i love this title for its versatility. for example:
1) replace ' with "wh" and you get Whole Mole, as in an entire furry creature that plagues gardeners.
2) replace ' with "h" and it's Hole Mole, as in a mole hole.
3) pronounce the single "e" as a double "ee" and get "Holee Molee," which is scarily similar to Holy Moly.
4) pronounce it as a spaniard would and you have "Olay Molay," which is scarily similar to the anglo expression "Holy Moly."
so is this blog about moles the unit of measurement, moles the furry animal, moles the mexican sauces, whole holes, holy wholes, or the annoying cheerleaders of the english language, those perky, flexible, ever-present homonyms?
i'll take "what is the most famous distinguishing mark of puebla, mexico, to an uncultured american-centric oaf like myself?" for $46.78.
if you've never had a great mole poblano, i can now officially pity you, as i have finally had a great one myself. a week ago i could only say that i had disappointing moles, some of which tasted only of chocolate and others that tasted like spiced mud. it is funny to me when people refer to mole poblano as "that mexican chocolate sauce," given that the recipe i attempted called for 6 ounces of chocolate vs 20 dried chiles, 1 lb tomatoes, 1 lb tomatillos, plantains, etc. at the risk of making a completely inappropriate analogy, does having a tiny percentage of chocolate make it a chocolate sauce just as being 1/16 black makes one a "colored person?"
i confess: it was egullet.org, combined with too much time and boredom, that prompted me to tackle this 7 hour recipe. a $46.78 trip to the grocery later, i had all the ingredients i needed plus fresca and diet gingerale for hydration.
the recipe consists of a lot of toasting, poaching, blending (in a food processor), sauteeing. there was only one truly frightening moment: frying the chile puree. commentary had warned, "exploding chiles all over my kitchen! cover well!" this was shortly after i had delved deep into the gumbo archives on egullet and had learned that the roux i'd been making for 5 years or so is also known as "cajun napalm." apparently roux sticks to everything and can burn down to the bone --- as one poster wrote, "as i washed the burn under water my skin came peeling off, then flesh, exposing bone." yowch. in horrified shock, i combined the fear of toxic cajun napalm with the dread of burning hot chile puree and melted into a neurotic mess. this is partly why the process took two days: 1 day prep, 1 night to build up my courage, day 2 storm the fort.
and storm the fort i did. two potholders that went down to my elbow. ratty old tshirt that wouldn't complain if it looked like a bloody battlefield and tasted like a bloody mary (extra hot!) not one, but TWO splashguards. glasses to protect my eyes. long wooden spatula, AND i placed the pot on the back burner, just to be safe. and then pouring the puree....
"BOOM! BAM! whop! FOOM! PSSSSHHH! hisssssssssssssssss! CRUK! FOW! whrrrrrrrrm!"
was how everyone else had described it. but no, my pot went a bit like this: "pssssssssssssssss."
that was it! a sort of disgruntled murmur, and then acquiescence. a deflating balloon. a fish peeing in the sea. dumping the trinity in roux (for gumbo) created more of a fuss. adding cream to caramel was like gettysburg compared to this! WHAT??!!! i felt betrayed by the potency of my chile puree. i wanted a do-over. i wanted to throttle each little ancho, pasilla, and guajillo pepper and cry, "I TOASTED YOU WITH MY OWN TWO HANDS! I LOVINGLY DESEEDED AND DESTEMMED YOU! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME????!!!!!"
so then i stripped myself of all my protective gear and ran to check the recipe.
oh.
see, frying the chile puree calls for 1/2 cup. i had memorized this as 1/4. then i thought, well to avoid all that oil, i'll just reduce it by a little bit, say, 2 tablespoons instead of 3.
in the end there just wasn't enough oil to bite back like it should have.
nevertheless, my mole still kicks butt. as in, your butt. as in, all of your butts that have never made a mole poblano FROM SCRATCH before, which i'm pretty sure is all of your butts. and next time, i promise.....
FOOM!
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Friday, May 25, 2007
Non-tetrapod chordate-ing...
