Fishstick's Book

The problem with reading someone's blog (or book or anything similar) is that it has the insidious effect of making you gradually sympathize with them, even if you hate them.

I have experienced this phenomenon with Gwyneth Paltrow. As someone who deeply hated her, I subscribed to her newsletter Goop out of the same impulse with which you would pick at a scab.

Sadly for me, what started out as a nice clean hate gradually morphed into a more complex feeling: still hate but now combined with a certain amount of affection and even empathy. What can I say? She alienates me with her off-hand recommendation that the Ritz is a fun place to stay while in Paris (thanks for the tip, Gwynnie!) and yet...she seems like a well-meaning person albeit extremely over-privileged. She's probably nice to her friends. She now hates Madonna, which I can't argue with. And her recipes are good!

So I know I'll end up eventually owning this book even though the cover repulses me. There she is again, with her self-congratulatory insipid smile, harping on and on about how wonderful her family is, and how she's a daddy's girl--and there's the foreward from Mario Batali, the most celebrity butt-kissing chef in the world. But I bet the recipes are good! Stop me before I buy this book!!

Book Review: Strange Piece of Paradise

On a recommendation at Elliott Bay Bookstore, I just finished reading this book, and I think it's one of the best books I've ever read. I'm just going to put the blurb from the back in my post, because I can't do a better job than that of describing it. I like her writing style and it's just such an interesting blend of psychology and introspection and Oregon legal history and lots of other stuff all intertwined in an extremely readable way. You really get drawn into it. Anyone who enjoys true crime would especially like this book:

In the summer of 1977, Terri Jentz and her Yale roommate, Shayna Weiss, make a cross-country bike trip. They pitch a tent in the desert of central Oregon. As they are sleeping, a man in a pickup truck deliberately runs over the tent. He then attacks them with an ax. The horrific crime is reported in newspapers across the country. No one is ever arrested. Both women survive, but Shayna suffers from amnesia, while Terri is left alone with memories of the attack. Their friendship is shattered.

Fifteen years later, Terri returns to the small town where she was nearly murdered, on the first of many visits she will make “to solve the crime that would solve me.” And she makes an extraordinary discovery: the violence of that night is as present for the community as it is for her. Slowly, her extensive interviews with the townspeople yield a terrifying revelation: many say they know who did it, and he is living freely in their midst. Terri then sets out to discover the truth about the crime and its aftermath, and to come to terms with the wounds that broke her life into a before and an after. Ultimately she finds herself face-to-face with the alleged axman.

Powerful, eloquent, and paced like the most riveting of thrillers, Strange Piece of Paradise is the electrifying account of Terri’s investigation into the mystery of her near murder. A startling profile of a psychopath, a sweeping reflection on violence and the myth of American individualism, and a moving record of a brave inner journey from violence to hope, this searing, unforgettable work is certain to be one of the most talked about books of the year.

The Wave

I hope everyone had a good holiday! I am glad it's over!

Right now, I'm reading a book I really recommend called The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean. It's about giant waves. The way she writes it and researches it is really interesting--she switches back and forth between the amazing surfers who surf these 60 to 80 foot gigantic waves to the scientists who study them. Both subcultures are pretty interesting. I enjoy the subject matter as well as her writing style--she writes it in the first person, but she doesn't have an annoying "voice"--her part in it all is fairly low-key and invisible.

She also wrote a book about great white sharks which I plan to read next.

Pictured above: Pro surfer Laird Hamilton, riding an insanely huge wave. He is married to 6-foot-three supermodel/volleyball pro Gabby Reece. They have three kids who, with that genetic mix, were probably born with superpowers.

60 Seconds

When the remake of this movie first came out, I kept accidentally calling it Gone In 60 Minutes...which would have been a much slower movie about much less impressive car thieves. Actually, that movie would probably have been more entertaining.

Anyway, I wanted to recommend the job interviewing book that I found most helpful when I was preparing for my job interviews (before I got my current job). It's called 60 Seconds and You're Hired! and it's by Robin Ryan. She includes a long list of potential questions that you might be asked, with suggestions about how to answer, and one thing that really helped me was reading through all the questions and thinking about what my answer would be. Once I knew that I had an answer for anything I might be asked, I felt a lot more confident about going into the interview (although I was still terrified).

