netflix ate my brain

Thanks to Netflix on-demand streaming, I have access to tons of TV at work (it's rotting my brain, but it hurts so good), and lately I've been watching Law and Order: CI. A lot of it. So much of it, in fact, that I have started to have regular dreams involving Vincent D'Onofrio.

(side note: let's take a look at a few photos of Mr. D'O. and see how Father Time has been treating him):
Mmm-hm. Scruffy, very James-Dean-dreamboat-y...

Okay, a little older, but still holding onto the rakish charm...

um. whoa. Rush Limbaugh? That you?

Fortunately, he's such a good character actor that he exudes a tremendous amount of magnetism, and it makes his character on Law and Order very appealing to watch, as you get to know him.

That having been said, I would like to add the disclaimer that Law and Order: CI is really just awful, as TV shows go. I know it is. I enjoy crime-solving shows, and I know what's good and what's crap. This is crap. The writing on L&O is often overly dramatic, and the plots are all very formulaic, but I somehow got sucked in. My orderly little brain loves patterns, and Law and Order provides the reliable, mindless pablum that I sometimes need to get through a workday. Plus, I can have an episode going on in the background and still be accomplishing things, while feeling like I'm being entertained. That's the magic of television. We're so indoctrinated to respond to TV as entertainment that if we're watching something, even if it's trashy, or badly written, as long as we feel like we're being entertained, it's the same thing as legitimate entertainment, so we stay and watch. I can think of no other explanation for Jersey Shore.

Now, if you'll excuse me, it appears that the social-climbing wife of a well-known plastic surgeon has disappeared, and all suspicion points to the druggie ex-boyfriend. I SMELL A SETUP!

dirty words

I think what I love most about language is that with the right combinations, a series of words can be so much more than communicative. There is a sensuality to speaking that is too often forgotten about--especially now, when an acceptable sign-off to a conversation is something like "kthxbai." It seems like hardly anyone takes the time to speak eloquently anymore (at least in passing conversation. There has, at least, been a DRASTIC improvement in political eloquence since Obama took office. Whatever his faults, the man knows his way around a sentence).

The formation of a word is a very intimate thing, all lips and teeth and tongue. When a word feels good in the mouth, the impulse is to repeat it over and over. In the book Moab Is My Washpot by Stephen Fry--which is wonderful, and you should go and read it, and I'm not saying that because I desperately wish I were Stephen Fry's friend (which I do)--there's a chapter where a young Fry (a small Fry? HA!) drives his mother crazy on long car rides by dreamily repeating little phrases over and over because he likes the way they feel. I remember reading that chapter and thinking Oh GOOD! I thought it was just me!!!! But it's not just me--I dare you to say the word "llama" ten times in a row. You won't be able to stop. Your mouth will want more. Trust me--I've done a series of rigorous empirical studies alone in my room at odd hours. Plus I have Calvin and Hobbes to back me up:




There's another side to the coin, though. God, that's a stupid expression. Of course there's another side to a coin. There's no such thing as a one-sided coin, and if there is, it's one of those things that physicists or Zen masters talk about--what is the sound of one hand clapping? Well gee, Frank, I'd say it's pretty similar to the sound of a one-sided coin being flipped.

What was I talking about? Right.

There are words that feel and sound unpleasant. I'm sure in many cases it's a personal thing, but how many people have you known that have recoiled at the word moist? I swear, nine out of ten people hate that word. And no wonder. It sort of slimes its way out of your mouth to droop damply in the air. Bleh. (And to think--this is a word that describes CAKE!)

I really do have serious word aversion problems. There are words I simply will not use, if I can help it. It makes it hard to play Boggle sometimes, because I spend precious seconds deciding whether or not I like a word enough to use it. I can't help myself. I don't like my words to have too many hard consonants--it sort of feels like I'm choking to get them out, and I don't like spitting on people when I'm trying to have a conversation. For a similar reason, I sort of dislike words that begin with "sl--." It's a difficult combination of letters to enunciate, and lots of words in that category have unpleasant connotations; slime, slug, sluggish, slack, sludge. There are lots of other words and sounds that I dislike, but I'm going to stop rambling on about them, because I'm grossing myself out. I will leave you with this (which I found AFTER I wrote this whole post, and pretty much makes my entire point in six panels...sigh...)

french onion soup

library day

Tomorrow is library day! My brain was beginning to turn into sludge, but after tomorrow, I'll have a whole new pile of books to read. Hopefully this batch will be better than the last one...I don't know what my problem was, but I really picked some awful books. Very disappointing. Normally, my M.O. is to browse authors that I know I like, or topics that I specifically want to read about, or sections where I know I'll find something good (like the cookbook section). I pick those books out first, and then I make my way over to the fantasy and romance sections for a couple of guilty-pleasure books (I can't pass up a good historical bodice-ripping romance novel. They are my kryptonite). Last week, though, I just half-assed the whole process and scooped a whole bunch of books into my bag pretty much based on the number of heaving bosoms on the covers. Predictably, I was forced to reap the consequences. I grabbed three books in a series because they had appropriately swashbuckling titles, at least two of the book covers featured a man in flowing sleeves on a horse, and all three of the books in the series were present on the shelf. That was the worst decision ever, because after one chapter of the first book, I KNEW it was a bad series, but I also KNEW that I had been sucked in, so I'd just have to read all three. I was bitter about it. It wasn't fun. The series did not improve. My attempt at a "legit" book went south, too. I picked a short novel by Phillip Roth, not because he's an author I like, but because I know for a fact that some people consider him a Real Writer. I heard about it on the internet. Anyway, the book was horrible and depressing and about pain and death and Jewish humor, and there's only so much of any of those categories that I can take. But tomorrow! Redemption. And probably more heaving bosoms.

In a totally unrelated, but very sweet story, CNN is currently running a story about how Stevie Wonder gave one of his keyboards to a Haitian violinist who survived the earthquake in Port-Au-Prince. The guys was injured in about twenty different and horrific ways; both his hands were hurt, one of his legs is being held together with metal pins--he's a big mess. But he said that he wanted a keyboard because he missed his music and wasn't able to play the violin because his hands had been so badly damaged. So Stevie Wonder sent him one of his own keyboards. I just wanted to share that because now I feel bad for not really liking any of Stevie Wonder's songs. Oh well. Just because I'm tired of hearing "Isn't She Lovely" doesn't mean that Stevie Wonder's not a great guy. The full CNN interview is here, if you want to watch it.

meta monday

I will be the first to admit that some odd little thoughts come out of my head. Frequently. Like:

Does Oprah ever pause for a hot second to go "holy crap, I'm Oprah" ? I mean, I don't really have a strong opinion one way or the other on Oprah...she does a lot of philanthropic stuff, but then again she also publishes her own magazine and puts herself on the cover every month. Helloooo, ego. She's one of the most famous people ever in the history of ever, so does she have those out-of-body moments and realize that gajillions of people read The Kite Runner because she told them to? It's got to be a bizarre life. I don't envy her. But if she wanted to give me a free car, I wouldn't say no.

I measure my workdays in snacks. The way my job works is that I'm either scrambling to get ten things done at once, or nothing at ALL is happening. It's usually the latter. So every couple of hours I trot out a snack, and it makes the day easier to get through. I'm a much happier person when I can look forward to string-cheese-o' clock.

I miss playing Where In Time Is Carmen Sandiego? That was a great game. I liked it a lot. Carmen Sandiego was baller--I remember watching the TV show occasionally, but Wishbone was more my thing. I never had the computer game of Where In the World Is Carmen Sandiego, either. This might explain (or at least quantify) my abysmally poor grasp of world geography. I'm so bad at geography that not even a sexy redhead in a trenchcoat can make me retain where Angola is.

I'm experiencing some spiritual distress at the idea of Folgers' coffee in a tea bag. I mean, there is absolutely no reason why a small paper bag at the end of a string could not be used to steep ground coffee in hot water. I'm sure it makes a perfectly serviceable cup of coffee. But for some reason I feel as if a sacred boundary has been crossed. Coffee is tea and tea is coffee and I JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT TO BELIEVE ANY MORE. (I have the stupidest existential crises ever!)

Anyway, those are my thoughts, and now I need to go because it's string-cheese-o'clock. I'll leave you with this:
Happy Monday, everybody.

apple to apple

i did it for the gnocchi

One of the things I love most about cooking...

is how just a few ingredients,

combined in the right way with some heat and a lot of love,

can become something that is much greater than the sum of its parts.

...and plus, you get to eat it.

For the recipe that accompanies these delicious pictures, simply click on the following phrase:

I love Anna's cooking and agree to become her willing slave in exchange for pasta.

This hyperlink may or may not constitute a binding contract. Thank you.

this haymaker is for jesus.

Here's an interesting article that I came across while browsing the New York Times website--and by interesting I mean fascinating from a cultural point of view but with a healthy side order of deeply disturbing. The article covers a small but growing movement in some evangelical churches of promoting mixed-martial-arts fighting among their ministries as a way of attracting, converting and retaining young men, a much sought-after demographic. The churches often double as fight academies, and the young men take part in matches--allowing plenty of time for prayer beforehand, of course.

The obvious point is that it's not really anything new for religious fervor to fit right alongside a zeal for fighting (hello, understatement). In fact, if inserting a little machismo into churchgoing and butching up the image of Jesus is what keeps these kids motivated and out of trouble, then that's great. I just can't imagine that the ministers/coaches are teaching open-mindedness or tolerance along with the ability to kick the shit out of people. That's the problem with an organization as single-minded as the evangelical church. I know no more about fighting than I know about applied economics, hairstyling, or NASCAR (which is to say nothing at all), but even I know that the best fighter is the one who has the intelligence and breadth of experience to assess his opponent and choose his battles. The person with the unbendable assertion that he is in the right and who applies brute force in all directions isn't anything more than a bully. I'd just like to point out how alarmingly shrewd these churches are, and how absurd the combination of faith and fistfighting is.