PHeeD

Fall is in the air!

2010-09-19T17:26:00.002-04:00

Just added to my fall wardrobe... from J. Crew of course.

By the way... all pants 20% off this weekend at J. Crew stores!

Snuggie Time

2010-09-17T14:20:00.001-04:00

Bella has decided that it is winter. Our house is not that cold, but little miss pri(nce)ss can't sleep comfortably without a blanket on her.

She has requested a dog Snuggie, size L, for her birthday (Oct. 20).

Niagara Falls

2010-09-12T17:20:00.004-04:00

This weekend involved a trip to the Great White North, otherwise known as Canada. At the border, the Canadian immigration official asked us what we were doing in Niagara Falls. What does everyone do in Niagara Falls? TOURISM. Anyone who gives another answer clearly is up to something. We were then stopped by a lady with a clipboard who was collecting data for some statistical purpose. She also asked us what we were doing in Canada. TOURISM. If we had been coming over to partake in illegal activities, why would we tell them? Seriously.

So our tourist activities involved the Maid of the Mist tour, which takes you and forty other blue-poncho clad tourons pretty damn close to the Canadian Horseshoe Falls. No one really cares about the American Falls. Eddie and Turner got soaked because they did not put the hood up on their poncho. I, however, remained perfectly dry despite some soggy Birkenstocks.

We also engaged in other tourism-related activities like people-watching, beer-drinking, and nacho-eating. When we crossed back to the United States, the border guard wanted to know what we were doing in Canada.

Seriously?

Blog Recommendation

2010-09-08T08:11:00.001-04:00

Adorable blog i bought a pair of Camper boots and now i am broke. The blogger illustrates all her purchases in hopes of curbing spending. I wonder how well that is working!

Home Office Tour

2010-09-04T16:46:00.003-04:00

Welcome to my new home office. Most of the furnishings are from Ikea. This has been a few weeks in the making, ever since I sat up one morning in bed and decided to turn the "extra" room into my office. It has turned out exactly how I envisioned (how often can you say that?!?).

I still don't have an office chair though.

The Curtain

2010-09-02T22:37:00.002-04:00

Sometimes when we come home from being out, we find that Bella has bent our curtain rod into a U-shape. This is why. I came downstairs today to find her half-asleep under the front window curtains.

She's special.

I was born...

2010-09-01T13:58:00.004-04:00

I have a new wrinkle. I found it just now looking in the mirror back at me.

It's just above the inside corner of my left eyebrow. I didn't have this wrinkle as a 28-year-old. It is my 29-year-old self peaking through the younger facade.

I thought that a few musings on this day of days would be somewhat appropriate. Especially since I just returned home from a graduate seminar on feminist theories of natality, Hannah Arendt's reworking of the persistent emphasis on death by Western philosophy. Natality is the primal condition of being born, of the coming-into the political by a subject. It is hope and change. We all experience natality but only in its absence. I say, "I was born on September 1, 1981 in Seattle, Washington," but I wasn't really there. We weren't there as a fledged speaking subject capable of expressing our immediate potentiality.

I was born... to two loving parents who had all the hope in the world for me. Although Arendt's concept of natality is not limited to physical birth, the capacity for each human being to be born presents them with the potential for political agency. To be part of a public, and act in such a way to enables the potentiality in others, can liberate the staid ideology of the old guard focused on the second absent event, death. At death, we return to an unspeakable state. Death can be witnessed but not experienced. To what extent does birth imply a more public event? As the mother becomes mother and child, the splitting of one into two is not reversed with death. In death, two becomes one in the return of our physical body to the earth, but this can only be seen as a political, public act if we ascribe agency to the earth. By grounding this theory in the inorganic, or inanimate subject, vital matter assumes a subjective role over the dead.

Back to the wrinkle. The intersection of birth and death is life, an event that can be experienced. We can speak about life. We can act with intention, thereby fulfilling the promise of natality given at birth.

Befores and Afters

2010-08-29T08:48:00.002-04:00

It had been a long week of painting. I am finally (mostly) done, with just the window frame left to paint, a project that has its own complications what with needing the window open on 80 degree days.

So without further ado, here are a couple before and after shots. The room is still empty but at least it's a pretty shell for my new office.

Blue Room

2010-08-22T22:11:00.002-04:00

I have been inspired. By two people. My friend Jen is moving into her first house and has been busy painting and prepping for the big move-in day. My other friend Tina just moved into another apartment and set up her own office in one of the spare bedrooms. I, as of two days ago, did not have an office. My books and things sat on the coffee table until I had to move them for some reason.

Upstairs was an empty room. It was blue because it was so lonely. Once painted and decorated, it is going to be my new office.

Some spackling had to be done first. Our house was built in the 1920s, so some of the wall and ceiling surfaces are less than perfect.

Yesterday most of the spackling had dried so I was able to prime the whole room. This is me at the beginning. I did not look this cheery at the end. There were a lot of surfaces to paint.

Now the whole room is a ghostly white.

Today I paint the ceiling. It sounds somewhat daunting. Then tomorrow I can finally put color on the walls. I chose Martha Stewart Chinchilla for the color.

I thought chinchillas were somewhat brown. Martha obviously knows best. I have been dying to paint something grey so I hope this turns out well.

Cold Pasta

2010-08-20T16:24:00.002-04:00

I love cold pasta.

It's about as simple a meal as you can get, second only perhaps to pizza because that you likely didn't make yourself the day before.

I made pasta yesterday for dinner. Whole wheat shells topped with sautéed onions, garlic, summer squash, tomatoes, olives, artichoke hearts, fresh basil and oregano, and feta. Yesterday we ate it hot at the dining table, breaking a sweat while doing so.

A few hours later, after dishes, after working on a writing project, I opened the fridge and its glow leaked suspiciously into the dark kitchen. What, after all, could I possibly want at this time of night? There was the pasta, reposing in a plastic container, innocently abiding its time on the shelf next to the peanut butter. It had cooled down by now, and the container was heavy as I pulled it from the fridge.

The Tupperware released some garlicky air when opened. The kitchen drawer groaned when I opened it for a fork.

