Herz, mein Herz, sei nicht beklommen,
und ertrage dein Geschick,
neuer Frühling gibt zurück,
was der Winter dir genommen.

Und wie viel ist dir geblieben,
und wie schön ist noch die Welt!
Und, mein Herz, was dir gefällt,
alles, alles darfst du lieben!

Things to know:

* Although it feels like nature is Not in the city, you do, in fact, to coin a stephenjaygouldy cliche, live ever in a complicated system of heartbeats and locomotion. As a human, I mean, a human amongst the littler beasties. I have only recently come to see the bird hierarchy I am interrupting, for instance. The seagull>duck>sparrow>pigeon fight going on right outside, all the time. Tossing a cube of bread into the river churns it all up, really fast.

* Mrs. Pettigrew Lives for a Day is a lovely film. Fluffy, like a pair of maribou mules, but nice. The set-up has a nice balance to it. I like Shirley Henderson's precise little voice. And nobody does vulnerable male facial expressions like Ciaran Hinds.

* Old Navy has no clue how to design clothes for fatties, but by sheer luck (I always figure), their tank tops really ROCK. The rest of their 'plus-size' stuff is designed for a skinny 50-foot woman, as it were, but their tank tops continue to please. Enough/right coverage, cheap, long-lasting, many colors. Fab.

* I am going to put in my periodic plug for http://cuteotters.com, as early spring brings lots of otter cubs and hence cute otter cub pix. Delish. That and the cheap tulips: good things.

* I apologize for the rather more intermittent blogitudinous announcements of recent weeks. Real life, with all its mutability and challenge...interfered, I suppose I'll say. C'est la guerre.

grab-bag

* Fav scenes in Get Shorty: when John Travolta pitches J. Gandolfini down the stairs and when Bette Midler visits Gene Hackman's office at night. The first utilizes Travolta's trademark strutbounce and some great bass (the opening of DJ Greyboy's "Panacea") to good effect, not to mention that dead-eyed TonyS stare I love so much; the latter shows how sexy a scene with good actors can be, even a funny, reluctantly sexy scene.

* Spring appears to be here. Sort of. See?

* I hate the phrase guilty pleasure (hence using it is sort of a guilty pleasure), but if there is any true guilty pleasure in my life it's probably the years and stacks of Martha Stewart Living. Oy. [interminable essay excised here] I'm sorry to say though that it might be leaving the guilty pleasure category now that the magazine has been redesigned starting with the current issue. No more glorious, space-hogging expanse of glossy, well-registered photographs on thick paper, no more minimal text (mostly), no not-too service-y service pieces, no...luxurious image real estate. The new design, not to mention the new paper it's printed on, makes it much less special as a magaziney indulgence. It's packed and crowded...not to mention getting more and more dependent on its staffers--like every media--for modeling and ideas and such. Feels incestuous. It's losing some of its editorial authority and uniqueness.

* Speaking of GPs, in a desire to watch movies OTHER than those that contain any CGI, monsters, sci-fi, fantasy, video game or comic book premise, Nicolas Cage, excessive amounts of fog, dry ice, reaction shots, apocalyptic plot twists, natural disasters, mean cops, good cops, mean criminals, good criminals or the Jonas Brothers, I have been padding my Netflix queue with the fluffiest of choices recently, but even I couldn't watch (literally) more than about 60 seconds of 27 Dresses. Miserable-making. The kicker was the LuvIntrist (Male) being a sports journalist in yet another fake-ass movie NY newspaper. I just couldn't watch that ancient trope one more time while actual newspapers are burning out all around us, plus the movie was just ass. In a similar spirit: better than you'd think is He's Just Not That Into You, strangely, if you can avoid the Friends-like use of people of color as fringey plot padding and the seriously short male actors. At least stuff happens.

* Rilly rilly good: spelt gingersnaps. Rilly good.