Evil Genes

This is the book I'm reading right now, and I recommend it. The author is insanely smart and a very good writer. She's good at explaining science in a way that non-science-y people (like me) can understand. She also writes about her own family and historical figures and all kinds of interesting stuff.

From the title, I was afraid her writing style might be too cutesy, but it's not at all. It's entertaining and readable, but also substantive.

From Publishers Weekly:

"Borne out of a quest to understand her sister Carolyn's lifelong sinister behavior (which, systems engineer Barbara Oakley suggests, may have been compounded by childhood polio), the author sets out on an exploration of evil, or Machiavellian, individuals. Drawing on the advances in brain imaging that have illuminated the relationship of emotions, genetics and the brain (with accompanying imaging scans), Oakley collects detailed case histories of famed evil geniuses such as Slobodan Milosevic and Mao Zedong, interspersed with a memoir of Carolyn's life. Oakley posits that they all had borderline personality disorder or antisocial personality disorder, a claim she supports with evidence from scientists' genetic and neurological research. All the people she considers, Oakley notes, are charming on the surface but capable of deeply malign behavior (traits similar to those found in some personality disorders), and her analysis attributes these traits to narcissism combined with cognitive and emotional disturbances that lead them to believe they are behaving in a genuinely altruistic way. Disturbing, for sure, but with her own personal story informing her study, Oakley offers an accessible account of a group of psychiatric disorders and those affected by them."

"Are you going to the Nirvana show tonight?" he asked curtly.

Thanks to the early influence of Dynamite magazine, every now and then, a "Tom Swifty" pops into my head (like the one I used for the title of this post). Dynamite would regularly feature lists of these adverb-based puns. They seemed like the height of cleverness to my young impressionable mind. This list is from Wikipedia:


"Who left the toilet seat down?" Tom asked peevishly.

"Pass me the shellfish," said Tom crabbily.

"That's the last time I'll stick my arm in a lion's mouth," the lion-tamer said off-handedly.

"Can I go looking for the Grail again?" Tom requested.

"I unclogged the drain with a vacuum cleaner," Tom said succinctly.

"I might as well be dead," Tom croaked.

"We just struck oil!" Tom gushed.

"They had to amputate them both at the ankles," Tom said defeatedly.

"Who discovered radium?" asked Marie curiously.

"Hurry up and get to the back of the ship," Tom said sternly.

"Would you like to ride in my new ambulance?" asked Tom hospitably.

"Who put the moss in the bog again?" asked Tom repeatedly.

"A word that contains all five vowels? And I suppose you want those vowels to appear in alphabetical order?" asked Tom facetiously.

“Charlatan! Pretender! Mountebank! Quack! Rogue!” Tom said euphoniously.

"I'm not going to evangelize the rest of the neighborhood," concluded Tom distractedly.

"The robber is coming down the stairs", Tom said condescendingly.

"Nnnn", Tom murmured forensically.

"I think I'm a homosexual", Tom said, half in earnest.

"I am the bone lord," Tom proclaimed skulkingly.

"I know who turned out the lights," Tom hinted darkly

The Wordy Shipmates

If there is ever a time when you really, really want a good book to read, it's during a long plane ride. Personally, the only two activities I am able to somewhat enjoy on planes are 1) sleeping, and 2) reading. The problem with the first option is that it's often too uncomfortable on planes to sleep. With the second option, it's important to choose the right kind of good book. I've made the mistake before of telling myself: what better time to attempt a very challenging, difficult book than on an hours-long plane ride with nothing else to do?

The problem with this--I have found out the hard way--is that it's pretty hard to concentrate while traveling, even if you do have hours and hours to kill. Better to choose a book that is easily engrossing and will gain your immediate and lasting attention.

