the morning after

Penultimate drum-and-dance of the year in South Amherst yesterday. I brought my drum, even though I don’t have a bag for it yet and it was raining a little – but Molly and I threw garbage bags over the drums, and I’m very happy we did. By the end of the evening my hands were somehow hurting and a little numb at the same time, and I could still feel the just-played drumbeat in my ribcage.

I did better than had seemed possible, given how out of practice I’ve been with things that require sustaining a regular rhythm with my hands (drumming, juggling, playing the guitar which I haven’t done in any sort of sustained way since my first year in grad school). Concentrating on picking out, playing and sustaining relatively simple rhythms for several minutes at a time was great practice.

Molly and Natalie and I stayed over at our friends’ place in Hadley (Inspirit Common), and had breakfast at Cafe Esselon there. Natalie kept feeding us pretend food. The more ridiculously we reacted, the more giggles scattered, sparkling, across the table.

joss whedon’s mom

Thing I learned today: Equality Now was founded in large part thanks to (by a student of) Joss Whedon’s mother. No wonder he’s such a brilliant feminist. I just ran across this video of Joss’s acceptance speech when EN gave him an award in 2006.

I love this eloquent, witty, heartbreakingly stunningly kind and passionate man.

sweet to surrender

Excellent feature of seeing housemates’ music libraries through the local wireless network: listening to Erasure for the first time in, like, seven years. And dancing like a madwoman.

dream derailment and other oddities

Life’s not turning out to be anything like I’d imagined, but I can feel personal growth in my bones. Despite the various goodnesses below, I’ve been hiding from the world lately. Take this post as a periodic hello. Hello, the world!

I tend to remember dreams more vividly when it’s a short night’s sleep. This past night I was on my way to see my mother by public transport. In reality this means commuter rail, and it was in the dream as well, but the lines were all wrong, un-Boston-like. Plus, for whatever reason I didn’t really know where I was going; it wasn’t clear that I was meeting her at her house.

Quite far from the hub station in the city center, I realize I’m on the wrong line. Still going east (never mind the ocean in the real eastward direction), but way too southerly. I don’t even know which line it is, so ask people, who don’t know. Hop out at the next stop, ask someone else, and that someone else turns out to be Allison Janney, who tells me to get back on the train because I sure can’t get there from here.

Just before the alarm chirps, it turns out that there’s a “bridge line” that’s coming up, that can take me northwards to more or less exactly where I want to be. Convenient!

This fits into my week perfectly; it’s been a strange one so far. On Monday I went through the entire gamut of emotions; surprisingly (or maybe not), they were overwhelmingly on the positive end of the spectrum. I also discovered that if there’s red wine with a penguin on it, it’s probably well worth a try.

On Tuesday I went to see a concert with mom and a few others. Veronika Dolina was playing in Natick; she’s a singer-songwriter, chick with guitar, except now she’s a 60-year-old lady with guitar. I grew up with her quiet, unassuming songs being both played and sung in my house. She takes the quotidian to new levels of lyrical sensitivity and doesn’t philosophize heavily (both good things). The concert itself was… a disappointment. She played mostly newer stuff I don’t know, saving the few older songs for the end – but that would’ve been fine, had she not seemed a bit out of it. Talking in fragments, not really holding melodies, she was tired and not connecting with her audience, and I was glad that I have old recordings of hers still.

Then Wednesday, yesterday, I got good news – the first piece of a puzzle that will hopefully come together soon. And throughout the week-so-far, I’ve been painting for my rent and hanging out with friends (two years of age and up) and thinking about my life on a longer-term scale, which feels unusual, and that in itself is strange. I tended to live in the future before, see. Whatever I was doing, my mind was on the next thing – this is why the Buddhists have been so appealing and helpful lately, with their in-the-present-moment-ness. But this past winter I found myself holding on to every day, being unable (unwilling) to make plans more than a day or two (or sometimes several hours) in advance, feeling the present moment all around me.

Thus, the process of reacquiring a longer-term perspective snuck up on me. It is only because I am surrounded by such excellent, supportive, understanding people that this doesn’t scare me witless. In fact, it’s about time.