Cold pasta is best eaten standing at the counter, the container in one hand, fork in the other. By this point the noodles have absorbed all the flavor of the accompanying players in the dish, but mostly the garlic. Perhaps this is why I love it so. The thing is, cold pasta does not look good. No one else really wants to help you finish it, which is fine by me.

It was 9 in the evening. I had just finished a small bowl of raspberry sorbet but I knew something better was waiting. I busily shoved a few forkfuls in my mouth, not wanting to spoil all the fun for today.

You can guess what I'm having for dinner.

Fall Fashion from J. Crew

2010-08-19T10:57:00.003-04:00

New arrivals at J. Crew. Fall is in the air!

My favorites

Wooly ribbed turtleneck

Donegal tweed Atlee skirt

Gnome Garden

2010-08-19T08:09:00.006-04:00

My mother-in-law has a gnome garden.

Some stand at attention protecting the yard.

Some smoke their pipe not watching guard.

Some dream of the day when they're all free.

Some smile and wave with perpetual glee.

Some head off to the wild beyond.

Some keep to work for the job's never done.

Some wink and whisper, "come over here."

Some have a toad to ward against deer.

By marigold and bee balm and pansy and fern

Each has its place in the garden of gnomes.

Morning Still Life

2010-08-19T07:49:00.000-04:00

Double, double, toil and trouble...

2010-08-17T21:42:00.002-04:00

Shakespeare in Delaware Park presents Macbeth

Black Swan

2010-08-17T21:28:00.001-04:00

Black Swan premiers at the Venice Film Festival on September 1 (my birthday!).

Vegan for Dinner

2010-08-11T18:28:00.001-04:00

It was the eggplant that started it all. Our CSA announced this week that only half the members would be receiving an eggplant in their share because they could not harvest enough for everyone. I thought to myself, it's okay if I don't get one. I'm not that fond of them because every time I try to cook one it just ends up soggy or oily.

Lo and behold, a purple specimen shows up in our bag on Saturday. It sat in the fridge until today, when I knew I had to use it or toss it because we are leaving tomorrow for a long weekend in Lake Placid.

What to do with an eggplant... Somewhere I remembered reading about roasting eggplant. It sounded like a nice way to make it flavorful without it soaking up too much olive oil. I also had a green cabbage from our CSA. Not knowing if it too could be roasted, I googled "roasted cabbage" and enough recipes turned up for me to confident in putting the two together in the oven.

I chopped the eggplant into 1-inch sections and the cabbage to approximately the same size. Both went on a rimmed baking sheet and both got olive oil and salt and pepper. I sprinkled ground cumin, coriander, and turmeric on the eggplant, and paprika on the cabbage. Into a 375 degree oven went the veggies.

To round out the meal, I sautéed an onion, a small bell pepper, a serrano pepper (from the plant on our back deck), and some garlic. When all was soft and golden, I added the water to cook the couscous and let that come to a boil. Then in went the couscous and off went the heat. It sat covered for 5 minutes or so until the liquid was absorbed.

After about 35 minutes the eggplant and cabbage was aromatic and browned on the edges (I had tossed it a few times during roasting). I put all of it in with the couscous and tossed it with some more olive oil, salt, and a drained/rinsed can of garbanzo beans.

It got finished with the juice from half a lemon and chopped herbs (parsley, mint, oregano and basil) from my herb box.

There was little to put away as leftovers after dinner. I even liked the eggplant.

Literary Destinations

2010-08-11T15:20:00.003-04:00

Five Books to Help You Escape via NPR

A Tee for You

2010-08-11T14:38:00.003-04:00

'Le Voyage' tee from Threadless.com

Zucchini and Cherry Tomato Pasta

2010-08-10T08:29:00.002-04:00

We were going to go out to Amy's Place for dinner last night, but Turner wasn't in the mood, having worked hard all day. He asked if there was something at home we could eat. Of course, there was. I can make dinner out of just about anything. And with a fridge full of vegetables from this week's CSA bag, dinner would be easy.

I sautéed a yellow summer squash with a Vidalia onion (chopped) and some fresh garlic in extra virgin olive oil. Added a pint of cherry tomatoes (halved) and chopped olives when the squash was done. Added cooked whole wheat Delallo organic shells (the starch on this pasta is divine). Tossed that with more EVOO and fresh parsley, basil, and oregano from my herb box. Fini!

School Clothes

2010-08-09T18:20:00.003-04:00

J. Crew purchase just made. Did I not tell you I am obsessed?

I still remember the thrill of going shopping for new school clothes every year with my mom. My sister and I would get one special outfit that we would wear on the first day of school. I will be sure to have Turner take my picture on August 30.

Half-Price Roses

2010-08-08T09:36:00.002-04:00

I am generally not a huge fan of roses, preferring instead wilder, more unusual flowers. But when they are half-price (and not red) at Wegman's, I can't resist.

Peaches 'n Cream

2010-08-07T08:55:00.001-04:00

Sometimes cupcakes and I do not get along. It's not that I don't love eating them, but sometimes the baking poses a problem. I have pulled my fair share of sunken, not-done-in-the-middle cupcakes out of the oven after leaving them in for well over the recommended baking time. I believe this has something to do with the amount of moisture in the batter.

Then if I add fruit into the equation, the results tend to be even worse. Ever made banana bread with too much banana? It doesn't cook in the middle. It never will. You could leave it in the oven forever and it still would not be done.

With these failures in mind, I set about making peach filled cupcakes yesterday. The recipe, which I followed to a T (whatever does this cliché mean?), is from the August Martha Stewart Living, on the back page (not yet available on the website). I take it back. I did not follow the recipe exactly because I swapped peaches for nectarines, but Martha said it was okay. My batter only made 10 cupcakes instead of 12 also. Maybe my tablespoons are bigger than Martha's.

You assemble the cupcakes before baking by putting one tablespoon batter in the muffin tin and then one tablespoon of the chopped peaches. Remember what I said above about adding fruit to baked goods? I was certain of an uncooked disaster. After the peaches, you add two more tablespoons of batter, then bake.

I left them in the oven for two minutes longer than suggested, just to be safe.

None sunk!

They all came out perfectly. And they were delicious.

The frosting is whipped heavy cream, sour cream, and sugar, and perfectly compliments the peaches.

I'm Obsessed.

