When all else fails, dream about kitties I say.
Last week I dreamed that Ears was chasing our pygmy zebra around the house...
September 28, 2006
September 23, 2006
Namazu
I attended a lecture this year on early documentary evidence of earthquakes. Learning about Namazu, the Japanese catfish deity who is responsible for causing earthquakes, made my week.
As the story sometimes is told, Namazu lives in a body of water deep in the earth. The Kashima Deity, whose responsibility it is to hold Namazu in place under water, is sometimes fatigued or called out of town. At that time, Namazu breaks loose, and the littler catfish are released as aftershocks.
Prints that depict Namazu are called Namazu-e, and they're a current obsession of mine. In them, Namazu and sometimes Mrs. Namazu are depicted wearing kimonos and living an existence similar to humans (with the exception of the being held underwater in middle earth by a deity part). The prints are beautiful and sometimes humorous.
In these prints, Namazu is variously feted by carpenters who are happy to have work rebuilding houses after an earthquake, brought under control by angry townspeople, and taken to task by the deity in charge of him.
He's still around. Here. And here. And here, on an earthquake preparedness website.
For a wonderful site about Namazu, visit Gregory Smits' site.
As the story sometimes is told, Namazu lives in a body of water deep in the earth. The Kashima Deity, whose responsibility it is to hold Namazu in place under water, is sometimes fatigued or called out of town. At that time, Namazu breaks loose, and the littler catfish are released as aftershocks.
Prints that depict Namazu are called Namazu-e, and they're a current obsession of mine. In them, Namazu and sometimes Mrs. Namazu are depicted wearing kimonos and living an existence similar to humans (with the exception of the being held underwater in middle earth by a deity part). The prints are beautiful and sometimes humorous.
In these prints, Namazu is variously feted by carpenters who are happy to have work rebuilding houses after an earthquake, brought under control by angry townspeople, and taken to task by the deity in charge of him.
He's still around. Here. And here. And here, on an earthquake preparedness website.
For a wonderful site about Namazu, visit Gregory Smits' site.
September 16, 2006
The Bakeoff
Oh The Pillsbury Bakeoff.
It was inescapable when I was a kid. They advertised during Mom's soap operas. Their recipe books sit right next to the cashier in every grocery store in America. They own flour.
Pause to mention that the Jehova's have a persistent 5 knock pattern. Won't be going outside for a while.
One year, MrsMiddleGuySis and I got a wild hair to fulfill our childhood fantasies of becoming finalists in the Bakeoff. I just want to cook in a ballroom with 99 other people. Sis wants the million, and also to be a finalist the year that I am, and she thinks it should be possible.
In Winter 2004 this was all-consuming for the ladies and their families who had to eat each variation of the recipes.
Sis went Italian, creating layered raviolis made with won ton skins that Mom dubbed "Rotundis." My entries presumed that it was possible to seduce the palette of Middle America with beets. Blue Cheese Beet Bites were a savory julienne of beets in crust. Garnet Curry Pockets were an admission that 2002's Bakeoff winners had been mainly portable. Given the polarizing effect of beets, I gained good recipes and no glory.
Last year I went into it alone, submitting a New Year's Day dish (New Year's Day Blackeye Pea Salsa Wraps) and a sour cream pie (Banana Sunshine Pie). In order to get rid of the stuff I instituted the 3pm "pie break" at work, and asked my co-workers to critique different versions. I have to say this idea was a stroke of brilliance. People show up when the email says "pie."
Luckily for the Guy Family, Bakeoff is a biennial event.
It was inescapable when I was a kid. They advertised during Mom's soap operas. Their recipe books sit right next to the cashier in every grocery store in America. They own flour.
Pause to mention that the Jehova's have a persistent 5 knock pattern. Won't be going outside for a while.
One year, MrsMiddleGuySis and I got a wild hair to fulfill our childhood fantasies of becoming finalists in the Bakeoff. I just want to cook in a ballroom with 99 other people. Sis wants the million, and also to be a finalist the year that I am, and she thinks it should be possible.