And it’s almost time to go feel mighty by picking up heavy things and putting them back down. Have I mentioned lately how good weightlifting has been making me feel? Very, very good.

What has been making you feel good lately?

take a walk on the wild side

Neil Gaiman writes: “Probably nobody except me thinks Moby and Lou Reed playing Walk on The Wild Side together is as cool as I do…”

You’re not alone, Neil. American Gods, indeed.

…
I came home today and promptly crashed for something like five hours. Guess, life resumes tomorrow.

American Gods free, online, for a limited time.

Neil Gaiman’s blog readership has spoken, and Harper Collins has put the entire American Gods online for free for a month, starting yesterday. If you have not yet read it, I highly recommend it; but then, I’ve never failed to like anything Gaiman has written. Some of his wor[k|d]s leave more of an impression on me than others, of course; American Gods is right up there at the top.

Of course, the publisher didn’t go so far as to allow you to download the thing; as far as I can see, you can only read it on the web. So it goes, step by step… at least they’re making it free in the first place!

fog, live-action and animated

Insomnia is no fun at all. Or, I don’t know – what do you call going to sleep utterly exhausted, then waking up five hours later feeling reasonably rested but knowing that that’s an illusion, and yet staying up because if you go back to sleep then you’ll have to deal with the emotional repercussions of the dreams you’ve been having?

Yeah.

On the brighter side, a few daya ago my housemate found my favorite Russian cartoon, “Hedgehog in the Fog,” with English subtitles so I can share it with you! It has won all kinds of awards since it was released in 1975, including several years ago best piece of animation of all time at a festival in Tokyo. It’s just about ten minutes long.

Sometimes I feel like I’m in a temporal fog. The furthest I can see is a day, maybe. Maybe several hours. Maybe a couple of days. Certainly no long-term clarity (which tends to be an illusion anyhow). I make tea, sit down wih the mug, close my eyes and breathe.

everything is white and colors.

It’s snowing white all over and so, so quiet outside.

This past Saturday was Frostbyte’s memorial auction. I arranged food for what probably ended up being a couple hundred people over the course of about 24 hours. Didn’t really cook, except in a minimalist sense. Still, it was lovely – several times that day people asked me the requisite how-are-you and I would answer, “in my element.” Providing good food for people, even if I just shop and chop veggies and open cheese and get others to help me, fills my soul like nothing else does. Especially when people I don’t know take note of the food and are pleased with it. Especially-especially when I get to participate in a group effort such as this was, two years in the making (by others: I only came to it within the last month). Labor of true love, it was, despite the complexity and frustrations of the organizing process. The next day, as we were finishing cleaning up, one of my co-organizers smiled at me and said, “You’re a new old friend.” Burners’ spirit of instant community is priceless.

(I don’t actually know whether the person who made the above remark has gone to Burning Man. But he’s old-school TEP, and I gather that’s pretty close in all the relevant ways.)

Saturday evening I sat on a couch in front of Tensor, weaving slow conversation with the human beside me into its constantly changing color-light play. A swing hung between us and Tensor. Its shadow in the bright lights, sometimes swinging empty, most of the time complete with people’s silhouettes, was the narrative of remembrance unfolding. If the mark I leave on my community when I’m gone even approaches Kevin McCormick’s – he died at just 29 – I’ll have done well.

Yesterday I spent a few hours with a sweet, social two-year-old and remembered how exhausting and satisfying it is to live only for the present moment, all the time. I remembered the realization I’ve been coming back to over the last couple of months: the kind of family I want, the village that it takes to raise children and be the change I/we wish to see in the world, is already there. Here. All I need to do is participate in it.

Last night another new old friend, the luminous human with the Tensor-side conversation, brought me a present, a square of squares of color-cycling light. It is making slow progress in its simple programming as white snow layers itself onto the skylight, sounding like grains of sand falling. White cat at my feet, I watch the color cube and feel his still calm.

reading rec: gaimanesque

Have you read and liked Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere?