2010-08-05T22:49:00.002-04:00

Jeweled wool tank

Rimini cardigan

Cupro Élan trouser

Classic leather tote

Photos courtesy jcrew.com

Shakespeare in NYC, 2011

2010-08-04T17:59:00.007-04:00

The Royal Shakespeare Company comes to Lincoln Center in 2011.

Can't wait!!

Remembrance of Chickens Past

2010-08-04T17:26:00.007-04:00

Despite the happiness I feel at being back at home, I miss some things from Minnesota (things other than my lovely family of course).

1. My mom's mad grilling skills. Move over Bobby Flay!

A close-up of that fabulous chicken (sorry vegetarians!)

2. The unparalleled joy Bella gets when playing with her cousin Zach.

3. Fitger's beer.

4. Swimming in the clean waters of northern Minnesota. Water is an agate's throw away from just about anywhere.

A Pair of Pears

2010-08-03T21:38:00.003-04:00

I cannot remember the last time I saw a pear tree. I don't know why, but pears are one of those fruits that I can't imagine growing on trees. They seem too delicate and blushing for such a rigorous existence. Well, I saw a pear tree in a backyard in Milwaukee. It did not seem loved, but I knew that we could not get it on the top of our Subaru and back to Buffalo in one piece.

Study of Two Pears

BY WALLACE STEVENS

Opusculum paedagogum.

The pears are not viols,

Nudes or bottles.

They resemble nothing else.

They are yellow forms

Composed of curves

Bulging toward the base.

They are touched red.

III

They are not flat surfaces

Having curved outlines.

They are round

Tapering toward the top.

In the way they are modelled

There are bits of blue.

A hard dry leaf hangs

From the stem.

The yellow glistens.

It glistens with various yellows,

Citrons, oranges and greens

Flowering over the skin.

The shadows of the pears

Are blobs on the green cloth.

The pears are not seen

As the observer wills.

Our other exciting find in Milwaukee, not counting our great friends and the pear tree above, was a labyrinth on the grounds of Mount Mary College. It was patterned after the labyrinth on the floor of the nave of Chartres Cathedral. While that one is grand, this one is humble. While that one requires a transatlantic flight, this one waits unassumingly for anyone to stumble across.

It pleased me.

Labyrinth at Mount Mary College, Milwaukee

Pattern for labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral, France

The dog didn't quite get it.

Plagiarism and the Freshman Writing Student

2010-08-02T08:42:00.001-04:00

NY Times on plagiarism

The Morning Comics

2010-07-30T17:04:00.000-04:00

What do you do with a drunken sailor?

2010-07-29T21:37:00.007-04:00

The Tall Ships came to Duluth today and paraded into the harbor through the Lift Bridge. We tracked their progress from the shore of Lake Superior.

With ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh,

Like stars in heaven, and joyously it showed;

Some lying fast at anchor in the road,

Some veering up and down, one knew not why.

William Wordsworth

With sloping masts and dipping prow,

As who pursued with yell and blow

Still treads the shadow of his foe

And forward bends his head,

The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,

And southward aye we fled.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner

"It had borne all the ships whose names are like jewels flashing in the night of time, from the Golden Hind returning with her round flanks full of treasure, to be visited by the Queen's Highness and thus pass out of the gigantic tale, to the Erebus and Terror, bound on other conquests—and that never returned. It had known the ships and the men. ....Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth! . . . The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires." Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

After the Sea-Ship—after the whistling winds;
After the white-gray sails, taut to their spars and ropes,
Below, a myriad, myriad waves, hastening, lifting up their necks,
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship Walt Whitman

Mt. Oberg to Cascade River

2010-07-28T15:29:00.009-04:00

The Superior Hiking Trail meanders up the North Shore of Lake Superior, paralleling Highway 61 but inland over the peaks and valleys that comprise what is known as the Sawtooth Range because the schizophrenic elevation. You are constantly walking either uphill or downhill, with a few ridges thrown in for good measure.

We started Monday morning at the Mt. Oberg parking lot, where we ran into a few day hikers out for a nice walk on the mountain loop. Not us. We were headed 25 miles north to Cascade River. The other hikers warned us that the bugs were pretty bad, but knowing Minnesota we were prepared with Off Deep Woods.

Here we are still clean and fresh.

The first half of the hike took us to the Lutsen ski area and the Poplar River. Another spot rife with day hikers, most not knowing where they were going. Some with only half a bottle of water between them. It was a hot, humid, sticky day so water was key.

We ate lunch on the Poplar, after traversing a quick 7 miles in 3 1/2 hours, and also pumped water out of the river to supply the second half of the hike. I have contracted giardia before only using iodine to purify our water so I insist that Turner bring the water filter.

The trail to Lake Agnes, our destination for the night, had a couple nice views like this.

But often the hiking was through this.

However, the trail was constantly cutting through raspberry groves. I say groves because the bushes were almost chest high and dripping with ripe berries. We didn't stop to pick much because of the heat and the bugs, but they were nice snacks every now and then if you reached out a hand while you were hiking.

We also saw plenty of fungi, like this one.

And lots of wolf poop (to my dismay), some moose tracks, and red squirrels galore just to taunt Bella.

Luckily, Bella found enough spots for a quick cool down and drink because she wasn't getting any of our hard-earned filtered water.

I probably will never camp on Lake Agnes again. After finding a "renegade" campsite, meaning the regulation sites were already taken, we went down to the lake to pump more water, swim, and have dinner. This "lake," though large, was little more than a beaver pond. It was shallow and filled with organic matter giving the water a very muddy look. We did little more than rinse off the bug spray.

This is the lake at 6:30 in the morning on the second day.

The weather forecast for Tuesday called for thunderstorms, hail, and high winds. This is why we were up and hiking by 6:30am. We wanted to make it to Cascade River, and the shuttle back to our car, before the bad weather hit. Storms on the North Shore can be vicious. The area just west, in the Boundary Waters, suffered a severe blowdown in 1999, damaging 400,00 acres of forest. The trail to Lookout Mountain worked its way through quite a bit of blowdown.

I kept thinking that the bases of the ripped-up trees, now horizontal to the ground, would make excellent hiding places for the wolves. The darkening sky and silent wind lent our journey a somewhat ominous tone.

