Blah

...is how I feel about Germany's general election result. FDP? Blah. Yellow-black coalition of FDP & CDU? Doubly blah.

Liberal Arts College

What do you think of this liberal art college's mission statement?

The College values the merit of each unique individual, rather than succumbing to the dehumanizing, discriminatory trend of so called "social justice" and "multicultural diversity," which judges individuals not as individuals, but as member of a group and which pits one group against other competing groups in divisive power struggles. (Full text here.)

Crazy?

10 songs

Hey all,

Just a quick post to say hello, and to recommend some tunes. Here are my ten favorite songs of the moment. This list changes frequently, but I thought I'd share the current obsessions.

1. Going Missing -- Maximo Park
2. Psycho Killer -- Talking Heads
3. Real Bad News -- Aimee Mann
4. Black-Eyed -- Placebo
5. Plus Profound -- Hooverphonic
6. Hey Eugene! -- Pink Martini
7. A Sorta Fairytale -- Tori Amos
8. Troublemaker -- Weezer
9. The Crane Wife 3 -- The Decemberists
10. Not If You Were the Last Junkie On Earth -- The Dandy Warhols

Reading and banning books

The NY Times had a story last week about the 'Workshop Method' of teaching reading which lets students create their own reading lists. I think the results speak for themselves. Here's an old reading list alongside a new one:

BOOKS ASSIGNED

"To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee

"Lord of the Flies" by William Golding

"Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank

"The Giver" by Lois Lowry

"Roll of Thunder, Hear My

Cry" by Mildred Taylor

STUDENTS' FAVORITES

"It's Kind of a Funny Story" by Ned Vizzini

"A Lesson Before Dying" by Ernest J. Gaines

"The Book Thief" by Marcus Zusak

"Life as We Knew It" by Susan Beth Pfeffer

"Maximum Ride" series, by James Patterson

James Patterson, the man behind the "Toys R Us Kid" ad campaign? Rumors of our culture's death have been greatly understated. (And since when have book titles been written in quotation marks rather than being italicized? Shame on you, Grey Lady.)

I suppose it could be worse -- we could ban books from school libraries (click for larger image):

Prownsville, Oregon tried to ban a book that has lain on the CAM coffee table for years. As for Mississippi, is the lack of book banning a sign of open minds and a commitment to the spirit of free inquiry, or do we just not read anything?

A quick recipe

This weekend M. and I did a bit of entertaining: we had my officemate and his wife over for dinner, reciprocating their invitation to us from a few months ago. Finding a good time for a get-together with them can be rather difficult, as she is working on her PhD at UC Merced and spends most of her time there. (Unfortunate for us, really, as they are a lovely couple to hang out with.)

They had served up a very tasty and somewhat fancy dinner when we ate at their apartment, and we wanted to match up to their offering, but we also weren't up to anything too complex or too expensive. We settled on a classic American country menu of salad, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and peach cobbler (a la mode), but all gussied up by Cook's Illustrated. (CI is our only food-related subscription currently, and we heartily recommend it. Almost every recipe we've tried is quite delicious; it does have the downsides of occasionally requesting fairly expensive ingredients and usually requiring quite a bit of prep time the first time we try a recipe. It doesn't take long to get the hang of them, though, and they can make excellent 'staple' dishes. (Sorry for the linked recipes being hidden behind a pay wall. Email us if you want instructions.))



The dinner was a lot of fun, though the preparation and cooking took about three hours (managing to cook everything with two chefs splitting between them prep bowls, measuring spoons, a chopping block, a three burner stove and a somewhat cranky oven takes some coordination!)

All of the ingredients came from the Brookline Farmers Market, which boosted the tastiness as well. I think everyone had a great time, and the only entertaining snafu was pretty humorous: we inadvertently created a modern art sculpture worthy of a low-budget poseur gallery when the wax walls of our trusty bathroom candle finally gave way.

But what about the recipe? It's one I ran across while digging through our CI collection. My dad sent it to me when I was a grad student as a suggestion for CAM's weekly coffee hour. It was quite a hit the second time I made it; the first time I think I might have eaten it all.

Fully cover a baking sheet (1/4" sides) with saltine crackers. Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt 2 sticks of butter together with 1/2 cup light brown sugar. Heat to rolling boil for 3 minutes to thicken. Pour this mixture over the crackers.

Bake for 10-18 minutes, until brown. Remove from oven and cover with 1 bag of semisweet chocolate chips and one bag of regular chocolate chips. The chips should melt and cover the crackers smoothly; you can return the crackers to the oven briefly to help this along.

Finally, cover with pecans or your favorite nuts and refrigerate to set. Mmmmmmmmmm.

Enjoy!

Ice cream for all!

