Wednesday, July 30, 2008

My Prayers Have Not Been Answered!

-
This headline from today's Green Moon Gazette:

Husband spends 6 hours in emergency room with kidney stone, wife.

-

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

My Prayers Have Been Answered!

-
This headline on Comcast.net today:

Bennigan's Chain Closing Its Doors

-

Book Notes

-

1. Remember that post a while ago about Abelard and Heloise? I just finished a murder mystery that featured them as characters. It was quite good in the traditional cozy vein, which I myself like. It was called Death Comes as Epiphany, and the sleuth is a novice in Heloise's convent named Catherine LeVendeur. Not nearly as racy as Abelard's own writings, bien sur . . .

2. I'm about to give up on Karen Armstrong's The Great Transformation. I worship and adore her, but this sucker is just too long and too detailed. If you want to read her work (and you should want to), pick History of God instead.

3. I'm reading Brideshead Revisited for the first time (in anticipation of the movie version soon to premiere) and it's really something. It takes place in the 1920s, and I've gathered from Evelyn Waugh's writings (this and his letters) that the twenties had a lot in common with the 1990s and 2000s. There's a lot of fervent declarations on consciously superficial topics, conspicuous eccentricity, breezy wit, proprietary slang, and a general sense of young people being happy and creative. One of the main characters of Brideshead Revisited is an Oxford student who proudly carries around a teddy bear named Aloysius. At first this seems kind of weird and, um, UNcool. But then I thought of all the people who have Harry Potter action figures and Star Wars Pez dispensers unabashedly displayed in their cubicles, which probably has something of the same vibe.

-

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Life Lesson #9: Mix It Up

-

At least once every 5 or 10 years:


* Change your hairstyle and/or color

* Buy a new pair of jeans in the current style

* Do something that someone else wants to do but you've never wanted to do

* Pick out someone at work that you don't like, and try to be friends with them

* Have someone else buy an outfit for you, and wear it

* Read a book in a genre (sci-fi, fantasy, mystery, true crime, nature) that you don't generally like

* Take photos from different angles---real close up, real far, tilted, from above, from below

* Listen to someone who has been telling you the same thing, giving you the same advice, proffering their same perspective, for ages---and heed them, just to see what happens

-

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Books about Places

-

I'm working on a book idea, and I'd love to have suggestions from friends about books that they've read and loved that specifically had a strong sense of PLACE. Some ideas I've had already:


The Bonfire of the Vanities: New York



















Agatha Christie novels: England


















The Accidental Tourist: Baltimore












The Tenderness of Wolves: Eastern Canada
















If you have ideas, please add them as a comment to this entry, and thank you!

-

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Stop Me Now

-
And the jokes keep comin', folks . . .

A catholic priest and a rabbi find them sitting next to each other on a long journey, and so after some hesitation start to talk to each other. After discussing the weather and the cricket, the priest turns to the rabbi and says that he thought it was rather strange that he was not allowed to eat pork, and asked him whether he ever had.

The rabbi replied, "Well, when I was a small boy, I did in fact taste a small piece of bacon."

"What was it like?" asked the priest.

The rabbi replied: "Not nearly as good as sex."

-

Monday, July 21, 2008

The Dark Knight

-
I've heard critics say the predictable, "Seeing Heath Ledger as the Joker just reminds us of what a great talent we've lost and the sadness that we'll never see him in another role." But when I was watching The Dark Knight on Friday night, that is exactly what was going on in my mind. He's so good, and so memorable and particular, that I was thinking, "I can't believe we'll never get to see another character that he's created."
-

Friday, July 18, 2008

Friday Miscellany

-

1. This from a savvy copyeditor working on the bibliography for one of my books: "I found an entry for a guy named 'School.' I was just musing about how interesting it was that an academic would be named School (you know, like a carpenter named Carpenter) when I happened to notice that his initials were H. B. and the URL in the reference was . . . ummm . . . rather prestigious."

2. Gaius Baltar = Cylon Catnip

3. The new James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, is opening on my birthday, November 7.

4. The new Chris Cornell album, produced by Timbaland, is due in September.

-

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

The High Level of Discourse at Green Moon Path

-
Actual monologue delivered by Jay this weekend:


What if there was a movie about a team of scientists looking for the @sshole of the universe?

[pause]

It would be a spaceship manned by proctologists.

[pause]

Cosmoproctologists.

-

Monday, July 14, 2008

The Menu of Summer

-




















I've already eaten this delightful dish several times this summer. And with my participation in the CSA guaranteeing me a weekly supply of fresh veg, I expect to eat it all summer long. It is the BEST recipe. I copied it from my brother Ed years ago, though I've made small modifications. Here it is:

Ed's Pasta Primavera

PASTA:
Boil pasta of your choice. I'm partial to the protein-enhanced Barilla line. I'm also pro-adding salt and oil to the pot.

PRIMAVERA:
Cut up your veggies. If some veggies are hard (e.g., green beans), boil them first and cook them through.

SAUTE:
Heat butter and olive oil in a large frying pan. Saute chopped onions until cooked through. Add your other veggies, including any you might have boiled first. My favorite veggies for this dish include green beans, fresh corn, summer squash, and asparagus.

ADD:
Salt and pepper to taste, a couple dashes of nutmeg, and a generous amount of parmesan. Stir around a bit so everything is cooked through and warm. Add fresh basil and mint leaves (if you have them; otherwise, dried is okay), mix with pasta, and serve.

-

Sunday, July 13, 2008

My Dad's Latest Joke

-
This is how sex in marriage goes:

The first five years, you have sex anywhere in the house.

The next thirty years, you have sex only in bed.

After that, you just pass each other in the hallways and say "Screw you!"

Ba-DUM!
-

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

The Beach





















Saturday, July 5, 2008

La Playa, La Plage, La Spiaggia

-
We are off to the beach Sunday through Tuesday and will be maintaining Internet silence throughout the duration. Wish us good weather!
-

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Heaven on Earth

-
Last night my neighbor Lisa and I went kayaking at nearby Rocky Gorge Reservoir. Lisa and her husband kayak 3-4 evenings a week during the summer, but since husband and son are gone this weekend, I got to fill in. It was still, quiet, beautiful, blue herons everywhere---the place is LOUSY with blue herons. Lisa is also a great cook (she's the one that Jay always says he would marry if anything happened to me), and she made subs on whole-wheat rolls with fresh-made pesto and fresh vegetables, including some from our CSA, and fresh mozzarella. We were on the water for two hours, paddling around, talking about everything under the sun, and eventually stopping for our dinner on a bank. Nature, water, friends . . . heaven on earth in my book.



Wednesday, July 2, 2008

July 2, 1931

-
Happy Birthday, Mom