The Reading: Blogs for Brains

In my ongoing campaign to promote blogs even more obscure than mine, I would like to direct your attention to The Way I See It by Yuliya, a young Russian neuroscientist with a sense of humor and a way with words (we'll just leave the vodka issue alone for the time being). Go check her out--you can learn how to lose weight by thinking really hard and get a glimpse into the future of genius pills.

The Lowbrow: Summer Fun!

Those of you who are bored with the traditional water guns and Super Soakers may want to give this gadget a shot. Oh, ha, ha, get it? Shot? A bunch of Amazon.com reviewers got the joke.

(We can thank Will for this classy information.)

The Family, the Listening, the Eating...

The weekend at Casa DePrima in New Hampshire...

The Listening: Bruce Springsteen, Tweeter Performing Arts Center, 4th row behind the pit, 19-piece band. Quite a production, with goofy dancing, spirited sing-alongs, the works. Chubby bald session players got to behave like rock stars. A great time was had by all.

The Eating: The "tailgate" preshow meal consisted of barbecued chicken, chipotle potato salad, Israeli couscous salad, and smoked/baked beans. Other meals included stuffed shells, green bean salad, homemade blueberry muffins, blackberry cake, fried clams, banana ice cream, and more. Oof.

The Family: Always intense, always interesting. There is a new dog, after the eldest guy Cliff (age 16-ish) departed this world shortly after Christmas. Jeffrey is a tan and white Lhasa Apso who entered the family as a stray. He's a sweet boy currently dealing with abandonment issues through therapy and doggy Prozac. Sally the cat is not pleased. Okie the parrot probably isn't either, but she hates everyone.

There was also a quality visit with my childhood pal Monica (she of flying-squirrel-in-hair fame) and her very tall son Brent.

Now very, very tired...

Am I finally chic?

Not likely, but it's nice to see that at least one aspect of my "style" (such as it is) seems actually to be in style. The New York Times Thursday Styles section, always slightly behind the curve, reports that the no-makeup look is all the rage in France, and that French women think American women are trashy and overdone. They even like crooked teeth! Amen to that. Although I will say my lack of full makeup (it's a major Day of Beauty if I walk out the door with anything more than concealer and mascara) is due more to laziness than idealism, I applaud the emphasis on skin care over camouflage.

Now if unkempt hair and tattered t-shirts paired with hand-me-down jeans come into fashion, I'll be a style icon.

The Reading: Great Subject Lines

Only in my line of work, in a company like mine, could the following email subject line actually make sense:

Missing Fear Thermometer

And yes, it was attached.

The Listening: On the other side of the park...

This afternoon during an after-school staff meeting, I actually caught myself starting to write "REPLACEMENTS" on my notepad in puffy letters. God, they're a great band. Now, a couple of slugs of DayQuil later, I'm home in my burrow watching old Replacements videos while Ms. Squirrel eats fresh asparagus. There are a bunch of tracks from a 1981 show up on YouTube. Here are a few that just slayed me.

Replacements: "Kick Your Door Down" (live, 1981)
Replacements: "Goddamn Job"/"Junior's Got a Gun" (live, 1981)
Replacements: "Careless" (live, 1981)
Replacements: "Customer"/"Rattlesnake" (live, 1981)

The rest of the show is available for free at www.twintone.com, in the Replacements section.

The Eating: Quick Dinner

I'm so in love with my dinner right now, I have to share. I bought a bundle of asparagus at the farmer's market on Saturday and realized when I got home this evening that I needed to do something with it right away. My larder is nearly empty, so I just trimmed and steamed the spears, then cooked up some pasta and tossed it all with a little lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, S&P, and freshly grated Parmesan. Sooo good, and mighty pretty in my nice green bowl. My favorite meals are those that can be prepared in the time it takes to boil a pot of water.

Heh

Reason #??? that I'm glad I sold my car before moving to NY? I got it right here.

Promises Unfulfilled

It looks like I didn't have any time for posting this weekend. There was Eating (Aunt Suzie's again, plus a cookout and grazing of regional produce, bread, and cheese at the Grand Army Plaza greenmarket), Watching (finally got around to watching Hero, which was quite beautiful), Reading (Michael Azerrad's terrible essay on The Replacements).

And there was Playing. We joined some friends at a practice space in Greenpoint to noodle around on instruments for a few hours, and I decided that my attempt to teach myself to play guitar has been a failure. I'm one of those people who needs an expert to hover and correct my posture, grip, etc., and I need a curriculum and assignments. Sitting at home and struggling with a chord chart doesn't cut it. So I'm going to enroll in a 10-week beginners' class starting in a few weeks and hope that the structure and atmosphere of mild competition, not to mention the financial investment, combine to bring me greater success.