But after hiking 11 miles in 5 hours we made it to the Cascade River by lunchtime. The hike was kind of a march, since we stopped infrequently and just walked on through the heat and brambles.

Luckily, the waters of the Cascade were cool and refreshing. We hopped in, despite some onlookers, and washed off the days' grime.

After freshening up and eating the rest of our food, we sat on the shore of Lake Superior to wait for the shuttle. The lake and sky melded into one horizon of stormy grey. We could tell that the weather could turn at any minute, but it didn't thankfully.

We waited about an hour for the shuttle-that-never-came.

It was supposed to arrive at 1:17 at the Cascade wayside. Well, by 1:45 it had not come, so we asked a couple of tourists for a ride back up Highway 61 to our car. (We found out later after calling the shuttle organization that it only drives the route Friday-Sunday. And there we were on Tuesday, waiting for Godot.)

The kind folks dropped us off at the base of Onion River Road, which meant that we had to walk 2 miles, uphill, in steadily warmer and more humid weather. And this just after getting clean and fresh in the river.

I was not a happy camper. Points like this get termed "death marches." All I could think about were Gatorade, Snickers, a cheeseburger, and a shower.

In the end, I got all those things and the memories of a lovely hike.

Final Sale!

2010-07-28T09:54:00.002-04:00

It's time again for 30% off final sale at J. Crew. Go now.

This was one of my purchases. Well, I got the other shoe too obviously.

OMG

2010-07-25T20:27:00.001-04:00

Snooki in the NYTimes

Why is this news? Why does it merit an article in the Sunday Magazine? As a representative of the cultural zeitgeist, what does this say about us? We are just as whorish as Snooki in her cleavage-bearing dresses and classless demeanor in our fascination with the vomit-inducing vomiting and sex-capading on The Jersey Shore. Are we more pluralistic in our embrace of this cultural icon? Is Snooki the great class equalizer?

I doubt it. It's like watching a train wreck or car accident. We know we should look away and better ourselves with something more sustaining, but we can't.

I've never even seen the show.

A Blueberry Kinda Summer

2010-07-25T18:17:00.001-04:00

I made a pie today. From wild blueberries. I will remember this as the blueberry summer. Blue teeth, blue tongues. If summer had a shade, this one would be blue. Not the sad kind of blue, but the burst-in-your-mouth, fresh-off-the-bush, tastes-like-heaven kind.

This blog is called "Pheed" for a reason you know.

The Moods of Lake Superior

2010-07-24T20:58:00.002-04:00

The lake is fickle.

She changes her mood on a whim.

Her color is never the same.

Agate Picking

2010-07-24T20:14:00.003-04:00

My family has gone to pick agates on the beach where Knife River empties into Lake Superior since I can remember coming to Minnesota.

Lake Superior agates are quite different from the standard agate because of the rich iron ore in the bedrock. The iron contributes the rusty tint to the agates, which are the rocks in the pictures below that are opaque and striated.

The Sweetest Thing

2010-07-24T19:59:00.001-04:00

Time Being

2010-07-24T09:06:00.007-04:00

I reconsidered the phrase, "for the time being," the other day. Instead of assuming the regular definition of the cliche, I thought, what is a time being?

A time being, a zeit-sein, is not a being-in-time. It is not Heidegger's Dasein who realizes his ultimate goal in his historicization, his temporality. A time-being is temporality embodied. In embodying time, the time-being identifies with birth and death. The time-being realizes his Being in birth, but most haunts the Dasein in death.

God's separation of light from dark, of birth from death, conceived the time-being. Thus, it is the progeny of a movement towards categorization.

This lack of stasis prompts the invocation of the time-being. At this moment, for the time being, the world acts according to our desires. However, the fragility of time negates any confidence in the time-being. It is always fleeing, always threatening, always moving us towards death.

But also life.

Father Time is figured as both a New Year's baby and the gaunt old man with Death's sickle. Death gives way for birth as we perpetually move from light to dark and back again.

We all have a time-being. Perhaps it is like the daemon in ancient Greek religion. A benevolent spirit that accompanies us in our mortal life and induces eudaemonia (happiness) instead of thanatos (death). It's always over our shoulder, over the next hill, around the next bend, already here and still to come.

If only I had a television...

2010-07-22T09:20:00.001-04:00

Mad Men starts this Sunday, July 29 at 10/9pm on AMC. Be there with a martini.

Photo courtesy of amctv.com

Blueberry Moon

2010-07-21T20:11:00.003-04:00

We spent two days on Crane Lake in northern Minnesota, just south of the Canada and bordering the Voyageurs National Park, the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, and Quetico Provincial Park. My aunt and uncle took us by boat to Sandpoint and Namakan Lakes to explore islands and beaches. One of our stops was Burnt Island, and it was covered in blueberry bushes. They dropped from the branches like grapes. We picked 5 quarts of wild blueberries in a couple hours.

The sky and water at this time of the day were an ominous shade of grey, the grey of the rocks that jutted out into the turbulent water.

At other times during the trip, the weather was pristine and then a dark storm cloud would roll in and change our lunchtime plans.

Bella had a marvelous time, chasing after the ball, flying through the air off the dock. Hannah, her cousin, couldn't keep up with our lab's enthusiasm and energy.

She positively launches through the air, probably twenty feet or more at times, to retrieve the ball or stick.

Although we did not catch any fish from the boat, Turner casted a line off the dock at the cabin and caught some small-mouth bass and walleye.

The evening fell bringing wandering loons, dark clouds, and a purple sunset.

Photos by Turner and Sara from the Jarvinen cabin on Crane Lake.

Hath not a Jew eyes?

2010-07-21T17:17:00.001-04:00

Maureen Dowd on Shylock

That's one hungry pagan

2010-07-14T21:26:00.002-04:00

We went to the Thirsty Pagan Brewpub in Superior, Wisconsin this evening for pizza and beer. This local treasure has some of the best pizza this side of the Great Lakes. The crust has depth and a great texture; the sauce was loaded with garlic (two thumbs way up!). Their Burntwood Black Ale rivals some of the best oatmeal stouts around.