...is my new hobby. admittedly, i wear hobbies like most women wear handbags, but in this case if time allows it, it just might stick like that coach bag no woman can ever give up.
my first experience with non-tetrapod chordate-catching was with my dad, in my youth, using stinkbait for catfish. i do not remember much about the trip except for the stench in the minivan, catching a hook through my left index finger, and casting my very first cast into a tree on a sandbar (non-rescuable, line was cut, game was over, i was sad). i could not have been more than 10, and the shame and pain of that single failed cast has haunted me until....
well, four days ago, to be exact. that was when we boldly marched into a lodge of a west virginia campground at 8 in the morning, bought our licenses, received somewhat confused instructions on how to reach the closest bait and tackle shop, bought poles and minnows and nightcrawlers, and began our journey to angler-dom.
we didn't get to start until 9:30...admittedly late for fishing, but the most pressing issue when we began was how on earth to drive a sharp metal point through a tiny gasping fish, or how to cut a wriggling, angry nightcrawler into pieces to then be skewered on this point. we were a comical mess, using latex gloves to avoid sliminess and dropping bait and generally looking like citified fools. but then....the first cast!
after a while we were joined by a very old, adorable, west virginia couple. they had been married for 58 years, and i assume for the last 50 years the wife would talk and the husband would nod his head sagely and say, "mmmmmmmmmhm!" occasionally he would laugh, or mention that he had been stationed in texas in the war ("that's dubya dubya two," his wife chimed in) but mostly he sat back and would intone, "mmmmmmmmmmhm!"
"who's the better fisherman?"
"i am....i catch all the big ones."
"mmmmmmmhm!"
"honey, cast over there----i kin see that big black bass jes' lookin' at me. no! not over THERE----here....no, that's too far out, do it agin!"
"mmmmmmmhm!"
"i don't bait my own hooks, ya know, i don't like all them worms. i make him do it fer me."
"mmmmmmmmhm!"
"you two girls should come on down to parkersburg...you'd have fun, we've got like what, honey, 60 restaurants?"
"mmmmmmmhm!"
"well you have fun and good luck, it was nice meetin' ya'll, have a good trip!"
"mmmmmmmmhm!"
a black bass and 4 bluegills later, i'd say it was a good trip.
"mmmmmmmmmmhm!"
my first experience with non-tetrapod chordate-catching was with my dad, in my youth, using stinkbait for catfish. i do not remember much about the trip except for the stench in the minivan, catching a hook through my left index finger, and casting my very first cast into a tree on a sandbar (non-rescuable, line was cut, game was over, i was sad). i could not have been more than 10, and the shame and pain of that single failed cast has haunted me until....
well, four days ago, to be exact. that was when we boldly marched into a lodge of a west virginia campground at 8 in the morning, bought our licenses, received somewhat confused instructions on how to reach the closest bait and tackle shop, bought poles and minnows and nightcrawlers, and began our journey to angler-dom.
we didn't get to start until 9:30...admittedly late for fishing, but the most pressing issue when we began was how on earth to drive a sharp metal point through a tiny gasping fish, or how to cut a wriggling, angry nightcrawler into pieces to then be skewered on this point. we were a comical mess, using latex gloves to avoid sliminess and dropping bait and generally looking like citified fools. but then....the first cast!
after a while we were joined by a very old, adorable, west virginia couple. they had been married for 58 years, and i assume for the last 50 years the wife would talk and the husband would nod his head sagely and say, "mmmmmmmmmhm!" occasionally he would laugh, or mention that he had been stationed in texas in the war ("that's dubya dubya two," his wife chimed in) but mostly he sat back and would intone, "mmmmmmmmmmhm!"
"who's the better fisherman?"
"i am....i catch all the big ones."
"mmmmmmmhm!"
"honey, cast over there----i kin see that big black bass jes' lookin' at me. no! not over THERE----here....no, that's too far out, do it agin!"
"mmmmmmmhm!"
"i don't bait my own hooks, ya know, i don't like all them worms. i make him do it fer me."
"mmmmmmmmhm!"
"you two girls should come on down to parkersburg...you'd have fun, we've got like what, honey, 60 restaurants?"
"mmmmmmmhm!"
"well you have fun and good luck, it was nice meetin' ya'll, have a good trip!"
"mmmmmmmmhm!"
a black bass and 4 bluegills later, i'd say it was a good trip.
"mmmmmmmmmmhm!"
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Gaming, dude
i admit: i am a secret gamer.
secret because if i were to admit this...addiction (i'm feeling honest), non-gamers would scorn me and true gamers would deride me for my faux-gamer-ness. i would hang in societal limbo (despite the pope!) between the cool, normal people who don't communicate solely in acronyms and the cool, nerdy virtual people who manage to come across as casanova AND einstein simultaneously online.
no, my gaming habit brings me neither profound joy nor copious amounts of virtual women wanting to form virtual relationships. usually it is done in the morning, alone, as a sort of catharsis from all those creepy, non-cathartic dreams i had the night before. and usually the game is one that came as a free demo on my computer, FATE.