Then run don’t walk to read “The Invisible City; or, Dick Mayhew and his Marvellous Cat.”

I don’t remember ever recommending “fan fiction” to anyone. This kept me glued to the screen.

xmas lighting

This afternoon the sun was shinin’ like there’s no tomorrow. Barely out of the door on my way to the only open nearby coffee shop, a car pulling out of the neighboring driveway blocked my path so that an elderly couple could get in. I didn’t feel like climbing over the melting snowbanks to both sides of the walk, so stopped and waited. The old lady looked at me with a slightly apprehensive smile and said, “We’re going to delay you for a while here.” I assured her that it was ok, and looked around at all the gleaming-clean houses.

They took their time with the complicated affair of one getting into the front seat, the other in the back, unable to do so simultaneously because of strange car-door geometry. “Merry Christmas,” the car people called out. “And to you,” I said, and meant it. I don’t like Christmas, but I liked the old lady and her partner with their slow ways and their festive sincerity.

I walked to the coffee shop wondering about what Christmas might mean to those people. Davis Square was ghostly-empty and, if not for the cold and the snow and the barren trees, if you only looked at the light and the buildings, felt like deep spring. Everything bathed in light.

Then there was a pumpkin spice latte by the dancing fire in the gas fireplace, and a book. By the time I came outside again an hour and a half later, clouds had moved in and the light was whiter, less expansive.

Then out again in the twilight, and the blue houses stood out among those of all the other colors. There are at least half a dozen blue ones between my place and Davis Square, and they’re all different glorious colors. If the house I live in weren’t a pleasing shade of purple, I’d be jealous of all those blues. As it stands, I get to look at them in the changing light of the sun.

Coming back home, it was dark enough that the strings of tiny lights on our porch were already lit. Whenever I open the front door in the dark, I feel like I’m entering the secret center of some deep-playa Burning Man installation. And speaking of Burning Man, if you haven’t yet, do check out Neil K. Guy’s photos from this year’s event. He is easily one of my two favorite BM photographers, the other being Bucky Sparkle.

Dinner of tiny quiches and raspberry vodka. Conversation with beautiful women. Cats sleeping on me for hours as I do my thinking and writing. The blissed-out quiet of a house large enough to make it seem like we’re all impossibly far away from each other. Aaand an 8:30am interview tomorrow morning. Nothing like job search to bring a girl firmly back onto the ground.

chicken a la cultural transmission

“Scarborough Fair” is an old one! The Fair itself, a huge month-and-a-half-long trade show, originates in the 13th century, and the ballad appears to have its origins in another one from the late 17th. I, of course, am partial to Simon and Garfunkel’s version (link to YouTube video), because it takes me all the way back to 1993, when I moved from New York to sunny southern California (and hated it). S&G’s “The Concert in Central Park” was one of the first CDs I mail-ordered from BMG, an unspeakable luxury back then. That CD came with the bonus of “A Heart in New York,” which I sang to myself whenever I missed Queens. Which was often.

Come to think of it, I also hummed it to myself whenever I flew into New York to visit my brother (or whatnot). Have you flown into New York City in the dark? It’s unbelievably cool.

But this is a recipe post, of course:

-Take a chicken breast. Preferably a locally-grown, awesomely outrageous chicken breast, like the stuff I get from these folks. Defrost if necessary. (Never ever defrost meat in the microwave: potential health problems aside, it just gets an icky texture.) Preheat oven to 400F (200C).
-Put some salt, pepper, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme in a leettle bowl. How much? I dunno. It’s hard to over-herb a chicken breast. Mix.
-Put in a couple spoons of mayonnaise. Again, I don’t know how much: enough to coat the chicken. Mix well with the herbs.
-Slather the mixture all over the chicken. Use your hands. Get some under the skin too, if you like.
-Put chicken in a foil-lined or greased baking dish. Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until the juices run clear when you poke it with a fork. Eat, and tell me you don’t love me. I dare you.