As a chubby hubby*, ice cream lover, pun aficionado, and supporter of everyone's right to marry, I was pleased to run across this**:

Next time I get a late night craving and raid the White Hen across the street, I'll pick up a pint! (Though I'm still a loyal fan of 3 Scoops and an even more loyal fan of Purity.)

* Not my fault, though, at least according to the 1907 NY Times:

Whoever heard of a fat lover? But though few chubby men enter the connubial state, they achieve a dangerous corpulence -- or have it thrust upon them, in the opinion of the learned diarist of The North American Review -- through the aid and abetment of their wives.

** "Ceremoniously?" Really? I don't think they even meant "ceremonially," but ceremoniously bears much more strongly the connotations of pomposity that accompany being "given to ceremony; punctilious in observance of formalities, esp. those of intercourse between ranks or persons." I hope the act was performed cerevisially instead!

Two small comments

Thought I'd chime in, since Melanie pleaded. ;)

First: Erik, I LOVE the bookshelf-stairs. What a neat idea. Also, props on citing Neil Postman as a "favorite modern social critic-observer." Have you read "Amusing Ourselves to Death"? I just finished this a few months back, and it's a wonderful(ly depressing) book about the shift in epistemology that comes from TV. In other words, the book is playing exactly into my personal beliefs. I highly recommend it.

In somewhat related news, M. and I are embarking on one of our periodic "media fasts." We're not watching any TV or movies in September. Unsurprisingly, this frees up a lot of time. What shall we do? Cook, play guitar/piano, write letters, and of course, read. Oh, the places you'll go!

Secondly, in response to Melanie's favorite contemporary artist, I thought I'd mention my own: Jessica Drenk (http://jessicadrenk.com/). I would encourage you to go check out her galleries. I especially like the "Reading our Remains" section. Here's an example:

M. and I have two of her more modern pieces, as well as an older painting. (One minor factor in this is that she's been my best friend since we were four, but that doesn't stop the art from being fabulous.)

Young Member Party at the Met Museum in the Big Apple

Both Mr Gemmell and I thought that a museum party for young members sounded either painfully cheesy or horribly dull when we received an invitation to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Annual Young Members Party. Much to our happy surprise this was not the case! Arriving around sunset at the Met, we entered not so much into a museum as a grand residence. Such a treat to be able to wander through the museum's maze of rooms without the nuisance of tourist-ridden banter. We could actually spend time in rooms where no one else was present, taking our pretty time enjoying various pieces. To be honest, most of the people all gussied up at the party did not seem to be present for the sake of privately viewing the artwork, but no matter for this only gave us more of an opportunity to have rooms to our dorky selves. Although it took a while for the party to get hopping, at around ten o'clock in the evening a gush of handsomely clad members arrived. Cocktails and strange canapes were served, we all stumbled to the rooftop where a Roxy Paine installation entitled Maelstrom was lighted by many-coloured lights and surround by members who were equally on their way to being sufficiently lit. The canapes apparently weren't as satisfying as promised, for a good 3/4 of the crowd were stumbling down through the exhibits at around eleven....as we ourselves faltered about through the long corridors near the end we could only think of tomorrow's potential headlines with all of the attendees in their finery barely missing disastrous encounters with various Greek and Roman statues, wobbling on the way to the taxi line. I must say that it all felt very Gatsby-esque and Trey and I half expected to walk out into West Egg upon exiting the party. It was all quite amusing and I can only recommend that you join us next summer.

The art of Obama

Last spring Melanie and I joined my folks on a minivacation in New Mexico, the Georgia O'Keefe state. At the Georgia O'Keefe museum in Santa Fe there was a prominent special display for Jimson Weed, which had been on loan to the GWB White House for the previous six years, at Laura Bush's request.

I personally think that it is a beautiful painting, and the former First Lady's choice attests that at least one person in the White House had some taste.

Apparently (and unsurprisingly) things are quite tasteful in the new First Domicile, which embraces abstraction and ambiguity with equanimity. Awesome.

Twilight Sounds, Norman Lewis, 1947

I'm still a fan of this Obama art, though:

Obey Giant!

And BTW, when I'm president, I'm going to have my official portrait painted by the creator of this one:

My favorite contemporary artist...

is Hyeseung Marriage-Song, who's a NYC artist trained in the classical tradition. She's updated her website, and her web gallery is worth checking out. Her work is presented by the Classical Arts Studio, in case you're interested in expanding or starting your art collection.

We are fortunate to have one of her paintings in our living room:

In my dream house --

after I get my dream job (I like Utah for it's sensible driving laws) -- there will, of course, be lots of books and hence a need for lots of shelf space. Here's a novel bookshelf solution that I like:

Only a problem for people who climb stairs left-right-left.