March 2012
1 post
5 tags
Stuffed animals and senile dementia
I have always loved stuffed animals: they are goofy and cute and soft and they make comfortable pillows. I still have my childhood teddy bear, which (after so many decades) is now completely hideous; it sits high up on a shelf in my bedroom, in comfortable retirement, surveying everything. It saw a lot of hard work back in the 1950s and 1960s, and it needs its rest. What (or whom)...
February 2012
31 posts
9 tags
The stars last weekend
I don’t know if you were out after dark last weekend, or looked out a west-facing window. If not, you missed quite a show. The very young crescent moon, Venus, and Jupiter were all together in the western sky shortly after sunset. On Friday it was (top to bottom) Jupiter-Venus-moon, in a long curving line; then, on Saturday night, the moon and Venus were making out, right next to each...
4 tags
Expiration dates
I tend to mock expiration dates. As Peg Bundy memorably said on the old “Married … With Children”: “It doesn’t say ‘Use before this date.’ It says: ‘Best if used before this date.’” Amen to that. I am dubious of expiration dates, because I recall things sitting in the cupboard and the fridge for literally decades back when I was a kid. And we still used them. And I’m still...
The Academy Awards telecast, February 26, 2012
Last year I did a little running commentary on the Oscar telecast with James Franco and Anne Hathaway. This year I will attempt it again.
8:30pm, Eastern Standard Time. It’s Billy Crystal! He leaps from movie to movie in a crazy montage (James and Anne did the same thing last year), kisses George Clooney, gets to muss up Tom Cruise, does one of his own lines from “Princess Bride.” ...
5 tags
Music video: the Bangles sing "Walk Like an...
There are video slot machines (you can find them in just about any casino) called “Pharaoh’s Fortune,” with a big King Tut wearing sunglasses on top. This song plays every time you spin the reels. You get longer selections during bonus rounds. So now I associate it with gambling. All together now: All the old paintings on the tomb They do the sand dance, don’cha...
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Why Ron Paul should not ever ever be President of...
I wrote the first draft of this blog just after the Iowa caucus, and I am revising it after the Florida primary. The Iowa caucus is something between a state fair and a freakshow; it mostly demonstrates the voting preferences of white evangelical Christians with nothing better to do on a cold Tuesday night in January in Iowa. The other primaries thus far have also been freakshows, as far...
4 tags
Atheists and why you should avoid talking to them
I found the most delightful piece of Sunday-school instructional material on Tumblr recently (see illustration above). It’s a sketch of an atheist – “Mr. Gruff” – drawn as a goat, wearing a bathrobe, holding a cup of coffee. “Bah!” he says. “I don’t believe in anything! I’m staying home on Sunday!”
Most thrilling of all are the instructions given below the illustration. TELL YOUR...
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Why I should probably stop trying to talk about...
I was never much of a sports fan, so I have a hard time picking up the lingo. Partner is a diehard sports fan (football, hockey, baseball), and I have picked up some odds and ends from him. It was also helpful to have a college football player working for me last summer; he had obviously explained the sport to his elderly female relatives, so he knew all the right terms to use to help me...
6 tags
Madonna
My goodness, how Madonna has evolved over the years! “Material Girl.” “Papa Don’t Preach.” “Celebration.” Warren Beatty. “Sex.” Sean Penn. “Vogue.” “Truth or Dare.” Pointy bra. “Like a Virgin.” A true original. And a true pain in the ass. Then she married Guy Ritchie and moved to England, and became, apparently, the Duchess of Absolutely Everything. ...
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Downton Abbey
I have strenuously avoided writing about “Downton Abbey” before now. Like many others, I learned about the show after it had begun, and Partner and I started late, but we directly fell under its spell. We finished watching the second season the other night, and – whew! Affairs, murder, sudden death, imprisonment, scandal, the Great War, Spanish influenza, amnesia! I need to lie on my...
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For Presidents' Day: "Mark Twain as a Presidential...
This little gem from the Library of America came along in my email yesterday morning, just in time for the Presidents’ Day holiday. I have to admit that Mark Twain is not my favorite writer, but this piece is pretty funny; it is brief, and savage, and it has not aged a bit since it was written in 1879. I have pretty much made up my mind to run for President. What the country...
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For Sunday: Lady Gaga sings "Bad Romance"
I cannot believe I haven’t posted this video here before. It is spectacular. Ladies and gentlemen: Lady Gaga singing (and performing, in multifarious ways) the song “Bad Romance.”
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Home remedies for kidney stones
Ever since my diagnosis with kidney stones, I have been a very good boy. I drink coffee only until noon each day, and water thereafter. I have stopped drinking Coca-Cola altogether, as one of the websites I consulted recommended discontinuing “dark beverages.” And then there are the home remedies. Here’s one: six cans of Coca-Cola, twenty minutes apart. Then puree one can...
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Why I should learn to swim
I don’t think anyone in my family really knows how to swim. I think my brother Leonard can swim a little, but that’s it. We didn’t have a pool when I was a kid. Nor did we live near placid clean bodies of water. The local swimmin’ holes – the Lewis River, the Columbia River, Battle Ground Lake – were either too brisk or rocky for swimming, or big bowls of tepid water and...
4 tags
RuPaul's Drag Race, season four
I just need to check in with you on the new season (Season Four!) of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” Okay. You know I love it, and I would love it even if it were awful. So read on. This season is different, in a lot of ways (and I’m only writing this after the third episode!). The contestants are edgier, less pretty. Ru is exploring drag, I think; he’s exploring what it says about...
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"We don't have a TV"
I was talking to a new guy in the office the other day. I said: “Do you watch ‘The Simpsons’?” And he said: “Oh, we don’t have a TV.” I swear, it’s like saying “We don’t have electricity,” or “We haven’t put in one of those newfangled flush toilets yet.” It happens at least a couple of times a year: someone telling me that he/she doesn’t have a TV, or that he/she doesn’t watch...
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For Valentine's Day: Paul McCartney sings "Martha...
I couldn’t think of anything appropriate for today. Then I thought of this: Paul McCartney’s love song to his sheepdog Martha. Hold your hand out, you silly girl; see what you’ve done … Happy Valentine’s Day. 09_Track_9.mp3 Listen on Posterous
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Movie review: "The Man Who Came To Dinner"
Of the making of movies there is no end. I used to think it was possible to see them all, every single one of them. Of course, that was back in the 1970s, and there were a lot fewer movies back then. Since then – well, the mind boggles. I have given up on that particular life goal. But there are so many good movies back in the vaults! That’s why I treasure TCM. They trot them...
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For Sunday: Sinead O'Connor sings "Nothing...
I have loved Sinead O’Connor ever since that special night in 1992 when she ripped up a picture of the Pope on “Saturday Night Live.” Here, one of her best-known songs. Enjoy.
6 tags
Bananaland
I discovered a nice sansevieria plant in the garbage at work recently. I rescued it and repotted it and put it in my window; then I looked online to see how best to take care of it. On one particular website I found these two gems: “Likes bright sunlight,” and “Keep out of bright sunlight.” Welcome to Bananaland. I first learned about Bananaland from my friend Joanne, when we...
6 tags
The joy of soy
Normally I buy a pint of milk once every two weeks. I use maybe half of it, on cereal and in occasional baking/cooking projects. Then I buy a new one and throw the old one away. Expensive and wasteful. But what’s to be done? Well, there’s soy milk, naturally. And cashew milk, and almond milk, and all kinds of other things. I tried soy milk about two years ago. I was...
5 tags
Kidney stones
Gather round, children. Momma has some pretty awful news. She has a kidney stone. I’ve suspected this for some time, actually. I’ve suffered with a dull ache in my lower back for years, centralized right around where I know my kidney to be. My doctor insisted I was mistaken, my urine tests were clear, it was just a muscle cramp, blah blah blah. Well, now we have X-ray...
8 tags
Super Bowl XLVI
As you are probably aware, New England lost the Super Bowl last weekend. Partner retreated into the other room immediately after the end of the game. He does not like losing. He is a born New Englander, and he is used to losing, but he prefers to win. The Red Sox have finally broken their losing streak – twice over the last decade - and the Bruins won the Stanley Cup just last...
6 tags
Salt
Food has gotten very fancy. My mother never in her life used pure vanilla extract; imitation vanilla extract was good enough for her. But nowadays? If you’re not using pure vanilla extract – and Madagascar vanilla at that – you’d better just slit your throat. (Unless, of course, you purchase fresh vanilla beans and scrape the seeds into your project. In this case, we will...
12 tags
The painting over the sofa
I was reading a little vignette about a writer I’d never heard of, Nathan Englander, in the Financial Times a few days ago. He is evidently an up-and-coming genius of 42. I have decided that I don’t like him. The FT often does something like the Proust questionnaire with certain celebrities. They ask them questions from a list: What’s your favorite virtue? What do you most...
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For Sunday: "Mad World," by Tears For Fears
This is a necessary song. I never heard it before a few years ago, and I am desperately sorry I hadn’t heard it earlier; it’s been around since the 1980s. It rose to prominence after being featured in the movie “Donnie Darko,” apparently. Well, hell, who cares. It’s a great song. And this is a great (and creepy) little video. The dancing! The skinny man clutching the window...
4 tags
The pioneer way
The other day I found myself thinking about homemade baked goods. So, that evening, after half an hour on the treadmill at the Boston Sports Club, I popped down to the supermarket and bought a pack of Betty Crocker Rainbow Chocolate Candy Cookie Mix. Approximately forty-five minutes later, Partner and I were sharing a nice plate of warm homemade cookies. Yes, I know, “homemade” is...
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Recipe: Huguenot torte
The following is an indispensable recipe, good for using up apples that are maybe a little past their prime. You could also use pears, I think, though I’ve never tried it. And certainly you could use walnuts instead of pecans. I’ve reduced the amount of sugar in the original recipe (New York Times, 1965), and I often use wildly different proportions than those given here. Feel...
9 tags
For Groundhog Day: Richard Eberhart's "The...
What to give you for Groundhog Day? I wanted very much to share a clip of Rudy Vallee and Robert Morse singing the “Groundhog Song” from the movie version of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” but all I could find on YouTube were audio recordings of Rudy and Robert, and tons of really awful college / neighborhood productions of the same. So nerts to that. ...
6 tags
James Joyce: free at last!
I love James Joyce. I prize the facsimile 1922 edition of “Ulysses” I bought in Limerick in 2008 (hey, it’s paperback, but it’s from the Auld Sod, so phfffft.) I have tried to read “Finnegans Wake” so many times that I’ve lost count. (I can recite bits of it, mostly from the first fifteen pages.) What I love best is the play of his language: the way he bounces words off one...
I Don’t Care About Your Invisible Jeebus →
wareq:
“But from where I stand these days, the only thing I see religion doing in the public sector is gay bashing and telling women, mostly poor and desperate and in deplorable financial and personal situations, what to do with their bodies. I see busybodies deciding what drugs they can dispense to which customers, or deciding that they don’t have to issue a marriage license because of some...
January 2012
34 posts
10 tags
Margaret Dumont
TCM recently ran a Marx Brothers marathon. I caught bits of “Horse Feathers,” and afterward my very favorite, “Duck Soup.” I like so many things about the Marx Brothers’ movies: the freedom, the cleverness of the dialogue, the stupid obviousness of the slapstick bits, the bizarre/surreal quality of many of the gags, even the sudden lapses into sentimentality when they stop to...
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Movie review: “The Artist”
Partner and I have not seen very many of this year’s Academy Award nominees: only “The Descendants” and “The Help,” in fact. We decided to remedy this by going to “The Artist” last weekend. Hmm. If you haven’t heard, this is a modern black-and-white silent movie (well, “silent” in that it has no spoken dialogue; there’s a lively musical background patched together from classic...
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For Sunday: Neneh Cherry sings "Buffalo Stance"
Another 1980s video! This one grew more and more appealing as I watched it over and over again, trudging on the treadmill. I like the goofy graphics, and the almost-serious lyrics: No moneyman can win my love It’s sweetness that I’m thinking of We always hang in a Buffalo Stance We do the dive every time we dance I’ll give you love, baby, not romance, I’ll make a move,...
8 tags
SOPA, PIPA, piracy, lending, and freedom
I wrote about SOPA and PIPA a few weeks ago. It now looks as if Congress is going to try again to push these pieces of legislation through, in a very slightly altered format. The corporations are pushing them, you see; they feel that they’re losing money, and that the only way to prevent this is to prevent people from posting stuff like songs, and quotes, and interviews, and video...
8 tags
The effect of Tom Brady on middle-aged women and...
The day after the big Patriots-Ravens game, everyone was talking about the Patriots victory, and about Tom Brady. This is an approximation of the conversation between me and my workfriends Cathleen and Apollonia: “I didn’t think he was cute before. I’m sort of coming around to him.” “Oh, he’s just fine.” “Meh. Not my type.” “Well, but he’s growing into...
8 tags
Paula Deen, diabetes queen
I have written about Paula Deen at least twice before. She is one of those (you should pardon the expression) larger-than-life people who command your attention.
Her backstory is admirable. She had something like agoraphobia, needed to work, started cooking and baking and selling food, and is now a small industry herself. She is cheerful and funny.
Her recipes are atrocious. Do I need...
6 tags
Joe Paterno
I watched ESPN’s SportsCenter the other night while I was on the treadmill at the health club. (The mere fact that I am watching sports programming should be taken as a sign that 2012 is definitely going to be the end of the world.) I can’t endure listening to sportscasters, for the most part; they do nothing but spout empty clichés. Before the game, they pretend to know what’s...
7 tags
Tim Thomas, Barack Obama, and free speech
I was checking my BlackBerry yesterday when I was brought up with an “Urk!” by the following Providence Journal newsbrief: Bruins goalie Tim Thomas, the biggest hero of the team’s Stanley Cup championship run of last year, declined to join his teammates during today’s visit to the White House. Team officials indicated that the decision had to do with political...
mikerickson asked: I came up with the recipe when I was living at my parent's place after graduating college this past summer. The name of the town they live in is "Tuckerton" and it seemed fitting to give it that name.
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SOPA and PIPA
As a citizen of the Internet, I assume you’re aware of SOPA/PIPA. It looks as if both houses of Congress have tabled the original versions of the legislation (largely because of the huge anti-SOPA/PIPA movement here on the Net), and are rewriting them to be more specific. I am uninformed, and can only tell you my feelings on these pieces of legislation. Very simply: I...
5 tags
Music video: Vanessa Carlton sings “A Thousand...
If this song sounds familiar to you, that’s because Zales used an instrumental version of it in their TV advertisements for a long time. The tune beguiled me for a long time until I finally looked it up and discovered the waifish Vanessa Carlton. (This, incidentally, is one of my eat-ice-cream-and-cry-softly-to-myself songs. So nyah. You know you’ve got one too.) (And...
7 tags
The iPhone 5: dream big!
Tatiana, one of my student employees, sent me a link to a YouTube video a few weeks ago. “You have to see this,” she messaged. I was as blown away as she was. It it (if you’re too lazy to follow the link) a conceptual video of the features the iPhone 5 might have. In brief: as thin as a playing card. Able to display a virtual keyboard (which can be manipulated and enlarged) on...
7 tags
Selaginella kraussiana
I was charging around Eastside Marketplace recently, buying chips and sardines and onions and other necessary things, when I made a detour through the garden section. And I found the most adorable little display of potted plants. They were frothy little yellow-green fellows, with fern-like fronds, tipped with silver. They were labeled “FROSTY FERN.” But I recognized them...
8 tags
Northwest winter
You are sick of listening to me moan and groan about the unseasonal weather, and climate change, and all such hippie tree-hugger liberal talk, I know. So I will zip my lip and say no more. (Rhode Island has hardly had any snow this winter so far, by the way. Our winter has been positively balmy. I walked downtown with no coat - just a sweater - the other day. The grass is still...
11 tags
Movie review: "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"
We saw “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” on Monday. (Yes, two movies in one weekend. Partner and I are decadent capitalists, I know. We also had Chinese food at an excellent little neighborhood place near the theater both times. So sue us.) The movie is a dark little exercise in Cold War espionage. If you need cheering up, do not see this movie. Gary Oldman, as spy supreme George...
10 tags
Jersey shore, season five
The new season of “Jersey Shore” blew in unexpectedly; I thought our DVR was mistakenly recording old episodes from previous seasons. Then we saw Pauly D. on a talk show, and saw clips from the new season, and thought: oh my god, we’re missing it! As with the (rancid) cream of the reality shows – “Bridezillas,” “A List: New York,” “A List: Dallas” – you can’t look away. It’s like...
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Movie review: "The Iron Lady"
We went to see “The Iron Lady” on Saturday. Correction: we went to see Meryl Streep on Saturday. If it had been anyone else in the role (with the possible exception of Helen Mirren), I don’t think we would have rushed out to see it. How much, after all, does anyone really care about the Falklands war? Streep does not disappoint. She becomes Margaret Thacher, beady-eyed and...