FATE's premise is idiotic, quite frankly. you are given various missions, which invariably consist of killing various monsters, and you can choose from assorted hairstyles, names, faces, and pets to make your character. well, two pets: a dog and a cat. even with my best efforts, i could not get the pet colors to change (hey, if you can change your hair color, you should be able to change fur color)....no, the cat is hopelessly ginger, and the dog benignly white and brown. this pet cannot die. it can "flee" when its life is low, which means that it runs in maddening aimless curlicues around you while you are being pummeled to death, but it is, in fact, immortal. you can "perish," but you can also pay to have your life restored. besides immortality, your pet is also endowed with a ridiculous amount of strength (it can carry a pack that's the same size as yours) and the uncanny ability to morph into bizarre creatures if it eats certain fish. oh yes, and you can fish in this game. you must have a pole, naturally, but no fishing license....you simply drop the hook, and when an exclamation point appears above your head, accompanied by a "thwuk," you have approximately 1.146267 seconds to press "set the hook." if your reflexes are just right, "you just caught a fish!" and much jubilation is allowed.
i spend a good portion of my time faux-fishing.
but i do enjoy hacking things to bits. mindlessly, of course---the great thing about FATE is that nothing looks remotely humanoid, so you needn't think. here is a list (not comprehensive, as in demo mode i cannot progress past level 3):
1) nocturne stalker: a purple tiger
2) nocturne fungus: a purple giant mushroom
3) myconid: a pink giant mushroom
4) topaz, emerald, ruby gels: giant blobs named for gems for inexplicable reasons
5) noxious gel: the toughest gel to kill; unlike the others it can poison you
6) goblin: green semi-human thing
7) goblin scout: bigger than the goblin, and blue
8) bat: a bat
9) rat: a rat. there are also sewer rats, which are bigger.
10) skeleton: a skeleton; diabolically fast and difficult to kill without magic
11) timberwolf: a timberwolf
12) gnoll: big and blue with a tail
13) bugbear: big and brown, no tail
14) kobold: imagine a rhinoceros walking upright
15) wereboar: smaller, brown, 25% fire weakness
16) tunnel crawler: a long creepy caterpillar. this one gives me nightmares
17) mottled lurker, creeping widow, tunnel spider: various spiders.
18) mummy: not to be confused with...
19) zombie: one of these is immune to basically all magic. i just let my minions finish them off so as to not confuse myself and accidentally wind up dead.
20) forest imps and imp shaman: they generally appear in groups of 3 to 4, with one imp shaman at their head that can do things to you like slow you down or electrocute you. short and green with orange hair, or in the case of the shaman, a magenta-ish color with dark purple hair.
21) basilisk: giant green lizard that breathes something that looks like purple bubbles.
so my mornings run thusly: roll to my right side and reach for the laptop on the floor, place laptop on stomach with knees propping it up. turn on computer, open FATE. pick one of three previous games i have started, or trash them and begin anew. fish. travel into the dungeon and use spells to create rat, spider, and skeleton minions (6 allowed at a time). feed my pet a fish so it turns into a "dire unicorn" or my favorite, "the brain beast" (literally, a giant brain on legs with two flapping tentacles). poke a few gels with my choice of spears, or whale on a kobold with my trusty bone club. feel immense satisfation at having slaughtered a walking rhinoceros with naught but a piece of bone. commence the day.
secret because if i were to admit this...addiction (i'm feeling honest), non-gamers would scorn me and true gamers would deride me for my faux-gamer-ness. i would hang in societal limbo (despite the pope!) between the cool, normal people who don't communicate solely in acronyms and the cool, nerdy virtual people who manage to come across as casanova AND einstein simultaneously online.
no, my gaming habit brings me neither profound joy nor copious amounts of virtual women wanting to form virtual relationships. usually it is done in the morning, alone, as a sort of catharsis from all those creepy, non-cathartic dreams i had the night before. and usually the game is one that came as a free demo on my computer, FATE.
FATE's premise is idiotic, quite frankly. you are given various missions, which invariably consist of killing various monsters, and you can choose from assorted hairstyles, names, faces, and pets to make your character. well, two pets: a dog and a cat. even with my best efforts, i could not get the pet colors to change (hey, if you can change your hair color, you should be able to change fur color)....no, the cat is hopelessly ginger, and the dog benignly white and brown. this pet cannot die. it can "flee" when its life is low, which means that it runs in maddening aimless curlicues around you while you are being pummeled to death, but it is, in fact, immortal. you can "perish," but you can also pay to have your life restored. besides immortality, your pet is also endowed with a ridiculous amount of strength (it can carry a pack that's the same size as yours) and the uncanny ability to morph into bizarre creatures if it eats certain fish. oh yes, and you can fish in this game. you must have a pole, naturally, but no fishing license....you simply drop the hook, and when an exclamation point appears above your head, accompanied by a "thwuk," you have approximately 1.146267 seconds to press "set the hook." if your reflexes are just right, "you just caught a fish!" and much jubilation is allowed.