* Something to do if you're bored: Bounce up and down on your exercise ball to a Janet Jackson video and take iSight pix every few seconds to make a mock film strip. Reinflate ball.

oh Ali!

Here at Cahiers we are spectacularly thrilled to link to my friend Ali's winning entry in the Real Simple essay contest--the topic was what was the most important day of your life? The interview with her at the beginning is really wonderful, so is the essay, both of which are in the April issue and in the link above. GO ALDRA!!! So verklempt, I am.

Getting completely addictedaddicted to KenKen!

WPAgain

Thanks to a publication from the incredibly neato Chicago Conservation Center, the incredibly neato Art for the People, a comprehensive look at "the Rediscovery and Preservation of Progressive- and WPA-Era Murals in the Chicago Public Schools, 1904-1943," I was able yesterday to finally see some of the WPA murals a great-aunt of mine painted. These--there are thirteen--are at the Fort Dearborn Elementary School on South Throop, in the Washington Heights neighborhood. The panel to the left is part of a series showing a sort of wacky, dated representation of the hundred years in Chicago leading up to the Century of Progress Exposition in 1933--this one shows us Modernity! Zeppelins, planes, cars, ocean-liners and a bridge that baffles in its un-Chicago-ness, but cool nonetheless. It is one of four historical panels on the auditorium walls--the other photo below shows the panel (it's huge) in situ--the paintings on the balcony depict the Exposition herself. My great-aunt's name was Elizabeth Merrill Ford, which is fun because it's 2/3 of my name. I highly recommend this book from the CCC if you get a chance to look at it/buy it; there are tons of murals in it like this in the Chicago public schools, all amazing and colorful, thought-provoking. I can easily imagine being a bored kid in a CPS auditorium and just soaking up the colors and shapes and styles into my psyche over the years. (Thanks Sarah, Martha and Cynthia for a fun day rootling around this stuff yesterday.)

Wonder what it was at the Fat Duck.

River East, Chicago, March 2009: Warm enough today to sit--in the sun--without a jacket. The papery-looking ice floes that even yesterday were bumping against each other on the river next to the slip are gone. Ducks are trawling the water in tinily calibrated bits for bugs, seagulls are sassy slowly-floating poop bombs overhead, perky urban doggies strain on their short leashes. The world is saturated with dirt, rather as if the sidewalks and buildings had been under a giant winter flood, and now the waters have receded, leaving soaked-in mud and wetness behind. Dick's Last Resort is closed, so the ducks get fewer Bits and there are no more packs of people in twisted paper condom hats walking around. Also gone: winter weather, for the moment (it's Chicago), and the earth-shaking construction noise from the Spire, now on hold. The sky is still full of cranes and scaffolding, although this noise seems cheerier. The world smells damp and hatching.

Cat rules world.

Craving: Zingerman's Hot Cocoa coffeecake. Not sure why, except chocklit is key.

Not probably going to listen to: Il Trovatore (on today). No anvil ear worms.

Intense love and satisfaction: the Pittsfield Cafe at 55 E. Washington. Bloody brill.

I can't get the Brady Bunch song "Good Time Music" out of my head. It gets really bad when you hit the "reLAX [horrible down beat] posiTIVely" line.

Let me correct that. Getting addicted to 30 Rock. Totally fun. I'm new to the modern method of watching TV shows in whole series' chunks through DVDs/Netflix, but...yay. Instant grat.

30 Rock...growing on me.

God, I love Dawn French! She just makes me laugh. This is her doing Catherine (Spartacus) Zeta (Douglas) Jones' regal "Christmas Message" and as Madonna reading from her English Roses books, a bit that contains my favorite new phrase ("vixen toilet parts").

(Totally true) cliche of the day: growing old isn't for wimps. I am wondering where Katherine Helmond got those big binder clips in Brazil. Wait--older. Not old. Older!