Sarah Vowell's latest book, The Wordy Shipmates, fits this bill nicely. I started it on vacation, but mostly read it on the plane ride home. The fun thing about her books is that they are substantive and intelligent, but also totally entertaining and easy to read. I learned a lot about early American history from reading this book. She is really, really funny too. (Oh, also: she voiced the character of Violet in The Incredibles, which was a very cute movie.) This is a review from Amazon:

"Starred Review. Essayist and public radio regular Vowell (Assassination Vacation) revisits America's Puritan roots in this witty exploration of the ways in which our country's present predicaments are inextricably tied to its past. In a style less colloquial than her previous books, Vowell traces the 1630 journey of several key English colonists and members of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Foremost among these men was John Winthrop, who would become governor of Massachusetts. While the Puritans who had earlier sailed to Plymouth on the Mayflower were separatists, Winthrop's followers remained loyal to England, spurred on by Puritan Reverend John Cotton's proclamation that they were God's chosen people. Vowell underscores that the seemingly minute differences between the Plymouth Puritans and the Massachusetts Puritans were as meaningful as the current Sunni/Shia Muslim rift. Gracefully interspersing her history lesson with personal anecdotes, Vowell offers reflections that are both amusing (colonial history lesson via The Brady Bunch) and tender (watching New Yorkers patiently waiting in line to donate blood after 9/11). (Oct.)"

"Be as wise as serpents, and as tender as doves."

"A French philosopher said, 'No man is strong unless he bears within his character antitheses strongly marked.' The strong man holds in a living blend strongly marked opposites. Not ordinarily do men achieve this blend of opposites. The idealists are usually not realistic, and the realists are not usually idealistic. The militant are not generally known to be passive, nor the passive to be militant. Seldom are the humble self-assertive, or the self-assertive humble. But life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony. The philosopher Hegel said that truth is found neither in the thesis or the antithesis, but in an emergent synthesis which reconciles the two...

"Let us consider, first, the need for a tough mind, characterized by incisive thinking, realistic appraisal, and decisive judgment. The tough mind is sharp and penetrating; breaking through the crust of legends and myths and sifting the true from the false. The tough-minded individual is astute and discerning. He has a strong, austere quality that makes for firmness of purpose and solidness of commitment.

"Who doubts that this toughness of mind is one of man's greatest needs? Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think...

"This undue gullibility is also seen in the tendency of many readers to accept the printed word of the press as final truth. Few people realize that even our authentic channels of information--the press, the platform, and in many instances the pulpit--do not give us objective and unbiased truth. Few people have the toughness of mind to judge critically and to discern the true from the false, the fact from the fiction. Our minds are constantly being invaded by legions of half-truths, prejudices, and false facts. One of the great needs of mankind is to be lifted above the morass of false propaganda."

--Martin Luther King, Jr. from Strength to Love, chapter one: "A tough mind and a tender heart."

"Hi Mr. Snake Bird" painting found here: http://mfields.org/2009/08/10/born-from-chaos/

It's So True

JOE HELLER

True story, Word of Honor:
Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer
now dead,
and I were at a party given by a billionaire
on Shelter Island.
I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel
to know that our host only yesterday
may have made more money
than your novel ‘Catch-22′
has earned in its entire history?”
And Joe said, “I’ve got something he can never have.”
And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?”
And Joe said, “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”
Not bad! Rest in peace!

- Kurt Vonnegut

Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich

Guy alerted me to this funny news story today. I love the juxtaposition of nazis with collectible spoons--it's so tone deaf! Like, "Yeah, yeah, we've all heard about the concentration camps--but have you seen these amazing spoons?" There's something so wrong about that. Although I have to admit, it does make me curious. What's so special about those spoons?

While the idea of owning Nazi memorablia is a little too creepy, I would like to own some souvenirs from the French Resistance:

Worm hunters, Nazi spoons vie for odd-book prize

LONDON – Worm hunters, lethal robots and Nazi spoons are in the running for Britain's quirkiest literary award, the Diagram Prize for year's oddest book title.

The six finalists are "Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter;" "Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich;" "Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots;" "The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease"; "Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes;" and "What Kind of Bean is This Chihuahua?"

The shortlist, announced Friday, was narrowed down from 90 entries, including "The Origin of Feces" and "Bacon: A Love Story."

The Diagram Prize was founded in 1978 and is run by trade magazine The Bookseller. The winner, decided by public vote, will be announced March 26.

Previous champions include "Bombproof Your Horse" and "Living With Crazy Buttocks."