A More Worthy Blog

While I wait to get home and do some real writing, you all should check out Adrian's blog. He's a buddy of Will's from their undergrad days and he's actually out there doing something good for humanity, as a doctor treating HIV-positive children in Uganda. As you might imagine, he is able to update only sporadically, but he offers his readers some beautiful pictures and interesting insights into the challenges of life as a doctor in a third-world country.

Dang

One of the advantages of moving up here from Georgia was that I would no longer have to worry about life-threatening weather. Just two weeks before I left the South, tornado sirens interrupted my afternoon nap and three houses within a block of me were destroyed. Imagine my unpleasant surprise to look out of my office window a few minutes ago to see that familiar murky yellow light that can only mean a twister is in the area. I checked the Weather Channel's website, and sure enough, a funnel cloud has been spotted over Jersey City. Sheesh. At least it's headed for midtown. Times Square is overrated anyway.

Busy Week

Has led to light posting, much to the boredom of my tiny klatsch of readers. Sorry about that. I'll try to make up for it this weekend.

One notable event of the week was Wednesday's fundraiser for the Bronx Academy of Letters. The evening's featured entertainment was hipster standup comic Demetri Martin, who introduced us to some great alternatives to the lame screen abbreviations people use in e-mails (e.g., LOL, LMAO, blah blah). Hate, hate, hate 'em. Mr. Martin is a rather deadpan, understated fellow, and he shared his favorite alternative e-mail lingo: lqtm (laughing quietly to myself) and c (chuckle). Use it, spread it, stop irritating me with LOL.

Over the weekend, I'll share some cooking news, plus my take on the New York Culinary Festival, which I will graze and sip my way through with a friend this evening.

The Family: Yeah, they're garden pests...

...(not my family), but wee woodchucks are pretty cute. The latest orphan, and perhaps one of the last, to pass through the DePrima triage. In my mom's words, "I've never gotten such a small one, but she's doing fine. Next thing, Dad will start asking if we can keep it--just imagine, a 20 lb. rodent waddling around the house eating the baseboards."

The Reading: The Long Haul

A few Sundays ago, as Will and I walked along 8th Avenue on our way to brunch, we happened upon two young women holding a stoop sale. As it turned out, both of them are novelists, and they were cheerfully remaindering extra copies of their own books (along with the usual clothes and household items) from their front steps. Out of solidarity with fellow struggling artists, Will bought a copy of each book, which the girls kindly inscribed. He suggested that I read one and he'd read the other, then we'd review them here.

I took The Long Haul, a slim, bitter coming-of-age novel by Amanda Stern. The plot is pretty straightforward: A young woman in college is entangled in a dysfunctional relationship with a musician. They leave college, move to New York, struggle for several more years, and eventually break up and move on with their lives. Stern has a definite gift for economical yet rich description, and her slightly nonlinear narration (there are a few switchbacks in the timeline) keeps the reader alert.

While I enjoyed the novel on the basis of the high quality of Stern's writing, I was also struck by how misanthropic it is. Skies are always gray, winds are biting, hair is greasy, noses are runny, scabs are picked and bleeding. I felt grimy and cold the entire time I read this. Most significant for me was Stern's device of not naming any except a few of her most peripheral characters. The narrator has no name, and her boyfriend is only the Alcoholic. In addition, there are the Therapist, the Best Friend, Horse Face, Fake English Accent, the Cashier, and so on. I imagine she did this to impart a universality to these people--we all have these characters in our lives to some extent. For me, though, it served to distance these characters and make them less real, and it even seemed like it revealed a slight contempt for them. I say this because, as anyone who's met me can confirm, I tend to assign similar label-names to people whom I don't like or don't care to know. It makes these people more two-dimensional and keeps them at a safe distance (not a very flattering insight into my own character, but I never claimed to be the sweetest girl on the block).

Of course, I may be misinterpreting Stern's intent entirely, but it is a testament to her talent as a writer to get me thinking long and hard about how people relate and cope in hostile or difficult contexts. I applaud her work and am glad to have stumbled across her stoop (also, she sold me a really cute pair of purple corduroys).

The Socialite: 26 going on 56

I came across this blog this morning, and kids, it seems to be for real. I could write volumes on this girl, but I'll let the facts and photos speak for themselves:

She has helmet hair.
Her "wedding dress" is nearly identical to the suit her mother is wearing.
Her husband is old.
His name is Chappy.
He is very, very Social Register.
He is very, very rich.
She was his personal trainer.
She freaks out when Page Six mistakenly describes her engagement ring as 2 carats, not 5.
She has a collection of headbands a la Hillary Clinton ca. 1991.
She has a collection of ribbon belts a la Red Squirrel ca. 1983.
She has a collection of Ralph Lauren Polo shirts.
She pops her collar.
She keeps an Italian greyhound.
She makes sure everyone knows her family's vacation "cottage" is in the most expensive zipcode in the U.S.