Is it possible to overmarinate flank steak? It turns out yes (a day would have been good, not two.) Also a problem: a stove with burners that have minds of their own (several settings do not work...makes it interesting)--I could have used the broiler, but I just didn't feel like heating the whole kitchen. Also probably not the best choice: the wine in the marinade. Also not so good: using a serrated knife, not a plain-edged one, at first while cutting meat. Regardless: totally delicious.

Flank Steak à la It Works Out Fine
Put flank steak in a bag with: coriander seed, oregano, s&p, honey, Sauvingon Blanc, four small organic lemons and their juice, fresh rosemary, fresh thyme, Worchestershire sauce, soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, red wine vinegar, ten garlic cloves cut in half, strong sorta whole grain mustard, onion powder...err...other stuff. Marinate until you're like...damn; gotta cook that flank steak (at least a day). Take out of fridge to warm up and heat a serious pan for a long time in the interim on low, or heat broiler. Pat meat dry, cook for 5-6 minutes each side on very high heat, then let rest, covered, for at least 10-15 min. Internal temp is supposed to be 160 I think, but I dunno, it never seems to quite get there, so I always have a moment of worry before I'm like...I want my medium rare, forget it, it's comin off. Slice thinly against the grain when ready and eat it with your fingers over the cutting board and make sure you have a way to sop up any juices, although if you let it rest well you won't have much.

ADDENDUM: Leftovers are epic dipped in a little mayo/grainy mustard.

sexism amongst mammals

I, like many, have become completely enamored of the weepy tale of Sam, a female koala who was rescued in the Australian wildfires. If you haven't heard about it, she was found with scorched paws by a firefighter who offered her water--she apparently drank three bottles!--and has become something of a symbol of hope in the midst of all that tragedy through the photo (left) that quickly became famous. Sam is now in a rehab facility and...has a boyfriend, Bob, another injured koala at the wildlife shelter. The thing that's killin me? The headlines about it. Most of them today read: "SAM THE KOALA HEALING WELL THANKS TO BOYFRIEND BOB." That's all very sentimental and avuncular, and I know a nice new boyfriend can cure many ills, and granted they're saying "healing" not "rescued," but isn't Sam the koala healing well thanks to her own tenacity and willingness to approach the firefighter? I'm a big fan of anthropomorphization, but this stuck in my craw just a tiny a bit. Although really I don't care as long as we keep talking about/showing photos of heroic koala bears (the article is well worth reading too). Right is a photo of Sam and Bob at the shelter (notice his suave Fonzie move).

New lows in cell phone behavior:
Dude sitting near me at a cafe today. A casual sort of cafe, granted, at which you fetch your own water and such, but a cafe nonetheless. There are tables, there are chairs, people eat at them. Food is brought. This guy....was on his cell phone, but instead of just the usual loud barking on the cell phone problem, he was actually--barking loudly on this cell phone but also--walking the aisles between tables, hands on hips. Like...it's 1984 at the bullpen at Goldman Sachs and he's trying to get Gordon Gekko to buy. Pacing. Yelling at times. Passing by high chairs with noshing babies and arguing into his phone. As if the cafe were his office. I couldn't believe how rude it felt. I indulged in passive-aggressive--yet effective!--glaring and shocked head turns. Probably just as obnoxious, but I had a hard time controlling myself. It felt like a new low; had I been the manager I would have asked him to take it outside. He eventually quieted down a bit and sat down, but it goes without saying he was on the phone during my entire meal. GodDANG, the restaurant (movie theater/transit system/whatever) I'm going to have someday is going to be run like a freakin ship. Tithing poles and ruthless smashings for malefactors.

Much cooking, but not particularly interesting these days. Mostly variations on high-protein Sludge! Such as tonight's, which was very good, just, you know...sludgey: Brown organic ground beef; add spices and herbs and fry with it, then add a big glug of pinot noir, Worchestershire, tomato paste...lots of flavorings (too much for the meat). Add 2 c. of quinoa (about $300 street value), 4 c. of chicken stock, bring to a boil, drop some fresh herbs on the top, turn to simmer and cook, fluff, take off the herbs (I used rosemary and thyme), let sit, fluff again. Really good! Very...unattractive. Good with sour cream. Sort of your basic sludgey pilaf. Have made it also with piles of aromatics (onion, garlic, celery, etc.).

