glory in the flower /  by mrm


oh, man. Splendor in the Grass is the hottest thing I've seen in I don't even know how long. They really ought to put a couple-three x's on the case of that film. Natalie Wood is a complete knockout and Warren Beatty is such a dream. 

Whew. I think I need to catch my breath.

vs. the mountain /  by mrm

Today I discovered that I have, for some time now, perhaps my entire life, secretly been a quite good skier. Who knew! My mom & I went up to Northstar at Tahoe earlier today. The universe is in league with me again, at least temporarily: I had signed up to take a group lesson, but upon arriving (a few minutes late, granted) was told that the group had departed and assigned a private instructor. Amend that: a cute 23 year-old instructor from London named Alex. Alex is a great teacher and was quite ambitious for me and after about two and a half hours of lesson, I was skiing down a black diamond slope. No falling. Quite decent turns.
Now I have come out the other side of exhaustion and am planning on a kind of non-alcoholic, non-mountainous Après-ski. It is, quite frankly, probably a terrible idea, as my body is desperately trying to convince me to pass out. But how else to see one's friends?  

farewell, naughties /  by mrm

In the minor controversy over what to call the past decade, I do believe the Australians have emerged victorious. In British English, a "naught" is a "zero," and so the past (or yes, yes, not truly past until 2011, don't write me, I know) can be referred to not only as the Naughts but as the Naughties. Nothing tops this.

Despite the fact that Wired seems to have reported on this back in, well, the 90s, I hadn't heard of it until the other night. So I'm giving the credit to my downstairs neighbors' homeland.

At any rate, einen guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr!

blood, boiling /  by mrm

I want to write a nice holiday/happy new year post. About family and warmth and hope for the future. But the first article I read in the news today was about how Uganda is trying to pass a law that makes homosexuality punishable by death, and about how this, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill (that's its real name), was inspired by the recent visit of several U.S. evangelicals, including Rick Warren, whom you may remember from Obama's inauguration.  I don't care how much he tries to back down from it now, this is the logical consequence of such hateful, dehumanizing rhetoric. 

Immediate tangential questions: Obama, what were you thinking? Rick Warren, why are you smiling so much in your appeal to the Ugandan pastors? Most pressing, however, is: what are we to do about such virulent calls to violence?  No, the Americans didn't say kill all the gays, they said they're destroying your family, they're preying on your children, there's an international conspiracy, something must be done to stop them. 

Something must be done to stop them. I only wish I knew what.

oh by gosh /  by mrm


All truly good holidays are centered around food.  I predict that this thesis will be difficult to disprove.  (I am way behind in posting these, I know.) 

Above, Christmas dinner (crown roast of pork), below, Christmas Eve Eve wildly delicious buffet.  Mmm...
 


stop your life /  by mrm

and read Doris Lessing:

"Mrs. Quest sat alone, listening to the radio.  It seemed to her that for years, for all her life, she had sat, forced to be quiet, listening to history being made."
               – Doris Lessing, Landlocked

When I finish this quintet, I don't know what's going to happen to me.  Maybe my life will end. 

how I long for the olden days /  by mrm

"In a 2009 paper in the American Journal of Psychology, Revonsuo and a co-writer, Katja Valli, theorized that 'modern humans still posses this ancient defense mechanism [dreaming as a kind of threat simulation],' though it probably no longer fulfills its original biological function, since the modern environment is so different from the one in which the system evolved. (Fewer mastodons, more traffic.)"
             – Margaret Talbot, "Nightmare Scenario," The New Yorker, Nov. 16, 2009

Saint Euell of Wild Foods /  by mrm

Of the Gifts of Saint Euell
Spoken by Adam One

...Today we meditate upon Saint Euell Gibbons, who flourished upon this Earth from 1911 to 1975, so long ago but so close to us in our hearts...He taught us the use of Your many Puffballs, and the other wholesome Fungi; he taught the dangers of the poisonous species, which however can also be of Spiritual value, if taken in judicious quantities.
He sang the virtues of the wild Onion, of the wild Asparagus, of the wild Garlic, that toil not, neither do they spin, nor do they have pesticides sprayed upon them, if they happily grow far enough away from agribusiness crops...He taught us to improvise; for if there is no Sorrel, there may be Cattails; and if there are no Blueberries, the wild Cranberry may perhaps abound.
Saint Euell, may we sit with you in Spirit at your table, that lowly tarpaulin spread upon the ground; and dine with you upon wild Strawberries, and upon spring Fiddleheads, and upon young Milkweed pods, lightly simmered, with a little butter substitute if it can be obtained...

– Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood
 

the Georgian invasion /  by mrm

My extremely awesome 19-year-old cousin is visiting from Atlanta, and we went to Cha-Ya last night.  He so thoroughly charmed our server with his sincere appreciation of the meal that we got free dessert: soy ice cream with a red bean paste and (I think) a seaweed sauce, topped with toasted rice.  Apparently I have not cornered the market on charm, which is probably all for the greater good.  He can come visit me anytime.

increasingly /  by mrm

the dream of my life is that someday someone or someones will throw me a party.  It will be a surprise.  It will be nice and fun and well organized.  There won't be anything for me to do, because it will all have been taken care of.  I can just enjoy myself.  Someone else will clean up, and then it will be over.

Needless to say.  This has never happened, and I am not holding my breath.

slate! /  by mrm

I am so shocked!  "It was for moments like this, I told myself, that tourism to British is alive and well." I've already written them.  I sincerely hope that by the time you attempt to read this article they will have already corrected the error.  Poor copyediting is such a buzzkill.

update, 7:55am, next day: fixed.  They wrote me a nice email, too.

grumbling /  by mrm

what is so frustrating about winter is that despite the fact that the butter has been placed, appropriately, in a dish, so that it may achieve room temperature, it nonetheless refuses to spread elegantly on one's toast as desired.  The room temperature is too cold.  This is rank insubordination.

Kcymaerxthaere /  by mrm

At the recent Believer release party, Eames Demetrios gave a power point presentation and lecture on (the? I don't know if it takes the definite article) Kcymaerxthere, an "alternative universe largely consistent with our linear world but with different points of contact: different stories, peoples, creatures, laws of physics—just for starters."  In addition to his day job/s, he travels around the world installing plaques and making markers about various events from this other and somehow overlapping world.   I was enjoying myself too much to take proper notes (who else takes notes at art gallery openings and magazine release parties?  Send yourself my way), but I did manage to jot down an aside about "the god of directionality – some people say he's behind wikipedia, the euro, and Starbucks."  I especially love the sites he's commemorated in Germany and Poland.  At the end of his presentation, we all sang a song together.  He liked my singing and I told him to keep me in mind if he ever started a choir.  Then I bought a travel guide.

This is the kind of nonsense – delivered in utmost earnestness and beautiful seriousness – that I could really get behind.