The List-Making, Will's take

Top Five Songs by People I Know:
"Show Me All," Twin Atlas
"Forget I Asked," Sea Ray
"Hung Over," Crevulators
"Point of Pride," Rick Wormwood & the Rumbling Proletariat
"My Heart Is in My Head," Casper & the Cookies

Top Five Springsteen Songs:
"Incident on 57th Street"
"For You"
"Racing in the Steet"
"No Surrender"
"Brilliant Disguise"

Top Five Covers:
"No Regrets," Luna (Tom Rush)
"Country Roads," Toots & the Maytals (John Denver)
"Cowboy Song," Dump (Thin Lizzy)
"Black Diamond," Replacements (Kiss)
"Jersey Girl," Bruce (Tom Waits)

Top Five American Bands
Creedence
Pavement
Bruce + E Street Band
Beach Boys
Replacements*

My Five Favorite Bands When I Was in High School
Rolling Stones
drivin' n' cryin'
Zep
Jane's Addiction
Rush

Kinks or Who?
Kinks.

* Updated 5/22/06. Originally I said the Wipers.

The List-Making

A few days ago, the Browns posted a few top five and ten lists of various musical preferences. We here at Always Double Back love us some lists, so we decided to post a few of our own, with some variations (all are in no special order):


Top 5 Songs by People I Know:
1. "Pillowcase," Thunderegg
2. "Independence Day," Vic Chesnutt
3. "Summer Spider," Casper & the Cookies
4. "At the End of the Night," Pages
5. "Jane," Elf Power

Top 5 Springseteen Songs:
1. "Spirits in the Night"
2. "Brilliant Disguise"
3. "Wild Billy's Circus Story"
4. "Thunder Road"
5. "Promised Land"

Top 5 Cover Songs:
1. "Oops I Did It Again," Richard Thompson (Britney Spears)
2. "Hallelujah," John Cale (Leonard Cohen)
3. "Birds," Dios (Malos) (Neil Young)
4. "Like a Monkey in a Zoo," Vic Chesnutt (Daniel Johnston)
5. "You Don't Love Me Yet," Bongwater (Roky Erikson)

Top 5 American Bands:
1. Buddy Holly and the Crickets
2. Creedence Clearwater Revival
3. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
4. Ramones
5. Pixies

Top 5 Favorite Bands/Acts When You Were in High School:
1. R.E.M.
2. Tom Waits
3. The Smiths
4. Pixies
5. Pogues

Kinks or Who?
Kinks!

The Lowbrow: Equal Opportunity

A while back, I posted a link to a list of rules for the girls to bag an i-banker boyfriend. In the interest of equal airtime, I give the gold-digging men out there a playlist of their own. If any of you manage to land a frustrated bean-counter from Goldman Sachs, let me know.

The Eating: Mexican Chocolate Cake

I'm heading out shortly to have dinner at a friend's house; she's cooking for us, but I offered to contribute dessert. Most people who know me know that I love to cook but am not much of a baker. I'm competent with the simple stuff, but I lack the patience (and equipment) for really fine or complicated pastries. One standby dessert that I like to make, though, is a Mexican chocolate cake adapted from a recipe published in Real Simple magazine a few years ago. It has an unusual, spicy flavor, is completely vegan (if there are such concerns in your gathering), and only takes about an hour from start to finish. The recipe with a few notes and variations is below.

Cake:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper or ground Mexican chili powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup cold water
1/4 cup canola oil
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Chocolate Glaze:
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1/2 cup cocoa
6 tablespoons water
10 small fresh strawberries

Heat oven to 350° F. Lightly coat an 8-inch round cake pan with vegetable cooking spray.

Combine all the cake ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir until smooth. Pour into the pan and bake 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and cool completely. When the cake has cooled, whisk together the first three glaze ingredients. Dip each strawberry into the glaze and set aside. Pour the remaining glaze over the cake and arrange the strawberries on top. Set aside to dry, about 30 minutes.

This is the recipe as published. First, ignore the chili powder suggestion and just use plain cayenne powder. Chili powder has ingredients like garlic, salt, and cumin that would taste pretty weird in a cake. For the glaze, I prefer a little less sugar (scant half-cup). Also, 6T of water makes the glaze really runny; I only use 4T plus a few drops of vanilla extract, and you can see in the photo above how runny it still is (though a little pooling is decorative). I've used different fruits like sliced kiwi, dried apricots, dried cranberries and cherries, whatever is on hand or suits the rest of the meal.