In Winter 2004 this was all-consuming for the ladies and their families who had to eat each variation of the recipes.
Sis went Italian, creating layered raviolis made with won ton skins that Mom dubbed "Rotundis." My entries presumed that it was possible to seduce the palette of Middle America with beets. Blue Cheese Beet Bites were a savory julienne of beets in crust. Garnet Curry Pockets were an admission that 2002's Bakeoff winners had been mainly portable. Given the polarizing effect of beets, I gained good recipes and no glory.
Last year I went into it alone, submitting a New Year's Day dish (New Year's Day Blackeye Pea Salsa Wraps) and a sour cream pie (Banana Sunshine Pie). In order to get rid of the stuff I instituted the 3pm "pie break" at work, and asked my co-workers to critique different versions. I have to say this idea was a stroke of brilliance. People show up when the email says "pie."
Luckily for the Guy Family, Bakeoff is a biennial event.
September 15, 2006
On A Stick
Gratuitous spearing of food with wood is a summer tradition. The stick adds portability and drama. "How much of this meal will end up on the sidewalk?" I wonder as I eat sticked food.
But back to shopping...back in the old place, when the thrift store was good, I bought a 50c record that was amazing. It was all I listened to for weeks: "Whatever You Are," by Sonny Padilla Jr.
SPJr was a self-styled teen heart throb. His LP was filled with lyric sheets and two different kinds of photographs of Sonny. One was a classic head shot. One was a photo montage, including a small portrait of young Sonny looking dreamily into space while wielding a corn dog at eye level. I became so enamored of this shot that I *almost* talked Mr Guy into having our wedding portraits taken with corndogs in hand.
Some foods are born to the stick. Candy apples, for one. I ate an amazing candy apple in the dead of winter at Coney Island. The cinnamon candy shell was so thick that in order to eat it I put the waxed paper against a filthy carney phonebooth and smacked the apple into the paper to break the candy. The most satisfying on-a-stick experience to date.
And some foods do not belong on a stick. Case in point: Montage, chocolate covered cheesecake on a stick. I watched a vendor struggle to give this stuff away outside the Ferragamo store in Manhattan on a hot August day. It was either the stick or the terrible name.
The MN State Fair this year boasted no fewer than 50 different foods on a stick. And one booth which was reported to call itself "Nothin on a Stick." Hot Dish, a traditional casserole of beef, mushroom gravy and a tater tot blackout on top was somehow consolidated by unholy means and was sold on a stick.
But back to shopping...back in the old place, when the thrift store was good, I bought a 50c record that was amazing. It was all I listened to for weeks: "Whatever You Are," by Sonny Padilla Jr.
SPJr was a self-styled teen heart throb. His LP was filled with lyric sheets and two different kinds of photographs of Sonny. One was a classic head shot. One was a photo montage, including a small portrait of young Sonny looking dreamily into space while wielding a corn dog at eye level. I became so enamored of this shot that I *almost* talked Mr Guy into having our wedding portraits taken with corndogs in hand.
Some foods are born to the stick. Candy apples, for one. I ate an amazing candy apple in the dead of winter at Coney Island. The cinnamon candy shell was so thick that in order to eat it I put the waxed paper against a filthy carney phonebooth and smacked the apple into the paper to break the candy. The most satisfying on-a-stick experience to date.
And some foods do not belong on a stick. Case in point: Montage, chocolate covered cheesecake on a stick. I watched a vendor struggle to give this stuff away outside the Ferragamo store in Manhattan on a hot August day. It was either the stick or the terrible name.
The MN State Fair this year boasted no fewer than 50 different foods on a stick. And one booth which was reported to call itself "Nothin on a Stick." Hot Dish, a traditional casserole of beef, mushroom gravy and a tater tot blackout on top was somehow consolidated by unholy means and was sold on a stick.
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