i spend a good portion of my time faux-fishing.
but i do enjoy hacking things to bits. mindlessly, of course---the great thing about FATE is that nothing looks remotely humanoid, so you needn't think. here is a list (not comprehensive, as in demo mode i cannot progress past level 3):
1) nocturne stalker: a purple tiger
2) nocturne fungus: a purple giant mushroom
3) myconid: a pink giant mushroom
4) topaz, emerald, ruby gels: giant blobs named for gems for inexplicable reasons
5) noxious gel: the toughest gel to kill; unlike the others it can poison you
6) goblin: green semi-human thing
7) goblin scout: bigger than the goblin, and blue
8) bat: a bat
9) rat: a rat. there are also sewer rats, which are bigger.
10) skeleton: a skeleton; diabolically fast and difficult to kill without magic
11) timberwolf: a timberwolf
12) gnoll: big and blue with a tail
13) bugbear: big and brown, no tail
14) kobold: imagine a rhinoceros walking upright
15) wereboar: smaller, brown, 25% fire weakness
16) tunnel crawler: a long creepy caterpillar. this one gives me nightmares
17) mottled lurker, creeping widow, tunnel spider: various spiders.
18) mummy: not to be confused with...
19) zombie: one of these is immune to basically all magic. i just let my minions finish them off so as to not confuse myself and accidentally wind up dead.
20) forest imps and imp shaman: they generally appear in groups of 3 to 4, with one imp shaman at their head that can do things to you like slow you down or electrocute you. short and green with orange hair, or in the case of the shaman, a magenta-ish color with dark purple hair.
21) basilisk: giant green lizard that breathes something that looks like purple bubbles.
so my mornings run thusly: roll to my right side and reach for the laptop on the floor, place laptop on stomach with knees propping it up. turn on computer, open FATE. pick one of three previous games i have started, or trash them and begin anew. fish. travel into the dungeon and use spells to create rat, spider, and skeleton minions (6 allowed at a time). feed my pet a fish so it turns into a "dire unicorn" or my favorite, "the brain beast" (literally, a giant brain on legs with two flapping tentacles). poke a few gels with my choice of spears, or whale on a kobold with my trusty bone club. feel immense satisfation at having slaughtered a walking rhinoceros with naught but a piece of bone. commence the day.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Endeavors in Wine
Water? check
Sugar? check
Yeast? check
Orange and lemon? check check
Yellow blossoms of a common weed?
er, hang on a minute.
two hours later i returned home, triumphant, with 2 quarts of dandelion blossoms i had harvested from a nearby cemetery. actually, this cemetery is supposed to be quite well-known, and john d rockefeller himself is buried there. to show my respect i picked his grave clean.
peeled (only the yellow bits are useful), boiled, and steeping, the dandelions look awful, to be honest. luckily they don't smell yet, for while my roommate has been somewhat tolerant of my experiments thus far, she did wrinkle her nose in utter disdain at the cheesecloth-covered browning vat of goo on the kitchen counter. just wait until i add the yeast! one more day....
a few days ago i attended a party that consisted mostly of singers. now, classical musicians are known for their inclination to drink, and singers are known for exercising stupidity to excess. being the intellectual keyboardist i am, i glumly sat in a room filled with much nonsensical hilarity. i cannot drink alcohol (which just goes to show that dandelion wine is purely a curiosity), so i was left admiring furniture, cds, the ceiling, the dying fern in the corner, and finally the wine corks that were being mysteriously thrown in my direction.
being an incurable collector (see Papers!) i was shoving corks into my pockets until my hips looked like chipmunk cheeks (a most attractive characteristic, i must say). i brought them all home and thought, what do i do with you?
the next morning, at approximately 3 am, i awoke to my cat playing as happily amongst the corks as a toddler in a pile of raked leaves. after 30 minutes of aural torture, and a sound oddly similar to a feline choking on a slightly spongy cylindrical object, i thought, i must toss you out the window (with the feline following) or i must somehow render you immobile. i graciously opted for the latter.
so now i'm doing what i once swore i would never do: making a cork board. see, i'm not a wine connoisseur--though i read about it occasionally, being unable to taste it effectively negates whatever knowledge i acquire. opinions are useless in a vacuum. however, at the risk of appearing that i am posing as a oenophile, i am assembling a cork board out of the music school's prolific refuse simply because i cannot bear throwing anything away.
if all goes well, in one year you can come by and we'll pop open a bottle of amber, sweet, flowery wine, pour it into glasses, and place them on cork-board coasters that i store on a cork-board tray. and i can lie about all the $100 bottles of wine i have personally consumed, and you can lie about my phenomenal winemaking prowess, and we can while away a perfectly mediocre evening whilst secretly longing for that diet dr. pepper in the fridge, and for a cork collection that doesn't consist entirely of bottles $15 or less.