The Quilled Crusader

2010-07-14T21:22:00.003-04:00

My Fall Wardrobe

2010-07-14T09:21:00.001-04:00

...photos from jcrew.com

Rocks, Paper, Scissors

2010-07-14T09:08:00.003-04:00

Rifle Paper Co. for simply cute paper products.

Gatsby is so emo. Who cries about his girlfriend while eating breakfast . . . IN THE POOL?

2010-07-13T20:42:00.004-04:00

Twitterature

Oh my. No words.

Penguin's Ten Essential Books

2010-07-13T20:34:00.003-04:00

(1) The Divine Comedy

(2) Walden

(3) Oedipus Rex

(4) Metamorphosis

(5) Moby Dick

(6) Hamlet

(7) The Odyssey

(8) Pride and Prejudice

(9) Jane Eyre

(10) Of Mice and Men

Penguin suggests that reading these ten books are an invaluable part of cultural literacy. They produced a short film showing how knowledge of these books helps you avoid sounding like an ignoramus at cocktail parties.

What other book would you have included? What do you disagree with?

I have read, or at least perused, 9 out of 10. I have not yet gotten to Jane Eyre.

Stratford, Day 02

2010-07-13T15:03:00.005-04:00

Ex post facto... I did not review The Tempest in my earlier post. The artistic direction and set design nicely established the setting and the emotion of the first scenes, although I found the swaying of the sailors in the "tempest" a little overly done. It was also very hard to hear the lines in the first act. Choosing to set Miranda and Prospero at points around the theatre was a good choice, however her cries of "Father" were distracting. Julyana Soelistyo as Ariel, however, expressed the mischeviousness of the sprite with energy throughout the five acts.

Peter Hutt, as Alonso, King of Naples, appeared unaffected throughout much of the performance. His lines were devoid of emotion and bordered on monotone. One wonders if he was feeling under the weather but decided to perform due to the recording of this performance. Trish Lindstrom's Miranda felt too rushed and boisterous to portray a girl marooned on an island with only her father for company. In all, Christopher Plummer, as Prospero, and Lindstrom presented a father-daughter pair all too complicit in their laughter and thoughts. I felt no tension between the 15-year-old girl and the overly aged Prospero.

Caliban (Dion Johnstone), Trinculo (Bruce Dow) and Stefano Geraint Wyn Davies) made amicable companions in the play's comic (and subtly tragic) sub-plot. As a "fishy" Caliban, Johnstone's diatribe against Miranda and Prospero deftly countered what they argue is their island utopia.

An odd bit of staging was the wedding masque in Act IV. The three goddesses appeared to threaten more than bless and used opera as the vehicle for their lines.

In all, the play was a success, mostly due to Plummer's charismatic presence, the comic actors, and the sub-plots of usurpation from both Antonio and Caliban.

So, apparently no camera came with us around Stratford our second day except the one on Turner's cell phone. We took Bella to a dog park and had a picnic lunch on the banks of the Avon. It rained in the evening but cleared up just before we went to the evening performance of As You Like It, which I liked very much, although again some of the stage design seemed frivolous and disconnected from the action in the play.

The Milky Whey

2010-07-12T19:59:00.003-04:00

Love. The. Name.

Shakespeare's Flowers

2010-07-12T18:08:00.010-04:00

No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:

Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;

Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,

And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.

Sonnet 35

I had rather be a dog, and bay the moon,

Than such a Roman.

Julius Caesar

Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners; so that if we will plant Nettles or sow Lettuce, set Hyssop, and weed up Thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with many, either to have it sterile with idleness, or manured with industry, why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills.

Othello

There thou prick'st her with a thistle.

Much Ado About Nothing

...from the gardens in Stratford.

Stratford, Day 01

2010-07-12T17:23:00.005-04:00

The town of Shakespeare, Ontario is located just outside Stratford. Coming from Buffalo, we saw this sign first so I made Turner pull over so we could take a picture. Imagine living in Shakespeare. "Where do you live?" "Shakespeare." "No, really, where?" The town is not much to see, a few dusty roads and some lonesome shops. It clearly has not benefited from the theatrical boom of its neighbor down the road.

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival was the idea of an entrepreneurial young man, Tom Patterson, who wanted to get the town out of the depression following the dissolution of much of the area's industry. The town was already named Stratford, an etymological discussion Turner and I had in the car (which came first? Stratford or Shakespeare?), and a Shakespearean Theater Festival seemed like a marketable idea for this out-of-the-way place.

Patterson convinced British actor and director Tyrone Guthrie to take on the festival's inaugural season. On July 13, 1953, Alec Guinness spoke the first lines, "Now is the winter of our discontent." An ironic beginning for a summer festival that would play for four years in a steamy tent outdoors on the bank of the River Avon.

In 1957, the festival moved to the Festival Theatre, whose exterior was designed to resemble the original tent and whose thrust stage is modeled on a classic Greek amphitheater and Shakespeare's own Globe.

The festival has seen its fair share of stars cross the boards, from Alec Guinness the first season to Maggie Smith and Christopher Plummer (who we saw play Prospero in The Tempest). The festival has long maintained a reputation nationally and internationally for its contributions to the arts.

And oh, the gift shop. A whole store dedicated, more or less, to Shakespeare. I was like a kid in a candy store. I bought three t-shirts, some small items, a book, and a Shakespeare action figure. Yes, that's right. A Shakespeare action figure.

Check out that grin. Shakespeare loot!

Cleaning Out the Fridge

2010-07-06T22:36:00.005-04:00

Today was get-everything-done day. We are leaving tomorrow morning for our road trip west to Minnesota, via Stratford, Ontario and northern Michigan. I had some vegetables left over from our weekly CSA haul: beets, summer squash, and lettuce. The fridge also needed cleaning out before we left.

We also took it upon ourselves to spend time sweating profusely in the berry bushes near our house in order to make more jam. Eleven cups of berries and 5 1/2 cups of sugar later and I have four pints of blackberry lime jam.

The cleaning-the-fridge dinner consisted of a salad of local ingrediants, including the boiled beets from above, and Israeli couscous with garlic, onion, summer squash, and feta.

To drink, Rogue Shakespeare Stout, a fitting send-off for our trip to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival tomorrow. We are seeing The Tempest with Christopher Plummer and As You Like It. A trip to Canada also means no cell coverage and chancy wireless, so the blog posts may be postponed until the road tripping is complete.

