3 day weekends are for cooking extravaganza's and for cleaning. I just want to brag about the past few days.
The weekend started with Indian takeout on Friday, followed by homemade bread pudding with orange liqueur sauce. Saturday morning began with bruleed grapefruit. Saturday night we had spinach artichoke dip while watching football, and then moussaka for dinner. (Followed by Trader Joe's baklava.)
Sunday morning started with homemade doughnuts, then homemade bread (with 2 year old yeast!) and a Greek salad for lunch. Then BBQ chicken wings and more football. For dinner sous vided meatballs, and homemade tomato sauce with penne. (Which isn't as good as my boyfriend's tomato sauce....)
MLK breakfast was bacon (Trader Joe's Apple Smoked, my favorite) then sous vided carnitas tacos, with homemade salsa, and pinto and black beans for lunch. Dinner was homemade chicken korma, with raita and Trader Joe's garlic naan.
I'll be eating leftovers for a while. My Christmas tree is down, my living room, bathroom and kitchen all clean. I did intend to do more chores, but at least I can pat myself on the back for what I did accomplish.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Chilean miners have been saved
I was teary watching the rescues this evening. (Live streaming from the BBC news site - I think Matt Frei far exceeds any American news announcer)
And an obligatory NY Times article.
No more blogging procrastination. Back to work, which is apparently what I've been doing since July of 2009.
And an obligatory NY Times article.
No more blogging procrastination. Back to work, which is apparently what I've been doing since July of 2009.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
All the things I should have blogged about this week, but didn't
The Billy Joel and Elton John Face to Face concert I saw on Tuesday at Nationwide Arena
The Actors' Theater production of the tempest that I saw in Schiller Park on Thursday
The Film of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Kate Morton's recent novel The Forgotten Garden
The TV Show Green Wing (Season 1 available on Hulu)
One gets a thumbs up, three get a sideways thumb, and one gets a thumb down- I'll let the mystery of the matching remain, however.
The Actors' Theater production of the tempest that I saw in Schiller Park on Thursday
The Film of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Kate Morton's recent novel The Forgotten Garden
The TV Show Green Wing (Season 1 available on Hulu)
One gets a thumbs up, three get a sideways thumb, and one gets a thumb down- I'll let the mystery of the matching remain, however.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
I recently finished the cult hit, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (PPZ). It's the kind of book that everyone got excited to mention that it existed. Some people bought it, like my roommate, but, I believe, far fewer people actually read it. I, however, have foolishly embarked upon a long-term journey to read as many Jane Austen fan-fictions, re-imaginings, and modern adaptations as I can tolerate. I owe many a blog posting on those other works, but as you may imagine, PPZ offered a welcome relief as it avoided much of the feminine melodrama of this genre, and so it also makes for a more engaging blog post.
As a junior in high school, my Gifted English class was given a creative writing assignment in satire. Lacking any true creative impulse, I wrote "The Gospel According to Timothy Leary", in which the occurrences of the New Testament all make sense because the participants are high on LSD. I have no idea why my fairly religious, but Episcopalian, parents were so supportive of this, especially as it lacked any artistic merit. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies just seems to be a better piece turned in for the same assignment. I wonder if it began with using a word processor's Find and Replace function to insert 'zombie' for every occurrence of 'husband' or 'wife' and then rewriting the sentences to make sense.
And the narrative of PPZ does make a certain amount of sense. The military is needed to fight the zombie hordes. Lady Catherine de Bourgh is thought well of because of her fighting prowess (and her daughter is still to frail and sickly to to accomplish anything). Charlotte Lucas marries Mr. Collins because she has contracted the zombie plague and knows she has little time left before she needs to be beheaded.
But some other aspects of the novel make unnecessary changes to the tale of Pride and Prejudice. Mr. Bennett is often too practical, training his daughters to fight zombies. He and the girls' aunt Mrs. Gardiner have extraneous extramarital affairs. Pemberley is a pagoda-styled building. And in the various discussions of balls by the many empty-headed young ladies, Elizabeth and Darcy share a titter in interpreting the word 'balls' to mean the male anatomy.