Sugar? check
Yeast? check
Orange and lemon? check check
Yellow blossoms of a common weed?
er, hang on a minute.
two hours later i returned home, triumphant, with 2 quarts of dandelion blossoms i had harvested from a nearby cemetery. actually, this cemetery is supposed to be quite well-known, and john d rockefeller himself is buried there. to show my respect i picked his grave clean.
peeled (only the yellow bits are useful), boiled, and steeping, the dandelions look awful, to be honest. luckily they don't smell yet, for while my roommate has been somewhat tolerant of my experiments thus far, she did wrinkle her nose in utter disdain at the cheesecloth-covered browning vat of goo on the kitchen counter. just wait until i add the yeast! one more day....
a few days ago i attended a party that consisted mostly of singers. now, classical musicians are known for their inclination to drink, and singers are known for exercising stupidity to excess. being the intellectual keyboardist i am, i glumly sat in a room filled with much nonsensical hilarity. i cannot drink alcohol (which just goes to show that dandelion wine is purely a curiosity), so i was left admiring furniture, cds, the ceiling, the dying fern in the corner, and finally the wine corks that were being mysteriously thrown in my direction.
being an incurable collector (see Papers!) i was shoving corks into my pockets until my hips looked like chipmunk cheeks (a most attractive characteristic, i must say). i brought them all home and thought, what do i do with you?
the next morning, at approximately 3 am, i awoke to my cat playing as happily amongst the corks as a toddler in a pile of raked leaves. after 30 minutes of aural torture, and a sound oddly similar to a feline choking on a slightly spongy cylindrical object, i thought, i must toss you out the window (with the feline following) or i must somehow render you immobile. i graciously opted for the latter.
so now i'm doing what i once swore i would never do: making a cork board. see, i'm not a wine connoisseur--though i read about it occasionally, being unable to taste it effectively negates whatever knowledge i acquire. opinions are useless in a vacuum. however, at the risk of appearing that i am posing as a oenophile, i am assembling a cork board out of the music school's prolific refuse simply because i cannot bear throwing anything away.
if all goes well, in one year you can come by and we'll pop open a bottle of amber, sweet, flowery wine, pour it into glasses, and place them on cork-board coasters that i store on a cork-board tray. and i can lie about all the $100 bottles of wine i have personally consumed, and you can lie about my phenomenal winemaking prowess, and we can while away a perfectly mediocre evening whilst secretly longing for that diet dr. pepper in the fridge, and for a cork collection that doesn't consist entirely of bottles $15 or less.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Papers!
ever since i can remember, which is pretty far back (i remember having the impulse to hug one of the legs of our grand piano when it was moved in, when i was only a year old) i have had a fascination with paper.
so much so that instead of majoring in music, i did consider majoring in chemical engineering, with an emphasis in paper sciences. i still might do it.
now, this is not an undiscriminating love of paper. i don't lust over coupon clippings, for example, or junk mail, or paper napkins and plates. i collect glossy magazine pages only for very specific purposes. but then there are the papers i simply cannot toss without sustaining a twinge of pain:
smooth typing paper---color, weight, and grain irrelevant
brown bags---again, weight and grain irrelevant
cardstock, corrugated cardboard, regular cardboard
then there are those that i lust for, with a rabidly perverse fervor that frightens and confounds all who must share my abode:
mulberry paper
rice paper (not the edible kind, silly, the kind made from bamboo)
oiled paper
marbled paper
cotton rag paper
papyrus, parchment, and vellum!!!!!!! (multiple exclamations points are used to convey enthusiasm)
i can recall several significant childhood memories centering on paper.
1) i had just learned to make origami boats from regular, 8.5 x 11 typing paper. i had just learned that columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. i tried to make my boat sail in my bathtub, but alas, it turned into a nasty mess. on the other hand, water stayed away from wax! i spent months, literally MONTHS, secretly shaving my crayons (and anybody else's) and hoarding up the shavings in a box under my bed. i preferred gold to reflect the royal stature i was sure my boat deserved. the idea was to coat my boat with shavings, subject it to heat, let cool, and then sail my newly-improved, crayon-coated paper boat. alas, i feared my mother too much to use the microwave, and upon using a lighter my boat burst into flames. it was the first of many disappointments.