Stay cool!

Ethereal

2010-07-06T11:23:00.000-04:00

Gorgeous summer dress from J. Crew.

Photo courtesy jcrew.com

Secret Gardens

2010-07-06T09:17:00.002-04:00

A Universe in Bloom - The gardens at Sissinghurst Castle, Kent.

I love me a good English garden and this is one of the best.

Photo courtesy Jonathan Buckley/National Trust Photo Library @ nytimes.com

Hortus conclusus

2010-07-05T19:20:00.002-04:00

Study in Dahlias

No. 1

No. 2

No. 3

I will be leaving my newly blossomed plants behind for a few weeks. The dahlias that I planted from bulbs just started blooming this week and they are perfect and rosy, just like me. The herb box with the cilantro, basil, sage, and oregano is gearing up to full speed, and my pumpkins are exposing the first blossoms. I just hope they don't acquire blossom rot in my absence.

Bonne Anniversaire Gypsy!

2010-07-05T14:00:00.001-04:00

My trusty Subaru, Gypsy, turned 100,000 yesterday on the Fourth of July. She was a graduation present back in 2003, with only 30,000 miles on her. Now, 70,000 miles later, she has driven across country a few times, spent a couple winters in a garage, and now is enjoying semi-retirement in Buffalo (we walk most places and use her when we need to get groceries or travel). She has suffered several dings and bumps along the way but has overall been a very trusty companion on the road of life.

We hope to drive her for at least 50,000 more miles, but I have had my eyes on some nice four-wheel drive BMWs and Toyotas. Don't tell her though.

Cheers for Beer

2010-07-05T09:26:00.001-04:00

Fourth floor patio of the Pearl Street Brewery

On this fourth of July, we attended the wedding reception for Jennifer Parks and Michael Dray, acquaintances from college, at the Pearl Street Brewery. They had an open bar for four hours and various hors d'oeuvres, and CUPCAKES! The beer at this renowned Buffalo brewpub is fantastic, with names like Willy Wonka (a dark chocolate truffley stout), Raspberry Fields (chocolate and raspberry stout), Lake Effect (American Pale Ale), and Blue-Eyed Blueberry Blonde (blueberry ale).

Photo from www.pearlstreetgrill.com

Kebabs on the Third

2010-07-03T22:31:00.002-04:00

My husband's family raises Cheviot sheep in Lake Placid, New York. We were given a leg of lamb last fall after the slaughter and it has been waiting in the freezer until the right moment. With our college friends in town this weekend, we decided to celebrate the great American holiday with a decisively Mediterranean feast. Granted, I used a Martha Stewart recipe for the marinade and feta sauce, and we did have local sweet corn and zucchini, so America made a grand ole appearance.

The marinade has lemon juice and zest, plus olive oil, minced garlic, and fresh oregano. The feta sauce was simply Greek yogurt and feta cheese, with some lemon juice and olive oil. The lamb was kebabed with local spring onions and a wedge of lemon and then grilled on over charcoal. Stuffed in a pita with the sauce and ... yum. It was delicious.

For dessert, vanilla ice cream with homemade wild blackberry sauce.

Happy Third of July!

A Cuppa

2010-07-02T08:47:00.001-04:00

My morning goes something like this. Wake up around 7am; roll over remembering that I only have two months wherein I can roll over and not have to get up. Get out of bed around 8am. Go downstairs and let the dog out to do her thing. Let dog in and feed dog. Put dishes away while Turner gets up and starts making coffee. Let me rephrase that. He makes soy lattes every morning. A big steaming cup with frothy foam and a delicious, encompassing tastiness. (Note: We buy our espresso beans from Spot coffee, locally roasted and the best around despite the fact that every week they get stingier and stingier with the "pound" of beans.)

Every morning Turner tries to make "foam art." Usually, it's a squiggle or some dots, but today I got a three-eyed smiley face. Now that's a good morning.

On a side note, our dog is the local lookie-loo of the neighborhood. She does not bark, thankfully, but loves to just watch. If she weren't so cute and she weren't a female, she would be a peeping tom. Well, now that our internet router is in the window, she uses it as a head rest. I'll have to ask Turner if it improves our 3G.

Other People's Things

2010-07-01T07:52:00.007-04:00

I've been reading some Proust at night before bed. A slender volume that is nice to hold when lying down.

The length of his sentences and the interceding commas make for a literary lullaby. I find his descriptions of the art of reading and of the spaces of reading to be especially thoughtful and prosaic. For instance, he describes how remembering the books of one's childhood brings back not images of the story but rather of the spaces and events that comprise the reading environment.

Of particular note is his description of reading in an unfamiliar bedroom...

"I leave it to people of taste to make of their bedrooms the very image of their taste and to fill them only with those objects of which it can approve. For myself, I only feel myself live and think in a room where everything is the creation and the language of lives profoundly different from my own, of a taste the opposite of mine, where I can rediscover nothing of my conscious thought, where my imagination is exhilarated by feeling itself plunged into the heart of the non-self;

...that you are everywhere touching the bareness of this life in the intention of disturbing yourself by your own familiarity, as you put your things down in this place or that, playing proprietor in a room filled to overflowing with the souls of others and which preserves the imprint of their dreams in the very shape of the firedogs or the pattern on the curtains, or as you walk barefoot over its unknown carpet..."

Marcel Proust, Days of Reading

Foreign objects, serving no purpose exterior to their own existence as things, reinforce the imaginative life of the self by signifying what is non-self. For Proust, the vial of orange flower essence on his nightstand with no relevance to his life signifies the act of reading and immersing himself in what is completely alien to the self.

“Nothing, I see, is good without respect.”

2010-07-01T07:27:00.004-04:00

Review of Merchant of Venice in NY Times. Played at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park. Al Pacino plays Shylock, the maligned, misunderstood Jew, in what I imagine is a very poignant critique of our money-hungry world.

Photo courtesy of Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

How far to your lunch?

2010-06-30T20:59:00.003-04:00

Today for lunch I made salads. Not just any salad though. Everything but the avocado and salad dressing (Annie's Naturals of course) came from within 50 miles of our house.