Ted Allen's Potato Gratin

I got this recipe from Ted "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" Allen's cookbook, The Food You Want to Eat. It turned out delicious, although it's very, very rich, so it's definitely a special occasion recipe. You slice two pounds of baking potatoes as thin as you can (Guy did that part), and then layer half of them into an 8x8 casserole dish. You sprinkle them with kosher salt, black pepper, a little bit of freshly grated nutmeg, one garlic clove sliced thin, and fresh thyme. You cover this with a cup of grated Gruyere cheese and half a cup of heavy cream. Now you add the rest of the potatoes and repeat the whole process. Finally, you dot the whole thing with a tablespoon of butter, then bake at 350 for one hour and 15 minutes.

Poopy Diapers

Jennifer did this drawing of my boss, a woman I have affectionately nicknamed Poopy Diapers. (Not to her face, obviously.) Diana's boss is nicknamed Shitty, while Jennifer works for the Toad, who has the most impressively dark undereye circles I have ever seen on a person. Guy works for the Bleeb.

Yes, it's a rogue's gallery of human dysfunction and spectacular personality disorders, but I think Poopy Diapers is ultimately the hands-down winner of the "Who has the worst boss?" contest.

My co-worker Catherine, a sensitive, lovely person, was on the receiving end of Poopy Diapers' wrath for a few weeks. She was giving Catherine the silent treatment--which, I assured her, was actually a blessing. "Now you don't have to listen to her stupid stories about her grandchild," I told her, but Catherine is a sweet, easily intimidated person, and didn't particularly enjoy this experience.

However, when I suddenly became Public Enemy Number One last week in Poopy's diseased mind, I could hear her greeting Catherine on Friday morning with more gushing warmth and friendliness than either of us had heard out of her in weeks. "Hi! How are yooo-oooh doing today?" she gushed weirdly at her. Catherine responded politely, but a few minutes later, I received this email from her: "I'm frightened."

Anyway, Poopy's behavior last week inspired me to order these three books from Amazon. In working for her, I think it will help if I imagine myself as an anthropologist doing field work on the subject of personality disorders.

The Bully at Work: What You Can Do to Stop the Hurt and Reclaim Your Dignity on the Job
Gary, Ph.D. Namie, Ruth, Ph.D. Namie

Toxic Coworkers: How to Deal with Dysfunctional People on the Job

Alan A., Ph.D. Cavaiola, Neil J., Ph.D. Lavender

The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't

Robert I. Sutton

Weirdly Appropos

Strangely, soon after my shockingly limited knowledge of Lincoln's assasination was revealed on this very blog, we get this piece of timely news: Bill O'Reilly is writing a book about it!*

*About Lincoln's assasination, not my poor grasp of American history.

Obviously, Papa Bear has been reading my blog, and felt inspired to help a buddy out. I think I might actually have to read this:

Latest Abe Lincoln biographer? Bill O’Reilly
History book will take readers into mind of assassin John Wilkes Booth

The Fox News host and best-selling author is working on "Killing Lincoln," a history book that will take readers "into Ford's Theater and into the mind of Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth, and on the manhunt to find and bring to justice the killer of one our greatest presidents," according to a statement issued Thursday by Henry Holt and Company.

"Killing Lincoln" is scheduled to come out in the fall of 2011 and will be co-written by Martin Dugard, whose previous works include "The Training Ground," an account of the Mexican War and such future Civil War generals as Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee.

In a recent interview, O'Reilly said he got the idea after [reading a blog called Beebo] learning about Lafayette C. Baker, a 19th-century detective and spy who led the investigation into Lincoln's murder and helped track down Booth. Baker claimed later that he had possession of Booth's diary and that someone had "cut out eighteen leaves." Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, to whom Baker had turned over the diary, was accused of taking out the pages and was suspected of being involved in the assassination plot.

"The more I heard the more exciting and more interesting it became, and I said, 'Look, I can do a good book on this,'" said O'Reilly, who added that "Killing Lincoln" will also provide lessons "for today, for contemporary America, [and for Beebo and her history-impaired friends]" but declined to be more specific.

"I want to keep that as a surprise," he said. [He so is writing it for me.]

Many of O'Reilly's books, including "Culture Warrior" and "A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity" were published by the Random House Inc. imprint Broadway Books. But after his publisher at Broadway, Stephen Rubin, left to run Holt, a division of Macmillan, O'Reilly decided to work with Holt on the Lincoln biography.