PPZ does take on a trend in modern literature: the omni-present reading group questions at the end of the book. Is it the goal of very book to be read by a book club now? Can members of book clubs not figure out discussion points on their own? In PPZ the questions are suitably tongue in cheek, my favorite of which is, "Does Mrs. Bennet have a single redeeming quality?" Apparently these questions are taken seriously in the Oprah Magazine.
And on the topic of zombies, a new film is to come out in the fantastic sub-genre: Nazi Zombies. The Norwegian film Dead Snow.
As a junior in high school, my Gifted English class was given a creative writing assignment in satire. Lacking any true creative impulse, I wrote "The Gospel According to Timothy Leary", in which the occurrences of the New Testament all make sense because the participants are high on LSD. I have no idea why my fairly religious, but Episcopalian, parents were so supportive of this, especially as it lacked any artistic merit. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies just seems to be a better piece turned in for the same assignment. I wonder if it began with using a word processor's Find and Replace function to insert 'zombie' for every occurrence of 'husband' or 'wife' and then rewriting the sentences to make sense.
And the narrative of PPZ does make a certain amount of sense. The military is needed to fight the zombie hordes. Lady Catherine de Bourgh is thought well of because of her fighting prowess (and her daughter is still to frail and sickly to to accomplish anything). Charlotte Lucas marries Mr. Collins because she has contracted the zombie plague and knows she has little time left before she needs to be beheaded.
But some other aspects of the novel make unnecessary changes to the tale of Pride and Prejudice. Mr. Bennett is often too practical, training his daughters to fight zombies. He and the girls' aunt Mrs. Gardiner have extraneous extramarital affairs. Pemberley is a pagoda-styled building. And in the various discussions of balls by the many empty-headed young ladies, Elizabeth and Darcy share a titter in interpreting the word 'balls' to mean the male anatomy.
PPZ does take on a trend in modern literature: the omni-present reading group questions at the end of the book. Is it the goal of very book to be read by a book club now? Can members of book clubs not figure out discussion points on their own? In PPZ the questions are suitably tongue in cheek, my favorite of which is, "Does Mrs. Bennet have a single redeeming quality?" Apparently these questions are taken seriously in the Oprah Magazine.
And on the topic of zombies, a new film is to come out in the fantastic sub-genre: Nazi Zombies. The Norwegian film Dead Snow.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
The Philanthropist
Hulu desktop has changed my TV watching with my new Mac Mini. I work on my laptop in bed while using just the Apple remote to choose programs. (I am happy to report that Peep Show Season (or Series for the Brits) 1 is available now on Hulu. But I have seen series 1-4 and want to see 5!)
One new show I have caught through Hulu is The Philanthropist, from NBC. It is yet another example proving that every actor from the HBO/BBC show Rome gets a chance at starring in their own network program, whether it is a good idea or not (I liked Journeyman starring Kevin McKidd, and he seems to have found a home on Grey's Anatomy now.) James Purefoy, who played Marc Antony on Rome, is the philanthropist Teddy Rast, a wealthy entrepreneur who takes to doing good acts in person instead of solely giving money following the death of his son, a bitter divorce, and a touching experience in Nigeria. His married business partners are played by Neve Campbell (she's an adult now) and Jesse Martin (always a sure choice). The show is loosely based off the life of Bobby Sager.
The plots do stretch one's credulity, and the pace and editing of the program can be a bit-offsetting as well. Yet, I was happy enough to be entertained by the first two episodes. The mostly ambivalent but hopeful reviews I see on the blogosphere capture my sentiments as well. But a co-worker was vehemently against the premise of the show and it is this view of philanthropy that I wish to address here.
My co-worker argued that in the real world it is almost always better for a wealthy entrepreneur to run a large successful, ethical corporation that does not exploit people or the environment while giving money to charities that have an expertise in their field. What such an individual should not do, is precisely what the character Teddy Rast does in the pilot episode, putting himself in physical danger to deliver some vaccine to one remote Nigerian village.
From an initial rational and economical perspective, I had to agree. Even on a personal level, my own experience of the futility on the charity front-line (when I was in the AmeriCorps and a member of the National Readiness and Response Corps of the American Red Cross, working in Anchorage, AK) made me certain that I could do more for the world from a further distance. (I am not the person I want to be, and a year or so after my AmeriCorps year I had stopped all regular volunteering and trying to do more for the world.)
