Summer Reading

NPR has posted an audience-amassed list of the Top 100 Best Beach Books.  I'd say the seriousness and lightness of them varies widely (I mean, how many lists share Anna Karenina and One for the Money?).

I've read about 30 of these, or read enough of the book to know I won't read further. I've seen 28 of them in movie form (sometimes in several versions).  Hmm, what does that say about my preference -- reading or viewing?

The list is here.

Another Video Montage

I love these things. This is a montage of that crisis moment in all those action movies when  -- well, it'll become obvious in a moment.  (Warning: language gets pretty R-rated towards the end.)




I've tried tracing back to the source (got this from The Litter Box) but apparently there isn't a list of the movies it cuts from.

What I did today

It was a problem three years ago, after the household got a new furnace. Harry, always curious to find the highest, most secure, point in a room, particularly in those days when he was frequently harassed by Abby and Floyd, found that if he jumped up from the top of the water heater to the top of the end of the shiny newly-installed cold-air return, and then crawled between the joists on the basement ceiling, he would land in a wondrous cat-sized maze of straight metallic passages, all alike. That is, the heating ductwork for the furnace. 

(Harry, April 2007, in the rafters next to the ducts.)

One passage led him to the cold-air register in the dining room floor, where he'd sit on the far side of the grate and meow piteously to be let out (until you went to the trouble of removing the grate, when he'd turn and disappear back into the ductwork again).  Another led him to the register in the foyer. Another led him, after a confused step forward into full reflective shininess, to a 10-foot chute, straight down the metal ducting, landing on the floor of the air flow reserve area in the furnace itself. I'll be clear: he was inside the furnace.

We could hear him meowing in there, a little scared by the sound of it, but more inconvenienced than in pain. The space he was in was perhaps 8 inches wide by 12 inches long, and 10 feet straight up. I unscrewed a grating from a vent from the wall of the duct, about 18 inches off the floor, and was able to reach in and down, and pull the cat out through a ragged vent hole in the metal -- not a job I care to repeat.

At the time, I blocked up the rafter entrance with whatever appropriately sized things we had in the basement.  The cat did not appreciate the barrier, but eventually, I piled more there than he could scrape out of his way, and the adventures in metal ductwork stopped.

Today, emboldened by new skills with power tools and wood learned in the kitchen project, and aware that potential house-buyers won't be much impressed by a pile of plastic bin covers and an empty shoebox, I made a proper barrier.  It isn't perfect -- one bit of wood split when I used it, but it's rather out of the way, so I left it as is. Certainly, it's in solidly enough that cats (and rats and possums) can't push it over.  I left an explanation for future curiosity seekers, too.

(It says, BEHIND THIS BARRIER There is a hole in the cold air return system of the furnace. Everything works fine, but cats will crawl in, ending up in furnace. (Unharmed but trapped.))

Mea Culpa: TurboTax didn't Mistake

Here it is Tax Day, and I have to correct my earlier complaint about TurboTax making mistakes on my taxes. When I went back and dove deep, deep down into the tax code and the software, even delving into last year's taxes, I learned that actually everything was just fine.

It was a case of paper-trails; without getting into too many boring details, the IRS allows one to carry capital losses forward for a number of years, allowing one to offset them against capital gains earned later. I didn't have gains enough this year to offset anything, but for tracking reasons, it's good to keep the paperwork current -- if I sell stock this year or next, I can still count the loss on that sale two years ago.

"A Convenient and Well-Equipped Kitchen That Simplifies the Housework"

EACH room in the house has its distinct and separate function in the domestic economy. Therefore it should be remembered that before any room can attain its own distinctive individuality everything put into it must be there for some reason and must serve a definite purpose in the life that is to be lived and the work that is to be done in that room.  Take for example the kitchen, where the food for the household must be prepared and where a large part of the work of the house must be done.  This is the room where the housewife or the servant maid must be for the greater part of her time day after day, and the very first requisites are that it should be large enough for comfort, well ventilated, and full of sunshine, and that the equipment for the work that is to be done should be ample, of good quality and, above all, intelligently selected.  We all know the pleasure of working with good tools and in congenial surroundings; no more things than are necessary should be tolerated in the kitchen and no fewer should be required.