2) i believe i was 10, with the assignment to make a house for science class. being as environmentally-friendly as i was, i was determined to make a paper house. plan A was to meticulously fold bits of paper and glue them together to make bricks. then i would make a papier-mache slurry to use as mortar. unfortunately i began this process approximately 36 hours before the house was due. 12 hours later i had enough bricks for one 2-inch tall wall. i resolved to complete the project later, for my own personal satisfaction, and work on plan B to make the deadline.
plan B consisted of using only papier-mache to shape my walls. each wall would be formed, oven-dried, and then assembled to make my house. nevermind that this left the house without any windows, or even a door. success!!!.....in a way. the walls were complete, but my papier mache mixture had begun to mold and so the house smelled rank. they also were not structurally sound enough to stand straight, and of course, the walls didn't fit exactly. and yet i was elated by the feeling of CREATING, until my mother casually asked: "won't a paper house fall apart in the rain?"
now, i remembered the crayon fiasco and was determined not to set my crooked moldy paper box on fire. i had gotten so far already! i racked my brain for solutions. i could cheat and glue milk carton panels to the outside (they were waterproof!) but i wanted everyone to see the work i had done. i didn't want to CONCEAL the papier mache, for heaven's sake. so i seriously, studiously, and meticulously went on to wrap the entire house in saran wrap.
i think ms. cherry gave me an A out of sheer pity.
3) playing with paper was not enough. i had to make it. i had heard of how it was made---you could do it the hard way, and cook down tree branches and other plant matter, or cut up rags and use the fibers, but my mother wouldn't donate her pots nor her clothing to the cause. the easy way was to take paper and shred it up. i had done this at school with coffee cans, but i didn't want useless small rounds of recycled newsprint. i was dreaming big (i was also dreaming of tanning leather with my own urine, but that's another post)....i wanted to make huge, gaudy sheets of it. step one was easy, as i had several shoeboxes of contraband shredded paper underneath my bed. step two, soaking, as easy as well, as water was free and plentiful. but step three required procuring a large screen, and this proved difficult.
the only screen i could think of were window screens. unfortunately, we had NONE---except for the one in the patio door. now, how could i possibly trick my father into giving me one, or at least into replacing one so that we had an extra one i could pilfer for my own purposes?
"dad, the patio door looks dirty."
"really?"
"yeah, the screen part. it's all black. i think we should get a new one."
"they come in black."
"oh." (damn!)
now, a bit unrelated: my dearly beloved friend is singing an aria declaring war on bureaucracy and the system. it is an impassioned plea for justice and mercy that stems from frustration, despair, and tragedy. and one of the highlights is: "all you give me is papers!!!"
i couldn't help but smile a little.
for the record, i now have approximately 6 square feet of windowscreen, 4 shoeboxes of shredded paper, 1 large box of magazine paper, 1 enormous box of handmade paper with various projects, 12 cereal boxes, 1 container of bamboo pieces, cat hair, and onion skins, and countless stacks and rolls and scraps of various papers all happily tucked underneath my bed.
oh yes, and one jar of crayon shavings.
so much so that instead of majoring in music, i did consider majoring in chemical engineering, with an emphasis in paper sciences. i still might do it.
now, this is not an undiscriminating love of paper. i don't lust over coupon clippings, for example, or junk mail, or paper napkins and plates. i collect glossy magazine pages only for very specific purposes. but then there are the papers i simply cannot toss without sustaining a twinge of pain:
smooth typing paper---color, weight, and grain irrelevant
brown bags---again, weight and grain irrelevant
cardstock, corrugated cardboard, regular cardboard
then there are those that i lust for, with a rabidly perverse fervor that frightens and confounds all who must share my abode:
mulberry paper
rice paper (not the edible kind, silly, the kind made from bamboo)
oiled paper
marbled paper
cotton rag paper
papyrus, parchment, and vellum!!!!!!! (multiple exclamations points are used to convey enthusiasm)
i can recall several significant childhood memories centering on paper.
1) i had just learned to make origami boats from regular, 8.5 x 11 typing paper. i had just learned that columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. i tried to make my boat sail in my bathtub, but alas, it turned into a nasty mess. on the other hand, water stayed away from wax! i spent months, literally MONTHS, secretly shaving my crayons (and anybody else's) and hoarding up the shavings in a box under my bed. i preferred gold to reflect the royal stature i was sure my boat deserved. the idea was to coat my boat with shavings, subject it to heat, let cool, and then sail my newly-improved, crayon-coated paper boat. alas, i feared my mother too much to use the microwave, and upon using a lighter my boat burst into flames. it was the first of many disappointments.