Then my gut, and second level rationalizations turn on. Surely we need to take into account the impact upon the doer and receiver of direct charity. Helping someone in person will keep you more likely to write the big checks. Knowing that someone important or wealthy cares can raise the spirits of the receivers, and of course the publicity that can be brought to a cause amplifies the small acts of the influential individual. But this implies that one should not toil away in obscurity and quietly do good, and this removes much of the one-on-one benefit and purity of the experience.
At college reunions I often chastise friends who had espoused the loftiest ideals, but who are not consultants or corporate lawyers. Their arguments about being the people who write the checks to help the groups they support have rung quite hollow to me. So do we as a society value those people who give time and effort more than those that just give greenbacks? Is it right to do so?
The NYTimes' Ethicist, Randy Cohen, writes in his Moral of the Story blog about a similar wealthy first-worlder helping out individuals from the third-world, in this case Madonna adopting a Malawian child. Although the issues of adoption exceed those I have brought up, many of the issues are the same. In my own head I cannot determine what the best course of action is with regards to charity, and it seems that as whole our western society is torn on the the issue also. Maybe a few more episodes of the The Philanthropist will help clarify my thoughts.
-------Edit 7/9/9 ----------------------------
Nick Kristof has a column today discussing another aspect of this problem: the length we will go to help one person, and the difficulties found when trying to help a larger number of people at once.
One new show I have caught through Hulu is The Philanthropist, from NBC. It is yet another example proving that every actor from the HBO/BBC show Rome gets a chance at starring in their own network program, whether it is a good idea or not (I liked Journeyman starring Kevin McKidd, and he seems to have found a home on Grey's Anatomy now.) James Purefoy, who played Marc Antony on Rome, is the philanthropist Teddy Rast, a wealthy entrepreneur who takes to doing good acts in person instead of solely giving money following the death of his son, a bitter divorce, and a touching experience in Nigeria. His married business partners are played by Neve Campbell (she's an adult now) and Jesse Martin (always a sure choice). The show is loosely based off the life of Bobby Sager.
The plots do stretch one's credulity, and the pace and editing of the program can be a bit-offsetting as well. Yet, I was happy enough to be entertained by the first two episodes. The mostly ambivalent but hopeful reviews I see on the blogosphere capture my sentiments as well. But a co-worker was vehemently against the premise of the show and it is this view of philanthropy that I wish to address here.
My co-worker argued that in the real world it is almost always better for a wealthy entrepreneur to run a large successful, ethical corporation that does not exploit people or the environment while giving money to charities that have an expertise in their field. What such an individual should not do, is precisely what the character Teddy Rast does in the pilot episode, putting himself in physical danger to deliver some vaccine to one remote Nigerian village.
From an initial rational and economical perspective, I had to agree. Even on a personal level, my own experience of the futility on the charity front-line (when I was in the AmeriCorps and a member of the National Readiness and Response Corps of the American Red Cross, working in Anchorage, AK) made me certain that I could do more for the world from a further distance. (I am not the person I want to be, and a year or so after my AmeriCorps year I had stopped all regular volunteering and trying to do more for the world.)
Then my gut, and second level rationalizations turn on. Surely we need to take into account the impact upon the doer and receiver of direct charity. Helping someone in person will keep you more likely to write the big checks. Knowing that someone important or wealthy cares can raise the spirits of the receivers, and of course the publicity that can be brought to a cause amplifies the small acts of the influential individual. But this implies that one should not toil away in obscurity and quietly do good, and this removes much of the one-on-one benefit and purity of the experience.
At college reunions I often chastise friends who had espoused the loftiest ideals, but who are not consultants or corporate lawyers. Their arguments about being the people who write the checks to help the groups they support have rung quite hollow to me. So do we as a society value those people who give time and effort more than those that just give greenbacks? Is it right to do so?
The NYTimes' Ethicist, Randy Cohen, writes in his Moral of the Story blog about a similar wealthy first-worlder helping out individuals from the third-world, in this case Madonna adopting a Malawian child. Although the issues of adoption exceed those I have brought up, many of the issues are the same. In my own head I cannot determine what the best course of action is with regards to charity, and it seems that as whole our western society is torn on the the issue also. Maybe a few more episodes of the The Philanthropist will help clarify my thoughts.