"I know Steve will be able to publish this book in a very effective manner," said O'Reilly, who added that he had not made a long-term commitment to Holt or to any publisher.

Note: I found the illustration at a website about vintage dustjackets: "Yo maté a Lincoln a las 10:13 (Reus, 1964): The inevitable illustration for I Killed Lincoln at 10:13! shows the assassinated president right after Booth's fatal shot. Courtesy of Art Scott."

Taliesin

An acquaintance of mine has a daughter named Taliesin. Initially, I didn't think too much about it, I just thought, "Oh, that's some made-up hippie name." (The acquaintance in question is a bit crunchy.)

But for some reason, I recently began to idly wonder about the name, so I did an online search. It turns out that Taliesin was an ancient Welsh poet who captured the imagination of some of the later Romantic poets, like Tennyson. Going along with the "hippie" theory, this entry from Wikipedia sounds like something straight out of Lord of the Rings:

"According to legend, Taliesin was adopted as a child by Elffin, the son of Gwyddno Garanhir, and prophesied the death of Maelgwn Gwynedd from the Yellow Plague. In later stories he became a mythic hero, companion of Bran the Blessed and King Arthur. His legendary biography is found in several late renderings, the earliest surviving narrative being found in a manuscript chronicle of world history written by Elis Gruffydd in the mid-16th century)."

I know what you're thinking: Whatever. However, there was another (but related) entry in Wikipedia under "Taliesin." It's the name that Frank Lloyd Wright gave to his Wisconsin estate.

What comes to your mind when you think about Frank Lloyd Wright? Everyone knows he was a great architect. But when you think about him as a person, who do you imagine?

For me, I never knew a lot about him, but I always assumed he was probably a respectable, mild person who, apart from his architectural achievements, led a fairly dry, boring life. But as it turns out, nothing could be further from the truth.

I was surprised to discover that, in his own time, Frank was an incredibly controversial and scandalous public figure. He left his wife and six children to run away with the wife of one of his clients, Mrs. Mamah Cheney (pronounced "May-muh Chee-ney"). Mamah happily left her own spouse and two children to run off with Frank. They moved into Frank's Wisconsin estate together and lived in open adultery from 1911-1914. Mamah spent her days translating the works of Swedish feminist Ellen Key.

The rural Wisconsin neighbors were completely horrified and appalled by all this, and even tried to get Frank and Mamah evicted, but to no avail. The local papers published scathing editorials condemning the couple.

Here's the part that really shocked me, though:

"Wright and Mamah Borthwick (now going by her maiden name) moved into Taliesin shortly after Christmas, 1911. On August 15, 1914, while Wright was in Chicago completing a large project, Midway Gardens, Julian Carlton, a manservant whom Wright had hired two months earlier (along with his wife, Gertrude, who served as cook), set fire to the living quarters of Taliesin and murdered seven people with an axe as the fire burned. The dead were: Mamah; her two children John and Martha; Thomas Brunker, the foreman; Emil Brodelle, a draftsman; David Lindblom, a landscape gardener; and Ernest Weston, the son of the carpenter William Weston. Two victims survived the mêlée—William Weston and draftsman Herb Fritz—and the elder Weston helped to put out the fire that almost completely consumed the residential wing of the house. Carlton, hiding in the unlit furnace, survived the fire but died in jail six weeks later; Gertrude also survived, having escaped the burning building through the basement; she denied any knowledge of her husband's actions."

Holy shiz!! When I read this paragraph, I couldn't believe I had never heard of any this. It made me curious to learn more.

So I checked a book out of the library called Death In a Prairie House: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Murders by William Drennan (published 2007). One of the points the author makes is that this major event in Frank Lloyd Wright's life has been more or less lost to history, even though it was huge, huge news at the time (and Julian Carlton is still Wisconsin's greatest mass murderer). He theorizes that perhaps, as time went on, architectural historians didn't think this lurid chapter in Wright's personal life was relevant to his work.

But the author argues that these murders might have, in fact, changed the course of history. Wright went from designing houses with huge windows and walls that were open to nature, to creating spaces that were much more guarded and fortress-like, with hidden front entrances (or no front door at all). Because Frank Lloyd Wright's work was so influential, it's possible that the grisly events of one afternoon in Wisconsin forever altered the American architectural landscape that we live in today.

