked

2008-01-27T21:37:00.001-06:00

I'm so annoyed at the Masterpiece Theater productions of the Jane Austen novels. They've had three on so far, and they seem to be making a regular hash of each book in turn. They've apparently allotted just 90 minutes for each story, which is hardly sufficient, and have ignored most of the major plot points and supporting characters to give the most time possible to Hollywood-izing the love stories.

Yes, love stories are mostly at the center of her novels, but to state what is apparently a sort of heresy, they are not the main point. Gillian Anderson has been given the task of introducing each show, and whoever is writing her copy is terminally clueless. Before the first show, she declared that the consuming theme of Austen's work was "the search for a soul mate." What rubbish! The big thing in the novels -- and it can't be shoved aside fast enough in these adaptations -- is morality. Austen makes a point of punishing pride, lust, greed, dishonesty, inconstancy. The objectionable characters do not win the heart of the discerning herione, or only if they change. Gamblers and drinkers fall ill. Rogues are exposed. Frivolous or silly people are their own punishment. And her people do not find their soul mates -- they find the mates they deserve.

I hate that Austen gets robbed of her depth and her real talent is not displayed. It seems like her books get written off as "romances," which is a very superficial way to describe them. Masterpiece Theater, you should stop screwing up these masterpieces!

Lynda's my Girl

2008-01-23T22:01:00.000-06:00

In Cruddy, a novel by Lynda Barry, it seems like almost every ghastly thing that can happen does happen to the heroine, a 16-year-old named Roberta. Though the plot is more like a horror movie than a coming of age tale, there are spots of humor and it is a very readable book. I've loved Lynda Barry and her comics for years, and the tone and some of the themes of her comics are felt in the book. I worry about her, though. Where does all this darkness come from? I hope writing the book helped her expunge some of it. But then again--as Maria says--don't be afraid of the dark. Yay!

Day Brightener

2008-01-21T22:02:00.000-06:00

Here's a perfectly lovely little song and video. I heard it on the Macbook Air commercial. New Soul by Yael Naim:

You cannot fail to love it!

Buyin' Stuff

2008-01-20T16:08:00.000-06:00

Dude, check out my new backpack! I'm getting equipped (and excited!) for my trip. The woman who helped me out at Midwest Mountaineering was totally jealous. It has enough straps and pockets to freak out airport security. Awesome!

Get Your Rage On

2008-01-19T16:21:00.000-06:00

Unlike the last book, I blew through Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich in less than 24 hours. I've been meaning to read it for some time and it doesn't disappoint. For her book, Ehrenreich spent time working low-wage jobs (waitress, housecleaner, nursing home aide, Wal-Mart employee) in Florida, Maine, and Minnesota. Her aim was to determine if it was possible to live on minimum wage in the wake of welfare reform that was predicated on the notion that if welfare recipients could get jobs, everything would be fine. She found that minimum-wage living means using most of your earnings to pay for housing, and not being able to consistently feed yourself, never mind take care of kids or pay for transportation. And if you get sick, taking time off can mean not having money for groceries. Going to the doctor is often not an option at all. In short, many millions of people are working more than full time and are still not able to their meet basic needs. Barbara bottom lines it for us, with an alternative view of the way our economy works:

When someone works for less pay than she can live on--when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently--then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life. The "working poor," as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthopists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else.

Preach it, sister. Yay!

Wasted on Me

2008-01-18T21:50:00.000-06:00

I'd never heard of Henry Green or his novel Loving until I ran across it on the list of the top 100 novels in English of the 20th century as chosen by the Modern Library's editorial board. (Re: the reader's list? Step away from the Ayn Rand -- she's a crazy lady!) I decided a few years ago that I was going to try and read all 100. This one obviously deserves to on be the list. It's a story about English people living in a mansion in Ireland during World War II. Most of the story is about the servants' lives and loves, and the tension between them and their employer. It's a visual book, almost cinematic. The action moves smoothly from one place to another -- you can almost see how it would be framed on screen. The characters have depth. So I don't know why I didn't enjoy it more. It is only 200 pages, but it took me forever to read. I kept looking to see what page I was on. I do believe that you have to be in the mood for books, and often when I really enjoy one, I think it's because it happened along at the right time. Your timing must be off, Mr. Green. OK.