2) i believe i was 10, with the assignment to make a house for science class. being as environmentally-friendly as i was, i was determined to make a paper house. plan A was to meticulously fold bits of paper and glue them together to make bricks. then i would make a papier-mache slurry to use as mortar. unfortunately i began this process approximately 36 hours before the house was due. 12 hours later i had enough bricks for one 2-inch tall wall. i resolved to complete the project later, for my own personal satisfaction, and work on plan B to make the deadline.
plan B consisted of using only papier-mache to shape my walls. each wall would be formed, oven-dried, and then assembled to make my house. nevermind that this left the house without any windows, or even a door. success!!!.....in a way. the walls were complete, but my papier mache mixture had begun to mold and so the house smelled rank. they also were not structurally sound enough to stand straight, and of course, the walls didn't fit exactly. and yet i was elated by the feeling of CREATING, until my mother casually asked: "won't a paper house fall apart in the rain?"
now, i remembered the crayon fiasco and was determined not to set my crooked moldy paper box on fire. i had gotten so far already! i racked my brain for solutions. i could cheat and glue milk carton panels to the outside (they were waterproof!) but i wanted everyone to see the work i had done. i didn't want to CONCEAL the papier mache, for heaven's sake. so i seriously, studiously, and meticulously went on to wrap the entire house in saran wrap.
i think ms. cherry gave me an A out of sheer pity.
3) playing with paper was not enough. i had to make it. i had heard of how it was made---you could do it the hard way, and cook down tree branches and other plant matter, or cut up rags and use the fibers, but my mother wouldn't donate her pots nor her clothing to the cause. the easy way was to take paper and shred it up. i had done this at school with coffee cans, but i didn't want useless small rounds of recycled newsprint. i was dreaming big (i was also dreaming of tanning leather with my own urine, but that's another post)....i wanted to make huge, gaudy sheets of it. step one was easy, as i had several shoeboxes of contraband shredded paper underneath my bed. step two, soaking, as easy as well, as water was free and plentiful. but step three required procuring a large screen, and this proved difficult.
the only screen i could think of were window screens. unfortunately, we had NONE---except for the one in the patio door. now, how could i possibly trick my father into giving me one, or at least into replacing one so that we had an extra one i could pilfer for my own purposes?
"dad, the patio door looks dirty."
"really?"
"yeah, the screen part. it's all black. i think we should get a new one."
"they come in black."
"oh." (damn!)
now, a bit unrelated: my dearly beloved friend is singing an aria declaring war on bureaucracy and the system. it is an impassioned plea for justice and mercy that stems from frustration, despair, and tragedy. and one of the highlights is: "all you give me is papers!!!"
i couldn't help but smile a little.
for the record, i now have approximately 6 square feet of windowscreen, 4 shoeboxes of shredded paper, 1 large box of magazine paper, 1 enormous box of handmade paper with various projects, 12 cereal boxes, 1 container of bamboo pieces, cat hair, and onion skins, and countless stacks and rolls and scraps of various papers all happily tucked underneath my bed.
oh yes, and one jar of crayon shavings.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut
yes, i know, millions of people probably posted that title on their blogs days ago, when kurt vonnegut passed. no, i didn't "steal" the idea, i'm just that sadly cliched. i remember being twelve and thinking i was brilliant because of this idea:
the statue of liberty holding an absolut bottle in her hand, instead of the torch, with the words ABSOLUT LIBERTY.
and then a friend gave me ABSOLUT BOOK as a gift, and i discovered that that's the most common unsolicited suggestion the campaign receives.
talk about feeling normal. mediocre. inartistic, inarticulate, un-extraordinary, un-uncommon, un-un-un-unusual (yes i counted the negatives, to make sure they properly canceled out).
whatever. as it is, if you want to peg me for my lack of creativity, i beat you to it. i win.
one of the local (by local, i mean in a neighboring corporate) libraries held a book sale recently. actually, it is still going on as i type. so what i REALLY mean is that i went to a book sale at a nearby town's library recently. gosh, clarity can be elusive.
here were a few of the finds:
1) bless me, ultima
2) a cd of the siete canciones of de falla, plus other stuff. obviously i purchased the cd for those 7 songs.