Spinach and green lettuce courtesy of Porter Farms CSA program, Elba, NY ... 40 miles

Cage-free organic eggs from Wegmans ... somewhere around here

Cherry, grape, and glacier tomatoes, Fortistar, N. Tonawanda, NY ... 10 miles

Arugula, random lettuce, basil, oregano, Gutmann house, Buffalo, NY ... 0 miles

Book Cover Archive

2010-06-30T16:40:00.003-04:00

Book Cover Archive is my new favorite addiction. I have to admit that I frequently judge books by their covers, and perhaps even judge you by yours.

My propensity for all things beautiful, haunting, evocative, and composed succumbs to aesthetic stupor when faced with a book cover, piece of clothing, or plate of food. Call me epicurean or vain, but why settle for ordinary when extra-ordinary is within reach?

The Penguin Great Ideas series is a fine example of clean, precise book cover art. If I had the wherewithal, I would buy the whole series, now in its fourth series.

Final Sale

2010-06-30T11:38:00.003-04:00

Final Sale starts today at J. Crew online and in stores.

Wish list...

Alecia suede platform peep-toes (Paris pink, size 8)

Rogue ruffle dress

Ink blossom pencil skirt

Natural Colors

2010-06-29T22:35:00.003-04:00

While walking Bella down the old train bed beyond our dead end street I noticed a profusion of purple berries on the side of the path. I found the vines strung in and among brambles, grape vines, sumac, and any other plant that thrives out of neglect and overgrowth. The berries looked like raspberries but were the color of blackberries. Let me call them black raspberries. Lacking the requisite berry-picking paraphernalia, I saved the task of removing the vines from their delicate burdens until later in the afternoon, when I could also procure an assistant.

The weather today favored berry-picking; cool and intermittantly cloudy. Turner and I returned to the bushes with two Nalgenes and proceeded to fill them almost to the top while Bella ran freely through the verdure. Not wanting the delicate berries to waste one ounce of their fresh-pickedness, I rinsed the two pounds of berries and added them with one pound of suger to my faithful Dutch oven Le Crueset. I added the juice of one lime (lacking the lemon the gives the jam natural pectin for setting) and am waiting now for the mixture to cool before determining whether I made syrup or jam.

I did however help relieve the invasive sweet peas of some of their blossoms. They are now resting sweetly in tight bouquets around the house. Luckily, there will be no shortage of replacements as sweet peas have taken over the hillside opposite the berry bushes.

For Lack of a Better Word

2010-06-29T21:54:00.003-04:00

It has been over a month since finishing the spring semester. I spent weeks researching and writing three substantial papers, on women and power in Chaucer, on Virgil and Geoffrey of Monmouth's use of river ecology in nationalist poetics, and on magic and the body in The Tempest. As you might expect, my brain was fried.

Since completing this work, I have spent my time not writing, but reading all the "fun" books that build up over the course of the school year. Oddly enough, my hands started to itch. I felt weird, reading and thinking but not writing. Writing, as the rhet/comp folks like to say, holds reading's hand. They skip together down the path of critical thinking.

And yet here was this empty, forlorn blog that I started almost one year ago. A forum, largely private (because I know few read this) for writing about what I read and think and presumably sending these notions out into the void. The challenge now is to not get fed up with writing on the blog. I have never been one for forced journaling. (That gerund makes me cringe and turning into a substantive verb is even worse... "to journal"... ugh.) In college, I took a yoga class. Since I had all my classes taken, I indulged myself in ballet, yoga, and badminton for college credit. Back to the yoga. The instructor mandated writing daily journal entries which would be turned in for part of the final grade. I was one of those people who would make up a week's worth of entries in one sitting and be done with it. I dislike writing about my feelings, even to myself. Hopefully I never end up in therapy that prescribes journaling as part of the healing process.

So why blog then? Well, I need to keep my writing fingers in shape for the coming school year, and I think that I have something to share with you. The first goal should be easy; I could just type the alphabet over and over again. The second, we'll see. I make no promises.

Newsworthy

2009-10-25T07:46:00.003-04:00

I know it's been a year and a day since I have last written anything, and this is going to be brief because I have *lots* of schoolwork to do.

For anyone who questions the value and relevance of a degree in English literature--especially with a specialty in medieval and early modern studies--in our *modern* society, just take a look at two front page headlines on nytimes.com: Maureen Dowd's op-ed "The Nun's Story" (ahem, Chaucer) and "Historians Reassess Battle of Agincourt" (hello Shakespeare!).

What we do in our special little club is make sure these references aren't lost on anyone and teach future journalists, politicians, lawyers, even scientists, that literature is not all flight and fancy but ingrained in our blood as humans. It is the humanities after all. And who can argue with studying what it means to be human?

The Decline of the English Department

2009-10-08T08:59:00.001-04:00

The Decline of the English Department

Posted using ShareThis

Mind and Memory

2009-09-03T20:54:00.003-04:00

I used to think that I was on top of things. I used to remember appointments, homework, my keys.

Those days are gone.

I need a planner, an alarm clock, post-it notes.

I am a graduate student with far too much on my mind. I think about everything, every day, all day. It's tiring.

But I love it.

A Rare Find

2009-08-30T11:19:00.000-04:00

Turner and I are rarely in the same frame since he is usually taking the pictures and making me pose. This lovely shot was taken by Brenna Knowles at the wedding of our friends Dave and Emily in Vermont a few weekends ago. Predictably, Turner is making a face.

translational poetry

2009-08-27T18:42:00.004-04:00

with universal love for showing our mind,
with science and technology for withstanding diseases,
and with connotation for predicting future
we sedulously interpret the charm of life science
and annotate the life origin of "people-oriented"
be in the same of life, and pray for the world

Ode to a Moleskine

2009-08-26T14:41:00.004-04:00

From where I sit I can see

Some five or six relaxing books.

With sleak, black skins they wait for me.

I reach for one and take a look

At notes, scribbles, and jots.

Page smooth and thick, pen dark and deep.

Unbind the tie, begin a line,

A swirling language marks the spot

Where once some words were wont to seep.

A book is just a book unless it's Moleskine.