I learned a lot about Frank Lloyd Wright from this book. He was so loathed in his own town that the neighbors nicknamed him Frank Lloyd Wrong. There's no getting around the fact that he was kind of a dick. He was lots of bad things: arrogant, self-aggrandizing, cruel, insensitive, constantly in debt, irresponsible, deceitful. And he was some good things: extravagant, passionate, individualistic, visionary, hugely talented, resilient, charismatic. But he was definitely not boring.

"Oinkies"

As mentioned in a previous post, I'm reading a really interesting book right now called The Family That Couldn't Sleep by D.T. Max. It's about an Italian family that is prone to an extremely rare neurological illness--rare for the general population, that is, but not for them. About one person in 6 million gets fatal familial insomnia, but in this family, it's more like one in two.

It's a fascinating book that covers all sorts of ground, everything from Italian culture and history to the personalities of brilliant, egotistical scientists, and the mad cow scare in England in the 1990s.

I'm up to that last part (mad cow) right now, and I've been learning some really interesting facts about BSE or "bovine spongiform encephalopathy." I remember in the 90s, the common belief about mad cow disease was that if you happened to eat infected meat just once in your life, you could end up developing mad cow disease 50 years later. That's no longer really believed to be true (although, who knows?):

"It can be estimated, based on a European Union scientific committee's work, that the English ate as many as 640 billion doses of BSE during the crisis as a whole [1980s-1990s]. As it happens, BSE crosses from cow to human only with difficulty, but this fact wasn't anything the British government knew. They underestimated the initial threat, ignored the unique nature of the disease agent, and allowed bureaucracy and cattle industry profits to trump speed and openness. When in doubt, they formed a committee. The one thing they had on their side was luck. Fortunately, prions aren't as infectious as, say, the flu. If they were, only long-time vegetarians would be alive in England today."

In other words, the good news is, it's not that easy for humans to get mad cow disease. The bad news is, the English government didn't actually know that during the 10 year lag between realizing there was a problem and actually doing something about it. It's only dumb luck that kept millions of people from dying of mad cow, instead of the 160 or so people (mostly teenagers, for some reason) that actually did.

Anyway, getting back to that decade-long lag during which the British government pretended they were protecting the public and that they had it all under control when, in reality, they totally did not...Here's a morbidly funny anecdote from the book about that:

"British beef and its promoters fought back. The agriculture minister, John Gummer, fed his daughter a hamburger at a TV photo-op. (But four-year-old Cordelia made a face that suggested she'd rather be eating anything else--it was later reported that she found the hamburger too hot--and the moment registered in the British mind as only a failed photo-op can. The phrase 'doing a Gummer' remains in British political lexicon for such moments.) Officials went on tour to try to persuade English schools to put beef back on the menu. The Meat and Livestock Commission, a government-funded organization that helped promote British farm products, sponsored a contest to find 'the tastiest and most innovative children's novelty meat product.' The winner was 'Oinkies,' a combination of sausage meat and cheddar balls."

Mmmm, Oinkies. I have to admit, that actually sounds delicious to me. But it also reminds me of this Kids In the Hall skit about "Poreef," the disgusting pork-beef hybrid that featured "low price" as its only convincing selling point:

Una Notta In Bianco

How do you lose sleep in Italian? I just learned (from a book I'm reading called The Family That Couldn't Sleep about an Italian family with a rare neurological disorder) that suffering through a sleepless night in Italy is referred to as "passer una notta in biano," literally "spending a white night." The origin of this phrase has something to do with summer solstice and polar latitudes and midnight sun. I don't know, I'm not a scientist. The French have a similar expression, "faire une nuit blanche."