We cannot imagine a more homelike room than the old New England kitchen, the special realm of the housewife and the living room of the whole family. Its spotless cleanliness and homely cheer are remembered as long as life lasts by men and women who have had the good fortune at associate such a room with their earliest recollections of home. No child ever lived who could resist the attractions of such a room, for a child has, in all its purity, the primitive instinct for living that ruled the simpler and more wholesome customs of other days. ["I need something dark and bitter." -- overheard as I was typing this sentence at a coffee shop, spoken by a customer at the order counter.]  In these times of more elaborate surroundings the home life of the family is hidden behind a screen and the tendency is to belittle that part of the household work by regarding it as a necessary evil. ... 

In the farmhouse and the cottage of the workingman, where the domestic machinery is comparatively simple, cheerful and homelike, the kitchen, -- which is also the dining room of the family and one of its pleasantest gathering places, -- should be restored to all its old-time comfort and convenience. In planning such a house it should come in for the first thought instead of the last and its use as a dining room as well as a kitchen should be so devised that all odors of cooking are carried off and the arrangement and ventilation should be such that this is one of the best aired and sunniest of all the rooms in the house.

Where social relations and the demands of a more complex life make it impossible for the house mistress to do her own work and the kitchen is necessarily more separated from the rest of the household, it may easily be planned to meet the requirements of the case without losing any of its comfort, convenience, or suitability for the work that is to be done in it. Modern science has made the task very easy by the provision of electric lights, open plumbing, laundry conveniences, and hot and cold running water, so that the luxuries of the properly arranged modern kitchen would have been almost unbelievable a generation ago. [italics mine] Even if the kitchen is for the servant only, it should be a place in which she may take some personal pride. It is hardly going too far to say that the solution of the problem of the properly arranged kitchen would come near to being the solution also of the domestic problem.

The properly planned kitchen should be as open as possible to prevent the accumulation of dirt. Without the customary "glory holes" that sink and other closets often become, genuine cleanliness is much easier to preserve and the appearance of outside order is not at all lessened. In no part of the house does the good old saying, "a place for everything and everything in its place," apply with more force than in the kitchen. Ample cupboard space for all china should be provided near the sink to do away with unnecessary handling and the same cupboard, which should be an actual structural feature of the kitchen, should contain drawers for table linen, cutlery and smaller utensils, as well as a broad shelf which provides a convenient place for serving.  The floor should be of cement and the same material may be used in tiled pattern for a high wainscot, given a cleanly and pleasant effect.

Quoted almost in whole [leaving out none of the rather rosy nostalgia] from Craftsman Homes, by Gustav Stickley, pages 144-145, originally published circa 1915 (republished in facsimile without complete copyright notice, 2009, by Skyhorse Publishing, New York, NY). The images are from the same article, too. There's another I forgot to scan into my computer; I may post it later.

Another book I checked out from the library illustrates a modern "Wilson" kitchen (presumably the cutting edge of kitchen design). (To be honest, I scanned in the image and forgot to cite it in my notes. But it is from a book with the words "craftsman" or "bungalow" in the title.) Note the built-in oil delivery pipes, which feed into the range, coming up from the basement in an attractive closed-in cabinet (letters A through D). Our kitchen had some similar arrangement, at least until perhaps the 1930s.

Tax Day Blues

I am all in favor of paying taxes -- I know it pays for lots of good things that I enjoy in my day-to-day life (roads ... schools ... national security... health care too, apparently). In fact, based on life in underfunded Oregon (which has no sales tax) I'd be happy to pay more taxes.

Not that I'm paying much for 2009, having earned less than a bad year in graduate school.  However, I do owe a minimal amount, which I can pay, and which will be deducted from my checking account tomorrow by Good Old Uncle Sam.