The Gambling: Everybody Wins

Yesterday, we met up with some friends at a sports bar in Midtown to watch the Kentucky Derby before heading out for an early supper in the area. My mom grew up in Louisville, so I've always had an appreciation for and interest in thoroughbreds. I've also seen just about every Derby since I was 8 or 10 years old, either on TV or at beautiful Churchill Downs. One of our friends was kind enough to stop by an OTB office on his way over and place a small bet for each of us. We drew our tickets randomly; mine was a $6 exacta bet (i.e., $1 per combination of horses). Now, I have never had even modest luck with gambling, so I didn't pay much attention to my ticket at first. After the race was over, I realized that my ticket was a winning one, and when I went to cash it in today (after an amazing, leisurely lunch in Astoria with some other friends), I received $275.50! Amazing! So Seth gets a present and I get some new shoes.

The Watching: Tell Me Do You Miss Me

Finally, after completely spacing on it last spring, I made it to the Tribeca Film Festival. Will and I joined two friends for the final screening of Tell Me Do You Miss Me, Matthew Buzzell's documentary of Luna's final tour, which happened over the end of 2004 and the beginning of 2005 (I'll leave it to Will to tell of their final show and how he came into possession of their bass amp).

For my few readers who may not know of Luna, they were heroes of drone-y, pretty, literate indie pop throughout the 90s and earned a fervent following but never broke through to mainstream success. This fact lends a sense of melancholy as we follow them across the country, through Japan and Europe, then back to the U.S.--they are all 40-ish, talented, hard-working artists who, after 15 or more years in the music business, are (were) still playing small-to-medium clubs, driving a rented van, lugging their own gear, and sometimes staying in youth hostels to save money. The gritty video and low light contribute to the sense of weariness that comes from a long road trip: you never feel quite clean, rested, or well-fed, tempers are short, and people get lonely even when they're living in close quarters. Guitarist/vocalist Dean Wareham and guitarist Sean Eden bicker like an old married couple (yet also reveal the intimacy of the same), while bassist Britta Phillips and drummer Lee Wall stay mostly on the sidelines and keep to themselves. There are the requisite montages of band members shopping in Japan, gazing wistfully out of the van windows, napping on airplanes, mingling with fans, and playing their final string of gigs. There are some insightful moments, such as when Wareham reads a review of one of their performances in a local paper. He reads aloud the faint praise with which they are damned ("mostly okay music with moments of greatness") and a description of himself as nasal and impassive (which he kind of is). He tries to laugh it off, but you can see that even seasoned performers are easily stung by casual criticism. Overall, in spite of the above-mentioned rock-doc cliches, I was impressed with how unromanticized this portrait of life on the road was. On a personal note, I was disappointed that I couldn't pick out anyone I knew in the crowd shots of their final show at the Bowery Ballroom.

After the screening we had the unexpected treat of a Q&A session with the director and Wareham, Phillips, and Eden. I was struck by how much more outgoing and happy Wareham seemed in contrast to his weary, brooding presence in the film. Eden was just as silly and self-deprecating (and revealed a fondness for Gordon Lightfoot, which Will and I appreciated), and Phillips had little to say. They're all moving on with their own projects and seem happy. And that's all I have on the subject for now.

Today in Weekly World News

Killer squirrels storm Brooklyn!

What She Said: You Gotta Love the Cell Phones

My good friend is hosting her parents in her little apartment for two weeks, which is a daunting prospect for any busy young adult. More daunting is the fact that they're visiting from Russia and don't speak English and are touristing around New York while she toils away in her laboratory in New Jersey. How is she handling this dilemma? Read on:

This is great. I gave my cell phone to my parents. They are walking around Manhattan (all by themselves!). For the past couple of days my parents have been calling me at work asking me to translate to the tour guides, people in the stores, waiters, etc... It always makes me laugh when they do it...they are getting on a tour bus right now around Manhattan, and I spent the last 10 minutes explaining to the tour guides where they wanted to go and what they wanted to see. I wonder who I would be speaking to next. You gotta love the cell phones.

Update, mid-afternoon:

My parents are still riding the bus, for the past 4 hours! They could have been in Boston by now. They are crazy...

Cat + Shoes

This is my good old guy Bruce, who turned 12 last month. He likes my smelly shoes at the end of a long day. He also likes to chew on peoples' hair and snack on tomatoes. Will thinks he should wear a little kitty helmet.

The Reading: Smart Cows

I try to check in on The Slate (linked at right) every few days. They have a nice mix of politics, arts, science, and random lifestyle features by talented writers. One of my favorites is John Katz, who writes in every now and then with dispatches from his farm in upstate New York, where he tends to an eccentric menagerie of donkeys, sheep, chickens, cats, dogs, ponies, and one very smart cow. Links to his earlier essays are at the end of the article. He seems like a good guy.