Wikipedia informs me that all-night arts festivals (which borrow their names from this expression) are popular in Europe. In America, we don't really support the arts per se, but we do have our own proud tradition of drunken co-eds flocking to our beaches every year during the popular "Spring Break" celebrations, occasionally documented by independent filmmaker Joe Francis (currently serving time in prison for getting a little too "enthusiastic" in the making of his art films). What? Don't you like art?:

"Nuit Blanche (literally White Night or All-Nighter in French) is an annual all-night arts festival. Its exact beginning is disputed between Paris, St Petersburg, and Berlin, but, taking elements from all of these, the idea of a night-time festival of the arts has spread around the world since 1997, taking hold from Montreal to Madrid and Lima to Leeds. A Nuit Blanche will typically have museums, private and public art galleries, and other cultural institutions open and free of charge, with the centre of the city itself being turned into a de facto art gallery, providing space for art installations, performances (music, film, dance, performance art), themed social gatherings, and other activities.

"Some cities use the French phrase Nuit blanche (or Nuits blanches, if the event is spread over more than one night). Some use the same words in their language: White Nights, La Notte Bianca (Italian), La Noche en Blanco (Spanish), Noaptea alba (Romanian), Nata e Bardhe (Albanian), Baltā Nakts in Latvian. Others invent their own names, such as Lejl Imdawwal ("Lit Night") in Maltese, Virada Cultural in São Paulo, Taiteiden yö ("Night of the arts") in Finland, and Kulturnatten ("Night of Culture") in Copenhagen.

"The current all-night festivals have their roots in several cities. St Petersburg, for two hundred years capital of the Russian Empire and still a major European cultural centre, is one of the world's most northerly cities, and as such has long summer days broken only by a brief period of twilight from mid-May to mid-July, the celebrated phenomenon known as the white nights. This led to the annual celebrations known as the White Nights Festival, which features months of pop culture (e.g. the Rolling Stones in the open air at Palace Square) and high culture events ("Stars of the White Nights Festival" at the Mariinsky Theatre), street carnivals, and the Scarlet Sails celebration, known for its fireworks. So "white nights" in the Russian context is both a natural phenomenon of the summer, and a long-standing cultural festival that spreads over weeks or months in midsummer.

"Another similar festival that contributed to the White Nights came out of Germany. The first Long Night of Museums took place in the newly re-united Berlin in 1997 with a dozen participating institutions and exhibitions; the number has risen to 125, with over 150,000 people taking part in the January 2005 night. The idea has spread to other cities: in addition to the Langen Nacht der Museen in Berlin, there is a museums-n8 event in Amsterdam. The third strand that has contributed to the international Nuit Blanche concept is the event of that name launched by the Mayor of Paris Bertrand Delanoë in 2002.

"Wherever the idea originated from, and whatever names are used, the White Nights have expanded dramatically, with events in over 120 cities."

Charlton Heston "Books On Tape"

Charlton Heston (as portrayed by Phil Hartman) records the audio version of Madonna's book Sex.

Oh, Phil. The world misses you! Come to think of it, we miss you too, Charlton.

Madonna, unfortunately, is still with us.

Books I Am Reading

You know how, every now and then, you get in one of those moods where you are reading a few books at the same time, switching on and off between them? Currently, I am multi-reading. The books are:

Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, by Philip K. Dick. This is actually an old favorite that I am re-reading.

A Private Disgrace: Lizzie Borden by Daylight, by Victoria Lincoln. Published in 1967, the author was a toddler in Fall River during the time that Lizzie Borden lived there. She actually knew Lizzie as a neighbor and spoke to her on occasion. Her book offers some how's and why's as to the murders (of which she believes Lizzie to be guilty).

High On Arrival, by Mackenzie Phillips. If you are looking for a page-turner, this book is definitely one. Mackenzie had a pretty crazy upbringing and life (plus a skilled ghost-writer). Her father, "Papa John" Phillips, was truly a douchebag of the highest (or lowest?) order. She tells her story with equal love of and disappointment in her father--but reading this, I just flat-out loathe him.

Coming Up for Air, by George Orwell. This is one that Guy bought for me and recommended.

What have YOU been reading?

Pizza Toppings Around the Globe

I've been somewhat obsessed with pizza lately, and I got to thinking last night about pizza toppings. My own personal favorites are onion and pineapple, but I rarely order this because it's too confusing to others. Guy is staunchly devoted to meat toppings, specifically sausage. Other meats will do, but the sausage topping is king in Guy's world.

I was reading about pizza in the Joy of Cooking last night, and it mentioned some pizza topping variations from around the world. This inspired me to do some research of my own.