A Pizz-a Heaven

2009-08-26T07:42:00.005-04:00

I made a sausage and onion pizza on Monday. It resembled the real deal, which is not always the case with my pizzas. I used the dough recipe from Mark Bittman's NYTimes blog Bitten, but instead of making 2-3 medium pizzas, I made one large pizza. I also cooked the pizza on a pizza pan sitting on a pizza stone in a 410 degree oven for about 26 minutes. It seems like 350 degrees would not be hot enough to cook a pizza of that size.

The dough was a little tough to form on the pan because I did not knead it quite enough before letting it rise. That said, the crust was just the way I like it. For those thin-crusters out there, this is not the recipe for you. It was thick, and chewy, and puffy in places. The toppings were simply sauce, mozzarella, onion, and italian sausage.

I wish I had a camera to have recorded my triumph. Next time.

Fish on the Frontlines

2009-08-25T07:28:00.005-04:00

Stanley Fish weighs in on his NYTimes blog about the dirth of writing courses that actually teach writing:

http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/24/what-should-colleges-teach/

He observes instructors teaching ostensibly writing courses in social justice, popular fiction, etc. I agree that it's all too easy to not teach writing, because how do you teach something that is best learned through repeated practice.

While current composition theory promotes ways to teach writing through the process theory, modes of rhetoric, and the like, many instructors use this as the invisibile backbone of the course letting students think and talk and read about ideas. Then write. Writing should be both the primary activity and the final goal, the first and the last, alpha and omega.

Many of the freshmen coming out of high school or the non-traditional students lack the knowledge of writing as a technical, practical skill because fewer teachers seem to teach the art of grammar, style, and ultimately rhetoric. I realize that rules-based instruction may fail to reach many students, but there are other ways of teaching the nuts and bolts. The important fact is that they need to be taught. I am not sure if students are aware that there is a correct way to structure sentences. (Correct according to whom? But that's another matter entirely.)

I do think Fish sounds slightly prescriptivist; "these kids can't write like I can. No one is teaching them like I was." Teaching writing can take many forms. However, a syllabus loaded with papers, free writes, and the like does not garuntee that students will recognize that they are in fact being taught to write.

Back in 2006, Fish wrote in his blog titled "The Writing Lesson," "We’ve now had decades of composition courses in which students exchange banal opinions about the hot-button issues of the day, and student writing has only gotten worse. Doesn’t it make sense to think that if you are trying to teach them how to use linguistic forms, linguistic forms are what you should be teaching?" If a student does not know the function of a verb, have we failed as writing teachers? Should this be our first concern of the day?

Isn't it possible to do both? Oh, it's complicated.

books

2009-08-24T21:01:00.001-04:00

my books are secluded in an attic
unread, unloved
smothered pages wither in the summer heat
yellowing, curling
growing old waiting for the shelf
will they remember me?

Poaching 101

2009-08-20T08:03:00.004-04:00

Poaching is one of those techniques I had never tried before, until last night. I came across a recipe for Poached Salmon with Corn and White Wine Butter Sauce in Food and Wine the other day and it looked light and refreshing, good for the depressingly humid weather that has descended on Buffalo.

The fish was tender and tasty. (My apologies for the lack of photos; I am without camera for the time being.) And the corn and zucchini complimented the fish well with their sweetness. Both are in season now so it's a great recipe to use up those zucchinis from the garden that evade your eyes until they are gargantuan since they will be shredded before cooking.

My one complaint is that the recipe calls for too much white wine leaving little left in the bottle for stoveside tippling.

The Waning of Summer

2009-08-18T20:10:00.004-04:00

I have to go to school tomorrow. Summer is over.

Orientation begins tomorrow morning at 9:30. Since kindergarten, I have spent only 17 months away from school. For the rest of my youth and early adulthood, I have either been a student or a teacher, sometimes both simultaneously.

I feel eager and stressed, excited and nervous. Like an adrenaline junkie, this is what I crave out of life. Starting school again make me feel alive even though it scares the bejeezus out of me, especially at this level. It's PhD or bust at this point. I do feel unbelievably lucky, privileged even, to get this opportunity. Sometimes I can't believe it's really happening. Tomorrow.

And in less than two weeks, I will face my own class of similarly nervous yet enthusiastic freshmen. I feel lucky to be able to share in their awakening to life beyond what they've known because it's happening to me too. I get excited thinking that, while not everyone, many will arrive at class brimming with hope.

Maybe it's something in the air. The beginning of the school year has a certain smell, even if now it's just a smell in memory. Shiny textbooks, squeaky erasers, pointed crayons. These forlorn objects have faded into the recesses of my academic mind, replaced by computers and ballpoints, but I remember their dearness. Even as a child I couldn't wait to put on my new school clothes and fill my backpack with pencils and scissors and journals. I remember pictures of my sister and I dressed in our "first-day-of-school outfits," lunchbox in hand, even though the first day of school was a week away.

This is an occasion that I think children are experiencing less and less, which makes me sad. School seems a chore to many, and it continues into college. I wish I could inject in each detached, bored face an iota of the thrill I still get on the first day of school.

Success

2009-08-11T14:21:00.002-04:00

After wrestling for days with FTP programs, I was finally able to upload my personal homepage to the UB Unix server. Find it at http://www.buffalo.edu/~smcenter.

I reused the format from a web design course that I took years ago and updated the content. I think it looks pretty good, what do you think? Comments, anyone?

FYI, if you click on the personal link from the homepage you will be directed back to this blog.

Welcome

2009-08-09T10:37:00.002-04:00

The name of this blog, PHeeD, embodies perhaps the two things that will occupy most of my life for the next five years: graduate school (Ph.D) and food ("pheed" pronounced as the verb "feed").

I have been away from blogging for about 6 months and have finally rejoined the fold. Having left China and all its wonders behind, my husband and I are embarking a new stage of life. Soon I will begin my studies as a PhD student in English literature; soon we will move into our new house in Buffalo, NY; soon I will be settled again. The best part is that I will have my complete library and kitchen again, after two years or more of life as a literary and culinary ascetic. In China, there are few books and even fewer ovens.

This blog will continue more frequently come September when I am finally settled with a stable Internet connection. For now, I still follow the path of the wanderer, heading to Vermont in one week then back to Buffalo, staying as a guest with friends for a few weeks before closing on the house September 18th. (Keep your fingers crossed that all goes well!)