The Only List You'll Ever Need

2008-01-11T19:31:00.000-06:00

Are you addicted to year-end lists? Yes? Then I dare you not to find this list genius.

Link via Fimoculous

Awesome Blossom

2008-01-11T06:32:00.000-06:00

The dog's in charge now:

I Hear Ya

2008-01-06T11:10:00.000-06:00

The first book I finished in 2008 is Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most -- by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen. This book is terrific if somewhat overwhelming. The thesis is that in order to communicate effectively, you have to understand what's not being said in the average conversation: the feelings involved, the identity issues. They have a lot of good advice for delving into what's really going on, asking questions, listening carefully, and so on. It's very important stuff, but it definitely paints a picture of even the smallest human interaction as amazingly complex. One begins to consider the benefits of a hermit-like lifestyle, engaging only in monologues with animals and plants. But, barring that, this information will probably make life easier in the end, if I can screw up my courage to put it into action. Yay!

Uh-Oh

2008-01-03T20:02:00.000-06:00

Maria's stealing food:

Stop doing it!

Mahna Mahna

2007-12-30T12:38:00.001-06:00

OK, so my brother sent me this righteous Cake CD with the song Mahna Mahna on it. This is one of those things that floats through my head periodically that has the quality of a really weird dream, so it was comforting to see it acknowledged by an outside entity. I believe I've even googled it before, but probably with the wrong spelling. With the right spelling, you can find this on Wikipedia:

"Mahna Mahna", originally titled "Mah-Na Mah-Na," was written by Italian composer Piero Umiliani for an Italian documentary about life in Sweden, titled Svezia, Inferno e Paradiso (Sweden, Heaven and Hell). It is a nonsense song that achieved widespread fame when the Muppets performed it.

Which might explain why one of the YouTube videos of the performance has Swedish subtitles? Wheels within wheels. Here's a better version:

OMG, that still makes me laugh. The pink things are called Snowths! And you get the two old guys in the balcony at the end! I love The Muppet Show So. Much.

It turned into a running gag on the show, every time Kermit said "phenomena," which led to this:

So. Freaking. Good. Is The Muppet Show our generations' vaudeville? Discuss.

Blinded by Rainbows

2007-12-28T21:33:00.001-06:00

I started reading a memoir of someone with Asperger's syndrome, so now, of course, I think I have it. But, you know, diagnoses (even spurious ones, made by aspiring hypochondriacs) are not really comforting. It can explain the social awkwardness and trouble concentrating, but it doesn't really help me live in my body more effectively.

God. This is like the blogging equivalent of an uncomprehending stare. You should just go read Night Editor. She is sharing real information, dammit. She is part of the reason that St. Paul is shooting to the top of the literacy charts, people. She? Is part of the solution.

I? am having trouble making sense of it all.

Science Lurve

2007-12-12T12:52:00.000-06:00

OMG you guys. I have to start watching Wired Science—they employ Chris Hardwick, who I have lurved ever since I first saw a demented little dating show called Shipmates. I was totally addicted! It was basically a blind date on a three-day cruise, which whatever. But Chris Hardwick was the very funny host, and his least word was a dream.

See for yourself. Here he is with the also funny Rainn Wilson:

Call me Chris!

Spiritually Bored

2007-11-30T07:59:00.000-06:00

Maria objects to meaningless work:

Do You Neti?

2007-11-30T00:19:00.000-06:00

I bought myself a Neti pot yesterday:

I've used one before, but never took to the practice exactly. The practice being pouring warm salt water up your nasal passages. The "nasal wash" is a "time-honored practice in the Orient" for treating allergies, colds, and sinus problems, according to my Neti pot instructions.

And indeed, Hybrid-Fat-N-Sassy was shilling for it (she of the Neti-industrial complex) as I complained about my post nasal drip and endless coughing. This is what a Neti user looks like, if they are beautifully lit and apparently not at all unwell:

The part that's missing is the water coming out of her other nostril. Awesome!

It is not a pleasant sensation, but it's doable and the result is that you get to stop breathing exclusively through your mouth for a while. Not bad.

D & A

2007-11-29T18:32:00.000-06:00

Dude! Amy Sedaris has a part in a Dolly Parton video! Dig it: