December 2010
32 posts
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Blizzards and blowhards, part II
Where were we yesterday? So Providence mayor David Cicilline was blamed for not averting the 2007 “December debacle” by former Providence mayor (and convicted felon) Buddy Cianci. Let me tell you about Buddy. Buddy was the most corrupt mayor Providence ever had, and that’s saying something. He got out of jail a few years ago – he was in for racketeering, by the way – and...
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Blizzards and blowhards, part I
Rhode Island just had another “blizzard.” It was a scrawny little blizzard, let me tell you. We had maybe ten inches of powdery snow, although it looked ferocious, what with all the blustery wind and such. You must understand that Rhode Island has a thing about snow. Back in early 1978, there was a big unexpected snowfall that brought the state to a halt for several days. People were...
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The dumbification of America
There was a recent piece on Nova.com about the new Spider-Man musical. The blogger was okay with the musical, but didn’t like the idea that the villains are mad scientists. Why make scientists the bad guys? I usually have little sympathy with people whining about fictional victims. Fiction has featured mad scientists for a long time, and the USA doesn’t have a monopoly on them:...
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The royals
Partner and I saw “The King’s Speech” on Sunday. Geoffrey Rush is especially notable as the nonconformist speech therapist who says disrespectful things, but says them with love. Firth is the Duke of York / King George VI, full of bottled-up rage, but a pukka sahib nonetheless. It’s probably a harder acting job than Rush’s, but it isn’t as flashy. There are...
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Coming attractions: art-house edition
Partner and I slogged through the snow up to the Avon Cinema to see “The King’s Speech” on Sunday afternoon. The theater is very cute, very close to the Brown campus, with the usual wacky / eccentric college-town crowd. They’ve been playing the same recordings of Chopin and Scarlatti and Mozart piano favorites before the feature since at least 1978. And to confirm their ironic...
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Sunday blog: The great pumpkin
For me, pumpkins were always decorative accessories. Carve them, or perch them on a fencepost, and then throw them at the neighbor kids on November 1. I’m partial to pumpkin pie, but the transition from Big Orange Doorstop to soft gooey pie-filling seemed like too much work. Besides, you can buy a nice can of One-Pie for a very reasonable price. But I had a brain wave this year. I...
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Christmas blog: Happy holidays with Run DMC
Wishing everyone a very happy Christmas 1987: new sneakers, and macaroni and cheese, and a dog with reindeer horns, and Mom chasing an elf out of the house with a broom. Posted via email from FutureWorld: everyday life in the third millennium | Comment »
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Repost: Minty, the candy cane who fell on the...
I posted this new Christmas classic last Sunday, but I used the YouTube link, and it got nuked by the copyright police. So I did my homework, and this link seems to be legal. “Never fear / ‘Cause Minty’s here / And he’ll make Christmas excellent …” Posted via email from FutureWorld: everyday life in the third millennium | Comment »...
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Christmas Eve blog: Santa Baby
Blogger’s rule: if it’s a Sunday, or a holiday, or anything even remotely resembling a holiday, I can post something unoriginal and interesting. This is very interesting. Ladies and gentlemen: Miss Eartha Kitt (of blessed memory), performing “Santa Baby.” Posted via email from FutureWorld: everyday life in the third...
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Bad Santa
As a kid, I loved Christmas: toys and lights and reindeer. But I was also vaguely aware that my mother hated Christmas, and I never quite understood why. Now I am all grown up (and then some), and now I understand my mother’s point. Blighted hopes. Overblown expectations. Social obligations. Evidently my mother and I are not alone. For some time now, television has...
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New England light
I am a New Englander by adoption, not by birth. I’ve only been here for 32 years, which means I’m still a newcomer, though I have been (grudgingly) accepted by a few of the locals. But I love it here. I love the look of the place. I love the grubby grungy streets of Providence, and the tired little villages with churches and liquor stores side by side, and the worn-looking...
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The fighter
Partner and I saw “The Fighter” on Sunday. Partly it’s because I have a, hmm, thing for Mark Wahlberg. I saw him on the cover of Sports Illustrated last week, wearing nothing but boxing trunks and a smile. I nearly passed out. But I also kind of like boxing movies. It’s the only subgenre of sports movies I enjoy. Basketball movies are dull, with the exception of “Space Jam”;...
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Coming attractions II
Back to the Showcase Cinema: two large Diet Cokes and two seats close to the aisle.
But first, the previews:
No Strings Attached. This is the third time I’ve seen this preview, and every time I see it, Ashton Kutcher looks more and more like my fat unmarried cousin. Why do they keep casting him as a cute young stud? And doesn’t Natalie Portman have better things to do? Evidently...
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The passing of Captain Beefheart
A brief note in the Times on Friday evening: Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, has died at the age of 69, from complications of multiple sclerosis. The Captain was slightly too far out for me back in the 60s and 70s. I thought his friend Zappa was a lot of fun, and I always found Zappa pretty accessible. Captain Beefheart, on the other hand, was usually obscure and frequently...
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The ickiness of children
Partner and I saw the new Narnia movie last weekend. I read the whole Narnia saga in my early teens, having been lent the whole set of books by an earnest missionary-type neighbor during one of my stabs at Christianity. I remember only bits and pieces of the story, but I do remember that the character of Eustace was entertainingly unpleasant (Lewis likes writing about bad children, and does it...
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In dreams
I write my dreams down, when I remember them. I’m not sure why, except that I have a sense (as do we all, probably) that I’m a completely fascinating person, and everything about me is wonderful. And maybe I will learn secrets from my inner self. So far, however, not much valuable info has come to light. I don’t have many bad dreams. Once in a while I have...
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Sports for dummies
I grew up as a scrawny nerd and never paid any attention to sports or athletics. Partner, on the other hand, is a tough old screwball, and used to hang out with the Boston Bruins, and he claims he actually took a bath in the Stanley Cup, or something, I forget. Well, you know how they say that spouses grow more and more like one another? Apparently all those TV football games and...
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Bananarama II: Whole wheat banana bread
By request. This is taken from the King Arthur cookbook, with a few (very small) adjustments.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cream together:
1 stick (½ cup) butter
1 cup sugar
Add to mixture:
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2-3 mashed bananas (be generous)
In another bowl, mix together:
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
Blend the liquid ingredients into the dry...
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Bananarama
Partner suggested a few weeks ago that I make banana bread. I found a nice wholesome recipe for it in the King Arthur cookbook, and after tweaking it a little (more raisins, more walnuts), I have become very partial to it; I just baked my fourth loaf in ten days. It is very aromatic and spicy and enticing. But it struck me the other evening that, apart from a little vanilla, there...
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I love you, Tyler Brule
I like reading the Financial Times. It makes me feel smart and cosmopolitan. I like the almost-unvarying reaction of people around me when I read it: “Excuse me, why is your newspaper that color?” (It’s printed on its own unique salmon-colored paper, so everyone knows you’re reading the FT. Even their website is that color.) I mostly like the crossword puzzles. Ahem,...
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Sunday blog: Mind and heart
For the third Sunday of Advent: one of my favorite bits of Wallace Stevens. To be read aloud. * Day is the children’s friend. It is Marianna’s Swedish cart. It is that and a very big hat. Confined by what they see, Aquiline pedants treat the cart As one of the relics of the heart, They treat the philosopher’s hat, Left thoughtlessly behind, ...
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Totalitarian beefcake
I think our fascination with famous people comes from the same brain cells that brew up our religious impulses. Celebrity worship is sort of like regular worship, right? We imbue famous people with all kinds of qualities they might or not possess. We imagine that they live in a combination Valhalla / Wonderland / Ritz Carlton. We assume they’re all peers (some on a higher level...
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Nook vs. book
I’m doing my holiday shopping as I always do: watching for some little adorable thing for myself. What fun is gift-shopping if you don’t buy yourself a little something along the way? I had thought that this might be the year to give myself an e-reader. Imagine carrying a whole library around with you! I’ve researched them enough to know some of the differences (WiFi / 3G...
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Java jive
Frank Bruni had an article in the Times recently about making the perfect cup of coffee. He went from automatic drip to French press to Chemex (which spat boiling water into his eye) to something called the Hario system, which is basically like performing the Japanese tea ceremony every time you want a cup of coffee. I love a good cup of coffee, especially after a nice dinner. My morning...
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All I want for Christmas is a little situational...
I was on the treadmill at the health club last night when “A Charlie Brown Christmas” came on TV. Oh, good, I thought, nostalgia. But, my goodness, ABC packed in lots of commercials! I kept checking the clock and thinking: There’s no way they can finish this in half an hour. Are they going to cut the ending somehow? They did not cut the ending. They jammed the show double-full of...
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Who's a good boy?
I was never much of a dog lover when I was young. We had one when I was a kid – a misbegotten cross between a chow and a husky, which resulted in a gigantic husky-sized chow with a purple tongue and a bad attitude. I went without pets until years later in Tunisia, when I inherited a bipolar tomcat named Nimmer. Nimmer went feral every winter, then came home again in the spring for sardines...
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But I'm an intellectual!
In late November, Steve Martin went to the 92nd Street YMCA in New York City to discuss his new novel, “An Object of Beauty,” with an art critic from the New York Times, in front of a paying audience. The YMCA has since offered a refund to spectators, saying that the session “did not meet the standard of excellence” they were accustomed to offer. It was a discussion about art and the...
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Sunday blog: We can dance if we want to
For the Second Sunday of Advent: a song and a dance. “And you can act real rude and totally removed / And I can act like an imbecile … “ Posted via email from FutureWorld: media and culture in the new millennium | Comment »
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The earth abideth forever, but human beings not so...
I recently bought James Lovelock’s most recent book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia. Lovelock’s body of work revolves around the concept he calls the Gaia Hypothesis, which goes something like this (scientists in the crowd, please forgive me): The earth as a whole behaves in the manner of a living organism. This is largely (if not totally) because of the existence of life on earth. ...
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In memory
I came to work on the Monday after Thanksgiving, and the office was still pretty quiet; a lot of people were still out. One of my friends, just down the hall, was out too. I missed her, but she often took Mondays off, and she’d been sick a lot lately, so I didn’t worry too much. I looked forward to seeing her on Tuesday.
I found out on Monday afternoon that she’d died. ...
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The electrical-tape solution
We were visiting Partner’s mother a few years ago when Partner noticed a wide strip of black electrical tape blocking the bottom three inches of her TV screen. “They’re always running some stupid thing down there,” his mother said. (I am editing out some of the more colorful language.) “I hate that stuff. I don’t need to read anything at the bottom of the...
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To serve man
Doris Lessing, in her novel “Shikasta,” looks at Earth from the point of view of an enlightened alien race. The aliens are perturbed by (among other things) our love of food. No other race in the universe thinks and talks about food as much as we do, apparently. We even write about it, and we actually travel from place to place for a good meal.
Yes, okay.
Partner and I (both Earthlings)...