I use TurboTax for my taxes, and have done for ten or more years, ever since I stopped needing the one-page 1040 EZ.  This year, TurboTax failed me.  Over the last couple of days I have carefully double-checked all my numbers (I have a business, so I have lots of numbers; this year they are little numbers). I printed out the full set of forms to keep for documentation. I e-filed the forms (electronically) to the government.  Then I read through the full set of forms.

There's a strange $500 deduction that TurboTax added in to my numbers.  It added an extra three forms in the printed version, but (as far as I remember) I didn't okay or opt-in to any of them in the "Easy Step" user-friendly bit of the program.  After two hours of puzzling, I've figured out what happened (I have not tracked down why TurboTax did this): the program "helped" me by carrying over the loss on some stocks that I sold in 2008 (which weren't enough of a loss to be significant to my taxes in 2008), and it added in some Alternative Minimum Tax dollars (that I don't qualify for).

This doesn't change the bottom line at all. I owe the same amount to the government.  But it does mean that I have to fill out some other forms (Amendation Forms), print those out and snail mail those in in paper form.  Something I didn't want to have to do -- all those forms! (I am a hearty adopter of e-filing technologies.) And now my tax forms for the state, county and city (which all depend upon the federal forms, and require copies of said) have to be reprinted, reorganized, and mailed.

I can only be thankful that I hadn't already submitted those smaller jurisdiction's taxes.  I'm only out about 40 sheets of printed paper and 3-4 hours of extra time -- all because TurboTax was trying to save me money!

Thanks for letting me rant for a moment.  The goal was to get taxes out of the way so I could catch you all up on last week's Kitchen Remodeling Progress (which is still happening, but at a slower pace for a while).  Maybe I'll get an entry out tonight or tomorrow.

Here's a teaser: we got the heating to the bathroom re-done!

Gratuitous Cat Photos Illustrating Anticipation of Slow Progress Week

(Harry stalking the neighbor's hyacinths on Sunday.)

HomoDommi flew home this afternoon after spending the morning cleaning up his tools and work area.

Tomorrow, after watching a school play starring Girl-Child in a speaking role, he and the children will drive back to Portland for a week.  FemmeDommi, who still has limited vacation time, will fly in mid-week, and she and her husband will take a belated anniversary trip to the coast (Happy Anniversary, you guys!), while I get to play with the children.

(Tasha watching warily, March 21, 2010.

I love her expression, but you'll have to click on the photo to see it better.)

We hope to get some work done next week, but don't know how the presence of juniors will affect our progress (unfortunately, Portland's Spring Break is on right now, so all their friends will be in school during the day when they are here).

Remarkable Sleight of Hand

This video is of the Great Cardini (Richard Valentine Pitchford), doing his "intoxicated gentleman" skit -- a masterful series of sleight of hand tricks (i.e., pulling lit cigarettes from the air) on an Ernie Kovacs show in 1957.  Apparently, this is the only video recording of any of his acts.

It is marvelous to watch: old-fashioned simplicity. We all have a sense of how it's done -- he distracts us to look at the wrong thing -- but it still seems like pure magic.  Far more interesting to me than the over-serious modern magicians who do death-defying stunts (which for me lose their attraction: either there's no chance he could really do himself an injury, so why do I care, or there's a great chance for him to do himself an injury, in which case, I don't want to watch, nor encourage suicidal behavior).

Found thanks to neatorama.

A link to Roger Ebert

If you didn't know, this month's Esquire Magazine features a long, in-depth interview with Roger Ebert (and more shocking, a photo of what he looks like these days).  This is Ebert's as usual articulate and beautifully written response. (His response is praising, not correcting.  Except to point out that the tone of the Esquire article implies that he is dying, and he is not dying, at least, any more than anyone else -- the cancers are in remission.)

Click here for the Esquire story, written by Chris Jones.
Click here for Ebert's response.

Mangatar update

While Peaceable and The Bride have revamped their own mangatars, Girl-Child has made a few of her own.  This is her, and her father.  She is still working, reportedly, upon her mom and brother.

Meantime, I made one of Mater.