3) east of eden
4) the sound and the fury
5) an anthology of english renaissance literature
6) the armada
7) don quixote
8) a few bernard shaw plays
9) the man who ate everything
10) i searched for more vonnegut, but alas. in a splendid display of true human nature, when the man died his books were taken off the sales racks and placed solidly back on full-price, best-selling collections. it makes me wonder; were i to die soon, would more people suddenly read this blog?
it snowed yesterday. i was going to talk about how white and pure the snow looked, pure as an untouched virgin. but as we salt the crap out of the roads and drive all over the snow in our daily routines, i thought the analogy inappropriate unless you fancy salted, smashed virgin. instead, what we do to the snow is reminiscent of a tender, juicy chicken-fried steak, with extra gravy. unfortunately it does not comfort as chicken-fried steak does. it only depresses---and while i will admit that gorging oneself on chicken-fried steak can lead to severe regret and self-loathing after a rendezvous with the bathroom scale, snow does not even offer that grade of depression. it says, bleakly: "i will delay you 15 minutes every morning for you to scrape me off your car. i will come when you least expect it, forcing you to tromp through me in your flip-flops. i will fall just thick enough to cause trouble, but not enough to have a snow day. and i will come to kill your daffodils and tulips, and trigger your radiator so that your cats, who were deceived by good weather into sitting on the radiator to look out the window, will scald their paws and whiskers and fur and whine whine WHINE, so that you will want to kill them."
so it goes.
the statue of liberty holding an absolut bottle in her hand, instead of the torch, with the words ABSOLUT LIBERTY.
and then a friend gave me ABSOLUT BOOK as a gift, and i discovered that that's the most common unsolicited suggestion the campaign receives.
talk about feeling normal. mediocre. inartistic, inarticulate, un-extraordinary, un-uncommon, un-un-un-unusual (yes i counted the negatives, to make sure they properly canceled out).
whatever. as it is, if you want to peg me for my lack of creativity, i beat you to it. i win.
one of the local (by local, i mean in a neighboring corporate) libraries held a book sale recently. actually, it is still going on as i type. so what i REALLY mean is that i went to a book sale at a nearby town's library recently. gosh, clarity can be elusive.
here were a few of the finds:
1) bless me, ultima
2) a cd of the siete canciones of de falla, plus other stuff. obviously i purchased the cd for those 7 songs.
3) east of eden
4) the sound and the fury
5) an anthology of english renaissance literature
6) the armada
7) don quixote
8) a few bernard shaw plays
9) the man who ate everything
10) i searched for more vonnegut, but alas. in a splendid display of true human nature, when the man died his books were taken off the sales racks and placed solidly back on full-price, best-selling collections. it makes me wonder; were i to die soon, would more people suddenly read this blog?
it snowed yesterday. i was going to talk about how white and pure the snow looked, pure as an untouched virgin. but as we salt the crap out of the roads and drive all over the snow in our daily routines, i thought the analogy inappropriate unless you fancy salted, smashed virgin. instead, what we do to the snow is reminiscent of a tender, juicy chicken-fried steak, with extra gravy. unfortunately it does not comfort as chicken-fried steak does. it only depresses---and while i will admit that gorging oneself on chicken-fried steak can lead to severe regret and self-loathing after a rendezvous with the bathroom scale, snow does not even offer that grade of depression. it says, bleakly: "i will delay you 15 minutes every morning for you to scrape me off your car. i will come when you least expect it, forcing you to tromp through me in your flip-flops. i will fall just thick enough to cause trouble, but not enough to have a snow day. and i will come to kill your daffodils and tulips, and trigger your radiator so that your cats, who were deceived by good weather into sitting on the radiator to look out the window, will scald their paws and whiskers and fur and whine whine WHINE, so that you will want to kill them."
so it goes.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
I'm dreaming of a.....
white easter.
aye, it's snowing. not only is it snowing, the ground is still warm so it's melting, but it's 25 degrees here (without windchill) so it's refreezing. fun to drive, even more fun to brake.
of course, last week, in shameful optimism, i put away my snow boots. after all, the weather channel was at first predicting ONE day of snow, and ONE day of cold---just a short blip on the spring radar. alas.
what i'm particularly annoyed with is how a good portion of the easter vigil service is outside, and we have to light the flame (the return of christ) and make a little fire and all that. last year, in GOOD weather, it took multiple tries and a good 9-10 minutes...
i suppose i can always cram my parka underneath my choir robe.
aye, it's snowing. not only is it snowing, the ground is still warm so it's melting, but it's 25 degrees here (without windchill) so it's refreezing. fun to drive, even more fun to brake.
of course, last week, in shameful optimism, i put away my snow boots. after all, the weather channel was at first predicting ONE day of snow, and ONE day of cold---just a short blip on the spring radar. alas.
what i'm particularly annoyed with is how a good portion of the easter vigil service is outside, and we have to light the flame (the return of christ) and make a little fire and all that. last year, in GOOD weather, it took multiple tries and a good 9-10 minutes...
i suppose i can always cram my parka underneath my choir robe.
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