Apparently, Deep Sea Eel Pizza is the most popular item on the menu at the Pizza Huts in China (Shanghai and Xian). That's a photo of it (at left). Surprisingly, it actually looks pretty good! I would try it.

Costa Ricans like coconut on their pizza. Predictably, Indians like curry, chicken tikka, pickled ginger, minced mutton, and paneer. In Sweden, they like banana curry pizza.

How about Russia? Oh, Russia. Land of great literature...but there is a reason you are not known for your food. Russians top their pizza with "mockba" which is "a combination of sardines, tuna, mackerel, salmon and onions. Red herring is also a topping of choice." Hey! Maybe cats secretly control Russia! That would explain a lot. I bet Tolstoy was actually a cat. That explains why Anna Karenina was always batting at a piece of string.

The Japanese like eel and squid on their pizza, but because they are also strangely obsessed with mayonnaise, they also enjoy something called "Mayo Jago." Apparently, this is mayonnaise, potato, and bacon. Actually, that sounds pretty good to me.

Germans like pizza with a "breakfast-y" flair, topped with eggs sunny side up and sausage links! Wow! That looks amazing to me, although I know my egg-hating friends will find this disgusting. Hmmm, Germans, beer...Something makes me wonder if this pizza topping is a thinly-disguised hangover cure.

Finally, the French. Yes, they do everything better than we do, and why should pizza be any exception? Pizza flambée is made with crème fraîche, onions, and smoky bacon lardons. C'est magnifique!

Lizzie Borden: Whack Job

I like to read true crime books once in a while; for some reason, I find them relaxing.

Yesterday, I got the idea to look for a book about Lizzie Borden. I was surprised by the sheer number and variety of books available. I shouldn't have been surprised, her murder trial was one of the most infamous in American history. Also, I was surprised by the widely divergent theories about "who did it"--I always assumed that it was generally accepted that Lizzie did it.

I still think that's mostly the accepted version, but I was surprised to see a lot of wacky titles like Lizzie Borden Didn't Do It! and even Did Lizzie Borden Axe for It?

To my mind, even without reading any books on the subject, she's indisputably guilty. Why? Just look at her. She's got the Crazy Eyes, people.

From Wikipedia: Lizzie Andrew Borden (July 19, 1860 – June 1, 1927) was a New England spinster who was the central figure in the hatchet murders of her father and stepmother on August 4, 1892 in Fall River, Massachusetts in the United States. The murders, subsequent trial, and following trial by media became a cause célèbre. The fame of the incident has endured in American pop culture and criminology. Although Lizzie Borden was acquitted, no one else was ever arrested or tried, and she has remained notorious in American folklore. Dispute over the identity of the killer or killers continues to this day.

Over a period of years after the death of the first Mrs. Borden, life at 92 Second Street had grown unpleasant in many ways, and affection between the older and younger family members had waned considerably if any was present at all. Meals were not always eaten together. Conflict had increased between the two daughters and their father about his decision to divide valuable property among relatives before his death. Shortly before the murders, a major argument had occurred which resulted in both sisters leaving home on extended "vacations". Lizzie Borden, however, decided to end her trip and returned early.

She was refused the purchase of prussic acid (hydrogen cyanide) by local druggist Eli Bence, which she claimed was for cleaning a seal skin coat.

Shortly before the murders, the entire household became violently ill. As Mr. Borden was not a popular man in town, Mrs. Borden feared they were being poisoned, but the family doctor diagnosed it as bad food.

No blood-soaked clothing was found as evidence by police. A few days after the murder, Borden tore apart and burned a blue dress in the kitchen stove, claiming she had brushed against fresh baseboard paint which had smeared on it.

Despite incriminating circumstances, Lizzie Borden was acquitted on June 20, 1893 by a jury after an hour and a half's deliberation. The fact that no murder weapon was found and no blood evidence was noted just a few minutes after the second murder pointed to reasonable doubt. Her entire original inquest testimony was barred from the trial. Also excluded was testimony regarding her attempt to purchase prussic acid.

Though acquitted for the crimes, Lizzie Borden was ostracized by neighbors following the trial. Lizzie Borden's name was again brought to the public forefront when she was accused of shoplifting in 1897.