And even my Fabu-Niece (that is, rather than "great niece") has a mangatar (alongside her mother, Daughter of).

Feel free to make one of yourself and send it to me!  (Face Your Manga!)

My Mangatar

Sisters Peaceable and The Bride have posted their mangatars, and now here's mine.

Mangatar is a made-up word formed from manga + avatar, where manga is a specific style of Japanese graphic art used in comic books (the Japanese word for "comic book" is manga).  Avatar is a representation or icon of a person, to be used in virtual reality graphics or in cyberspace (it comes from the Hindu word meaning the earthly embodiment or manifestation of a god).

I found this interesting etymology when I was looking up the history of manga:

MANGA.. In 1814 the famous Japanese artist Hokusai created a book of black & white sketches that he called manga (involuntary sketches). In recent Japanese history the word has come to describe those small illustrated books of black & white ink drawings that tell a series of stories.Graphic novel would be the closest translation for "manga" though they are not at all like novels in the Western sense, nor are they comparable to Western comic books. Manga cover a wide range of topics, from fantasy & adventure, to sports & cooking.

(from The Black Moon:  Art, Anime and Japanese culture)  I think it is fascinating that the famous Hokusai is ultimately responsible for such a tidal wave of current pop art and culture (i.e., in a way, all modern graphic novels).

Meanwhile, back to the subject at hand:

You can see us all in one place here.  Funny how we all chose blue backgrounds and fairly similar clothes, and Peaceable and I chose the exact same haircut (which we don't in real life, although our hairs are the same in curl and texture and natural parts, etc.). It also appears that all three of us chose the same eyebrows (out of about 15 options).

Frankly, I don't think The Bride's is very like her (except, clearly, her eyebrows) -- she might go back and correct it. (Although, to be fair, an avatar doesn't have to look anything like the real person behind it.  After all, no one's going to see you. Why not be someone else?)  Who would you manga-be?

"Nil by Mouth" and "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"

The title of this post is in quotes, because I'm quoting other titles. The first is from a blog entry by Roger Ebert -- apparently, Ebert is now entirely unable to speak, eat or drink -- hence, nil by mouth.  His last words were spoken to his wife before he underwent yet another throat surgery a few years ago.  He may not be able to speak anymore, but he can write, and he is still writing prodigiously.

In his post (click here to read the long, articulate and witty original) he talks about how his memories have sharpened, in exchange for the loss of the ability to taste foods, so that now he can relive taste sensations of whole meals.  He goes on to say that the worst thing for him is the loss of the social aspect of eating and drinking. He can't really meet anyone for coffee any more, because he can't chat.  At dinner parties, by the time he's written out his comments, the conversation has moved on and the most frequent response is "what are you referring to?"

When I was house-sitting last month, I watched The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a lyrical film based on the book of the same title. ("Lyrical" is the word the critics use, and it applies for this film. It is visually melodious.) It is a true story, written by a former editor at Elle magazine in Paris (French -- he was French, the book was in French, and the movie was in French although directed in English by an American).  Jean-Dominique Bauby was driving his son to a movie when he suffered a stroke that left him in the rare locked-in syndrome -- complete paralysis except for control of his left eye.  With this eye, eventually, he was able to write a book about his experiences.  Like Ebert, communication is slow -- in Bauby's case, he spelled every word out via blinking: a person would list letters of the alphabet (in order of frequency of use) and he would blink once when they reached the letter, and twice to confirm it thereafter.  Conversations become stilted, but his internal life flowed. His memories became more vivid -- like Ebert, he could relive conversations, meals, experiences generally, as if he were experiencing them all over again.

A nightmare. Ebert merely has an inconvenient disability, in comparison. (And I don't mean to imply that Ebert is complaining -- he seems quite content with his lot, perhaps because of the obvious -- it's better than the alternative, which would have been death by throat cancer.)  But even Bauby found beauty and humor and love in his locked-in life.

They certainly put mundane annoyances in perspective.