-------Edit 7/9/9 ----------------------------
Nick Kristof has a column today discussing another aspect of this problem: the length we will go to help one person, and the difficulties found when trying to help a larger number of people at once.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Ten reading Recommendations
Last week I was asked by a friend to do a book recommendation exchange. I was initially quite hesitant, as I mentioned in my "My Dinner with Andre" post, I am scared of disliking a work important to a friend and vice-versa. I became even more hesitant when my friend listed "The Zahir" as an example book she would recommend. (For my opinion on Paulo Coelho see the same old post. The Zahir is the worst book I have read in years.)
My friend, who is Eastern European, has read many classics of English and European literature from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, asked me to specifically to recommend twentieth century American authors. I am going to bend this a bit, and recommend fairly recent works, some of which are by non-Americans. These works will strike a balance between erudition, enjoyment and cocktail-party chatter. So no Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Miller, Heller, or Updike.
1. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson - My favorite post-childhood book. I gave this to my friend for Christmas in 2006, but she still hasn't read it!
2. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon - A book that was recommended to me and that I have given to a few people.
3. Underworld by Don DeLillo - The best first chapter ever written. It even made me like baseball. And this was a present from an ex-boyfriend getting his Master's in English.
4. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami - A book I read in one day in Antarctica in 2007. I only left bed for sustenance.
5. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers - The book that launched Eggers upon the litterati. I gave it to multiple people for Christmas during my junior year of college. And I mentioned it in my blog post about pretentious titles.
6. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri - The best book of short stories I have read in years. And I enjoy the author's other works (as I mentioned before) and movies made of them too.
7. Sarge: The Life and Times of Sargent Shriver by Scott Stossel - Mixing it up a little, here's an amazing biography of an amazing man, Sargent Shriver, father of Maria Shriver and brother-in-law of JFK. He was essential to the founding of the Peace Corps and the Special Olympics. The interviews with him were held in haste when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.
8. American Gods by Neil Gaiman - The novel that launched the author into fame beyond the comics world. I read it whilst working at the Princeton University Library circulation desk as an undergraduate.
9. Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon - The best road trip memoir there is, surpassing On the Road and Travels with Charley. Sadly, the author's River-Horse does not rise to the same heights.
10. A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe - My favorite Wolfe novel, chosen a it was the longest English-language book I could find while in hospital in Berlin.
So those are my ten for my friend- not necessarily my favorite books (for who can choose?), but ten I will stand behind. I will be just a little devastated if she doesn't like them.
My friend, who is Eastern European, has read many classics of English and European literature from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, asked me to specifically to recommend twentieth century American authors. I am going to bend this a bit, and recommend fairly recent works, some of which are by non-Americans. These works will strike a balance between erudition, enjoyment and cocktail-party chatter. So no Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Miller, Heller, or Updike.
1. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson - My favorite post-childhood book. I gave this to my friend for Christmas in 2006, but she still hasn't read it!
2. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon - A book that was recommended to me and that I have given to a few people.
3. Underworld by Don DeLillo - The best first chapter ever written. It even made me like baseball. And this was a present from an ex-boyfriend getting his Master's in English.
4. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami - A book I read in one day in Antarctica in 2007. I only left bed for sustenance.
5. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers - The book that launched Eggers upon the litterati. I gave it to multiple people for Christmas during my junior year of college. And I mentioned it in my blog post about pretentious titles.
6. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri - The best book of short stories I have read in years. And I enjoy the author's other works (as I mentioned before) and movies made of them too.
7. Sarge: The Life and Times of Sargent Shriver by Scott Stossel - Mixing it up a little, here's an amazing biography of an amazing man, Sargent Shriver, father of Maria Shriver and brother-in-law of JFK. He was essential to the founding of the Peace Corps and the Special Olympics. The interviews with him were held in haste when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.
8. American Gods by Neil Gaiman - The novel that launched the author into fame beyond the comics world. I read it whilst working at the Princeton University Library circulation desk as an undergraduate.
9. Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon - The best road trip memoir there is, surpassing On the Road and Travels with Charley. Sadly, the author's River-Horse does not rise to the same heights.
10. A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe - My favorite Wolfe novel, chosen a it was the longest English-language book I could find while in hospital in Berlin.
So those are my ten for my friend- not necessarily my favorite books (for who can choose?), but ten I will stand behind. I will be just a little devastated if she doesn't like them.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Podcasts
Another media that has become particularly important to me in the past year is the podcast. I enjoy listening at work, allowing me to block out the sounds of my officemates and concentrate upon my own work. I enjoy listening in the gym and on the bus also, leaving the bustle of the external world behind. So what do I listen to?
At work I prefer to listen to programs that are composed of smaller, newsy stories that can be ignored or followed at will. Any multi-minute narrative will either distract me from work or be missed as I concentrate.
My favorite programs are comedy news quizzes- something that British television excels at. On the radio, NPR has the excellent Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me broadcast weekly out of Chicago. From the BBC I enjoy the Friday Night Comedy Show, which is either the Now Show (with the incomparable Mitch Benn) or the News Quiz. Of questionable utility and comedy is the world-famous Car Talk (yay MIT!).
Since I listen to NPR's Morning Edition before arriving at work every morning, I get additional news from the BBC Radio 4's Best of Today and the broader Newspod. I fear I am becoming middle aged because I enjoy Women's Hour (which I always listen to on the radio whilst in London) For financial news I listen to the NPR Planet Money podcast. For science news I listen to the dull NPR On Science podcast, the metaphysical Radio Lab, and the pure delight of Cambridge's Naked Scientists. I even sent in the request for them to look into lemon/potato batteries.
If I am not reading in the gym or on the bus I listen to the incomparable This American Life. I have enjoed its live in theatres annual show and the television program it has on Showtime also. I also enjoy Selected Shorts, in which actors read short stories. They have featured some of my favorite authors, including Neil Gaiman, Haruki Murakami Kiran Desai and Nadine Gordimer. Sadly, the entire Prairie Home Companion show isn't available as a podcast, but its jewel, The News From Lake Wobegon, is.
Some podcasts that I feel no great affection for, but they fill the hours, include: NPR's B-Side Radio, the Jonathan Ross Show, and the BBC Documentaries.
I can no longer imagine a world where I couldn't listen to my favorite English language radio programs on my own schedule, aiding my workday and workouts. Any recommendations?
At work I prefer to listen to programs that are composed of smaller, newsy stories that can be ignored or followed at will. Any multi-minute narrative will either distract me from work or be missed as I concentrate.
My favorite programs are comedy news quizzes- something that British television excels at. On the radio, NPR has the excellent Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me broadcast weekly out of Chicago. From the BBC I enjoy the Friday Night Comedy Show, which is either the Now Show (with the incomparable Mitch Benn) or the News Quiz. Of questionable utility and comedy is the world-famous Car Talk (yay MIT!).
Since I listen to NPR's Morning Edition before arriving at work every morning, I get additional news from the BBC Radio 4's Best of Today and the broader Newspod. I fear I am becoming middle aged because I enjoy Women's Hour (which I always listen to on the radio whilst in London) For financial news I listen to the NPR Planet Money podcast. For science news I listen to the dull NPR On Science podcast, the metaphysical Radio Lab, and the pure delight of Cambridge's Naked Scientists. I even sent in the request for them to look into lemon/potato batteries.
If I am not reading in the gym or on the bus I listen to the incomparable This American Life. I have enjoed its live in theatres annual show and the television program it has on Showtime also. I also enjoy Selected Shorts, in which actors read short stories. They have featured some of my favorite authors, including Neil Gaiman, Haruki Murakami Kiran Desai and Nadine Gordimer. Sadly, the entire Prairie Home Companion show isn't available as a podcast, but its jewel, The News From Lake Wobegon, is.
Some podcasts that I feel no great affection for, but they fill the hours, include: NPR's B-Side Radio, the Jonathan Ross Show, and the BBC Documentaries.
I can no longer imagine a world where I couldn't listen to my favorite English language radio programs on my own schedule, aiding my workday and workouts. Any recommendations?
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