By the way: I’m generally not a white-meat person. The meat CSA share has changed that! The Chestnut Farms chicken – as all their other meats – is amazing, and given that I’m not going to give up meat for environmental reasons anytime soon, it’s just about the most eco-conscious stuff to get. We get to eat meat of animals raised humanely, meat that hasn’t been plied with mysterious ingredients and transported the usual long distances. Support local agriculture, and all that.

If you have a chance to support your local agriculture, meat-raising or not, I encourage you to do so. Chestnut Farms’ minimum monthly share (ten pounds) is way too much for us, so we share it among three households. That way, even though the per-pound cost is high ($7 or a bit less, depending on whether they have thrown in freebies), it doesn’t break the bank to get a 3-4 lbs a month. Paradoxically, this arrangement has encouraged me to eat less meat than I normally would: store-bought stuff just doesn’t compare unless it’s really great and thus even more expensive.

Being able to participate in this meat-share thing has made me very, very happy to be back in Massachusetts: there was nothing like it around Providence, although the fruit-and-veggie farmers’ markets there are pretty good. It’s just one more thing that makes Boston feel like home all over again.

snow day science

Boy, am I grateful for excellent housemates and a snow blower. Especially since I’m not doing anything with the snowblower, but Eric is. Having gotten home at an ungodly hour from a drum and dance,* I’m in no condition to plow snow. I did, however, redeem myself a bit by making hot chocolate. That and a freshly-baked apricot-ginger-Grand-Marnier muffin == breakfast of the goddess.

Two things I just had to share with you. First up is the environmentally appropriate global warming mug (1 min long):

And secondly, because it’s insanely cool, an almost-six-minute-long evolution video. Nothing like 3D animation to make you feel like an alien on your own planet. It’s set to heavy rock music; you might want to turn your sound down (but not off):

Now I cuddle my cats and drink and read. Add a job into the mix, and I’ll be a happy camper. Keep your fingers crossed for me: I’m waiting to hear on one. Here’s hoping…

*Another drum and dance, yes. In Cambridge this time, lovely lovely, my hands still hurt a little, must get djembe of my own. Although, as I discovered yesterday, a bass drum is great to play too. It’s really too bad that this was the last such event in this long-running series, but it seems that there are plenty of others if I’m willing to drive a bit. And for this, I’ll drive.

Shall I compare thee to a sperm whale, sperm?

I must be the last kid on the block to find Holy Tango of Literature by Francis Heaney, available in its entirety at the linked site. Brilliantly executed, authors’ names anagrammed and used as titles for pieces parodying original works. (For example, the title of this post is a line from “Is a Sperm Like a Whale?” by William Shakespeare.) Not only is this good reading, it’s a good metaphor for my days, which of late have been spent rearranging the insides of my head and heart for a healthier, happier result. It’s mostly working, all things considered. But (and?) it’s a process far from finished.

happy birthday, mr. architect!

OK, so I hadn’t seen much of Oscar Niemeyer’s stuff until today, but just check out his work in Brasília, Brazil’s capital city!

The man turns 100 today, and is still working – in BBC’s words, “sculpting curves from [steel-reinforced] concrete.” Damn.

ETA: BBC has a 30-minute radio piece on him here. The first minute or so is about something else, but don’t despair.

bang on de drum

Friday afternoon I left town just a bit too late, too close to Friday traffic going out of the city along the Pike. That and the slush coming down from the sky made the trip to Inspirit Common in Hadley a two-and-a-half-hour one; good thing that just before leaving I had downloaded some talks by Ajahn Brahm (thanks for the suggestion, Rob, what I’ve heard so far is good).

Together with Emily and Bucky (the friends who own and run the above-linked mind-body-spirit center) and their six-month-old son Kadin, I went to a drum-and-dance event. And for the first time ever I played a djembe in a drum circle, for half an hour or so. It’s a rush! I came in with this tightness in the middle of my chest, which almost worked itself out in the course of trancy dancing to the drums, but it was still there afterwards. Sat down to make rhythms, next thing I know there’s a lightness where the bad used to be. Later on in the evening Bucky said, “It opens up the heart, doesn’t it?” That’s exactly what drumming did for me. I will buy a djembe before I buy an iPhone, and that’s saying a lot.