Nuffink

I ain't got nuffink to say today (except, apparently, to say it in a funny accent).  In the spirit of not communicating, here is an amusing short video from John Cleese. Thanks to tywikiwdbi for posting this (itself pulled from another blog, which presumably got it from the John Cleese podcast in the first place).

Why do I recognize this?

This image is from today's Astronomy Picture of the Day (technically, tomorrow's entry -- Jan. 31 -- but since I'm writing this on Saturday, I'm counting it as Saturday).  Why is it so familiar?  It is from a book, the Voynich Manuscript, in the Yale Rare Book Collection. Presumably written in the 15th Century, in no known language, it shows some areas of the sky with constellations that no modern astronomer recognizes.  This image is of our sun, apparently.

More importantly, why do I recognize this? But it is so familiar to me, with a texture almost of cloth, as if I've seen it embroidered somewhere.  Anybody else recognize it?

People. Ages 1 to 100.

People In Order: 1. Age from James Price on Vimeo.

Look out for 15, 44, 49, 91 -- and your own age!

Shrimp

Cranky and the Bride belong to one (more than one, actually) of these local places like a CSA -- a farm that you buy shares in, and then get a share of the produce.  I say "like a CSA" because in the case I'm discussing today, it's not kale and celeriac, but fish and seafood shares.  Today I drove up to a truck parked in the driveway of a nearby farm (by arrangement) and picked up about 10 lbs of fresh-caught shrimp.

Fresh-caught.  Not, thank the lord, alive still, but only just-dead. Very fresh. But also very straight-from-the-sea.  Cranky jokingly commanded me over the phone from England that they expected the shrimp cleaned, deveined, shelled, and frozen in single use packets -- funny, except that is what I had intended to do before the command anyway.

Per shrimp, it wasn't that much work, but 10 lbs is a lot of shrimp.  Cleaning them required twisting the heads off, and then removing the eggs from under their legs and tail shell.  The eggs were the surprise, and the hard part.

I didn't know shrimp had eggs. I mean, yeah, I kinda knew, but I've never seen it before. Until the guy at the shrimp truck referred to them, I just thought the shrimp were dirty.  If you look in the photo (whole shrimp on the left, tails in the "basket" on top -- eggs still intact, and heads on the right) you can see the darkening in the tail area.  Not the vein, but eggs -- thousands and thousands of shrimp roe, a quite beautiful silvery teal blue.  On the very last pound I finally figured how to clean them out -- squeeze the shrimp as if you were rolling a cigar, and then rinse (rinsing straight just separates the eggs and drives them into the corners and under the shell).  (And later I wondered if shrimp roe isn't a great delicacy and I just flushed a ton of it down the drain? If so, oops, sorry, Cranky and Bride.)

98% of these shrimp were females, judged by the presence of eggs. (I don't know shrimp anatomy or sexual characteristics, so I'm taking the layman's view: eggs = female.) A brother-in-law of mine was once studying Buddhism, and he told me that in Buddhist theory, if you have to eat meat, it is better to eat something like a cow, than something like shrimp. This is because in the former case, merely one life (the cow's) is taken to feed many people; whereas in the latter case, to feed one person, many shrimp's lives must be taken.

As I flushed out the thousands and thousands of eggs today, I thought about that, and wondered if maybe these shrimp were caught in the midst of breeding season? Are we massacring a whole generation of shrimp (it wasn't just me picking up 10 lbs. of little beings)?  I assume not. I assume that this is a sustainable fisherman, hence the selling by shares and truckloads rather than just to the local grocer.  But such a lot of lives.

I packed the shrimp into freezer bags of 1.5 lbs each, and saved a gallon of shrimp heads because one of the cookbooks recommended using them for fish stock.  I saved a serving out for myself, but after an afternoon of twisting heads off and metaphysical thoughts, I decided upon cheese pizza instead.

To end on a surreal note, here's the official music video of the song running through my mind all afternoon, Fish Heads, by Barnes & Barnes (1979).

Funny Signs

Bride of Cranky Old Geezer has a running theme on her blog about strange signs she sees in the U.K.  The signs here are all genuine signs from various parts of the world.
Take a cute little test to find out what they are intended to mean here, at the National Geographic website.

I got 8 out of 10 correct when I took the test (it is multiple choice and the answer is pretty obvious). Just don't get confused, as I did, between a capybara and a cassowary.

What goes around, comes around

This is an old video -- it made the rounds in the early part of the decade and again a couple of years ago.  It's still funny.  When I saw it in previous years, it didn't have the ring of truth that it has now -- I feel much this way about Facebook. You have this thing called a Wall?  And when I type something there -- who sees it??  Huh?  I am feeling old -- I just don't get Facebook.

This skit originally aired on a Norwegian comedy television show in 2001, which provides me with a segue: Apparently when the Monty Python movie "The Life of Brian" (a religious satire about a man born in the stall next to Jesus, who has amusingly parallel -- if less godhooded -- experiences) was released in 1979, it was banned in a number of countries, including Norway.  In Sweden, however, the movie was marketed with the tag line, "So funny, it was banned in Norway!".  (Read about more banned films here.)

Beautiful Night Sky

A little video report from AsianCorrespondent.com about a record-breaking "sky lantern" celebration in Indonesia yesterday.  Stunningly beautiful.  This year's celebration was supposed to have an environmental theme, which seems at odds with sending more than 10,000 paper lanterns lit with wax candles into the air, but what do I know?  They are all biodegradable, I suppose, and hopefully burn up before returning to earth.

Not Of Cabbages and Kings, But Rather Of Broccoli and Cauliflowers (and Queens)

One of my favorite passages in all Dunnett's work is the opening scene of Disorderly Knights (1966).  It briefly mentions the (historically accurate) marriage of character Will Scott to his aunt Grizel Beaton (the sister of his father's third wife).  The English are raiding nearby, so all the men dash out of the church immediately after the couple are proclaimed man and wife.  The bride takes it in stride, having expected something of the sort after "ten days ... of peace".

The text proceeds to describe the bride, "Duly packed like broccoli into lawn, buckram and plush and ropes of misshapen pearls, she had enjoyed the wedding..."

I've wondered about that broccoli.  What in heavens name is that simile all about?  I can sort of get the image of crowded florets intending buxomness, but -- hey, what's with the green?  And of course, that connotation of green infects my interpretation of "lawn". I've read enough historical novels to know that Dunnett means "a fine linen or cotton fabric used for making clothes" but every time I read this sentence, I jump to the image of a bridal party somehow wearing a kitchen garden.  And, detractors believe what you will, Dunnett is a better writer than that.

Finally I looked up the etymology of the word "broccoli", expecting to find some obsolete poetic meaning (which would be like Dunnett). Not so. "Broccoli" comes from the Latin broccus, for "extending" or "branches".  However, according to a couple of semi-reliable online sources, early northern Europeans confused broccoli and cauliflower, calling both by the same name.  And, apparently Catherine de Medici introduced the beloved Italian vegetable to the French Court sometime after her marriage to Henri II in 1533. (It was not introduced to England until the late 1600s, but the Scottish and French Courts were closely conjoined, in fact, intermarried.)

Now that makes Dunnett sense - the misuse of a word within the diegetic context -- Grizel Beaton was not a court member, so her knowledge of the vegetable would have been limited, but it would have been a hothouse, exotic item at the time.  And "Duly packed like cauliflower into lawn, buckram and plush...." aptly describes the many layers -- breasts, cotton chemise, buckram (padding) with a plush velvet overdress adorned with pearls.  Now I can see the white, upthrust cleavage of a pale, stocky, Scottish woman stuffed into an uncomfortable formal dress for her wedding.

I've much enjoyed scavenging the interweb for images of formal dresses from the mid-16th Century Scotland or France.  (Check out the V&A site for generally wonderful images of anything in their collections).  These two images are both from a German costuming site, and illustrate a cauliflower-like bosom. (The photo on the right/bottom is of "La Bella" -- Eleanora de Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino -- by Titian. Less "cauliflower" than perhaps "milk pudding" in that case.)