Driving home late at night, I took the long way along Route 9. On and on and on through endless trees and industrial towns and mist. The road looked like it belonged in Neil Gaiman’s stories.

first snow

Went to the Peabody Essex Museum today. If you are in the Boston area and have a chance to visit Salem, I highly recommend the Yin Yu Tang exhibit, centered around a 200-year-old Chinese house taken apart brick by brick, transported over to the States and meticulously put back together. Watch the movies, too; just be prepared for the extreme misogyny of two centuries’ worth of a rural Chinese family. It was fascinating and alien, and somehow strangely familiar in some of its Communist elements.

Then we sat and read in a coffee shop, not far from a man with not one but two four-squares-to-a-row Rubik’s cubes and diagrammatic notes in a notebook. And then we came outside, and it’s dark and it’s snowing and everything’s white. The same streetlight-lit white of the evening sled rides of my childhood’s winters, with mom or dad or brother pulling the aluminum sled and laughing, and laughing.

Ask the internets: blank wooden pieces?

I’d like to purchase a few dozen blank wooden pieces. Ideally, they’d be rectangular pieces with rounded edges, maybe an inch on the long side and .5-.75 inch on the short side.

There are plenty of places to get wooden nickels, but I don’t want them round. A local crafts-supplies store has sticks that can be cut into pieces, but I’d rather not to that myself.

Anyone reading this have any idea where I might find what I’m looking for?

Again with the devices.

MIT student arrested for wearing art that lights up from a 9-volt battery.

Truly appalling is this, by Major Scott Pare of the Massachusetts State Police:

“Thankfully because she followed our instructions, she ended up in our cell instead of a morgue.”

Beg pardon? Because she followed your instructions she didn’t end up dead for wearing a shirt with lights on it? Thank you, officer. That’s awful kind of you.

[Edit: Oh, it’s worse than that apparently. Nick points to the AP release, which has Pare saying this:

Simpson was “extremely lucky she followed the instructions or deadly force would have been used,” Pare said. “She’s lucky to be in a cell as opposed to the morgue.”

Lucky! She should thank her lucky stars.]

Boston has learned nothing from the LED-art scare of a few months past – that one, by the way, ended anti-climactically, with the press forgetting all about it, and the two young men in question doing community service in return for having bogus charges against them dropped.

I hate scare-mongering. And I’m inexplicably terrified of what happens if my husband ever wears a particular present I gave him in the wrong place. (Going back to the Star Simpson incident, the argument that she should’ve known better, wearing something like this to an airport, holds no water. She should not be held responsible for the overreaction of others: first let’s talk about how much damage any device powered by nine volts is capable of making.)

Hat-tip to Dr. Memory.

Purple Blurb

This coming Tuesday, September 18th, come to MIT for the first in the Purple Blurb digital reading series. “The readings will start at 6pm at MIT in 14N–233 (second floor of building 14, in the wing that is across the courtyard from the Hayden Library),” says organizer Nick Montfort in the announcement.

The first reader will be Robert Kendall, and I’m very sorry to miss it due to a prior obligation: Rob’s words tend to transport me somewhere familiar I’ve never been before. At the next event on October 18th, I’ll be reading from Roland^HT and talking a bit about narrative threads running through it. The other two readings this semester will take place on November 13th (Barbara Barry) and December 4th (Andrew Plotkin).

For a good time, call on Purple Blurb.

China Miéville and the Vikings

Not at the same time, mind.

There’s a review in Wired of China Miéville’s new book Un Dun Lun, which looks fun. Though I never quite got into the third book (The Iron Council) of his trilogy, I more or less swallowed up Perdido Street Station and The Scar. And, right now I’m reading Looking for Jake – a collection of his short stories that, all except one, are Miéville distilled, without the buildup. Fabulous, in both senses. He’s like a slightly more creepy Neil Gaiman, and boy does he have a way with words.

Aaand, check out these Viking-era gaming pieces that someone just dug up-and-out.