Someday soon, very very soon, when I accept my honorary PhD in Stingy and Fair-Weather Philanthropy from my alma mater for being really rich and famous in whatever it is that will get me there, although in the speech introducing me it will be clear the degree is really for conforming to every lame stereotype of my generation as I did it, I am going to get up in front of all of those--at that point--absurdly entitled children whose parents all had Campbell's stock or government jobs or owned McDonald'ses during the Great Depression of 2009--and say that all I have thought about since I graduated was laundry. Oh, and TV. There will be nervous laughter, uncomfortable twitters...an upset "hey!". But those who know...will know. After that I will launch into a long, digressive speech of occasional merit regarding the state of air conditioning that day, the campus' lack of ADA compliance, why Timothy Black (names changed) didn't have the hots for me freshman year, how I wish Frida's haircolor could have settled down during ABBA, hey how about when Clinton was here that one time, do you guys still have those chicken sammchs? but that will be my big point. It's all about laundry.

Etta James can say anything she wants to about Bey*nce. That's fine. Even if it's not quite nice or merited or whatever--fine. Especially about "At Last," because she is right--the way that people sing that song now is a variation on James' own version of it, not the song itself. It's like the "House Is Not a Home"/Luther phenom--now when people sing it, they are singing his version, which is I guess really half his and half Warwick's*, but still, he doesn't usually get the credit.

Plus, I don't really care how cookie-cutter, pro-forma, cultural grouchy pants this sounds, but bloody hell...ETTA JAMES ACTUALLY SINGS. She broke the singing ground in question. She sings with more real rebellion, sass, sex, fuck-you, raw pain, humor, personality, verve, talent, vocal agility, vulnerability...eh, I don't know now to say it in a way that's convincing. It just sounds stuffy. The more intense rokkritik adjectives you throw at it, the more meaningless the whole thing sounds. But if nothing else...for every second of attention James is getting now we've been forced to cough up hours of attention on, er, the other, and why is that always how it works? so fine. She deserves the attention. Plus, James is really funny. She's already apologized in a funny way, but I honestly wouldn't care if she chose to put her in her place even more. Plus? I have a little fat-girl anger for James in the mix about this, and that's fine. She is the one who got put on TV wearing hip-length wool sweaters over her dresses in the 60s even as she put her stamp all over American music...

(*Worth watching? Luther's version sung to Dionne Warwick at the NAACP Image Awards in 1980-something, laying it at her feet as Dionne accepts it in a NE PLUS ULTRA queen-bee gracious and completely fierce/ferocious fashion with demure little smiles and tears and hands in the air...it's a performance. I've mentioned this link before, but it really is cool. Total tableau of gay cultural obesiance. Plus it is exciting to see his version as it begins blow up.)

Do you think you can get on Intervention for laundry issues? (We will always love you, but we are not willing to watch you kill yourself with a pile of dirty laundry...)

Great pleasure: hot pomegranate tea with lemon and demerara sugar, served in a big robin's egg blue cup and saucer, and to stir a silver SOUTH DAKOTA spoon embossed with cattle and flowers and birds and scenes of industry.

I'm not a wholesale Skip Gates fan, but I must admit to being as all-agog watching African American Lives 2 as I was the first series. It falls right into a net of completely fascinating topics: genealogy (which I really love), identity, race, background, record-keeping, hidden stories and history...there's even a strong element of People mag in the whole thing, given the celebrities Gates focuses on. An odd This Is Your Life quality. Although I also think choosing famous people has a point. It would be valid with any famous person, in a way, but especially within a group of people whose ancestors weren't generally found worth of record-keeping at all in this country. I love watching it...I also love that you just never know what's waiting in a family tree--in any direction. That DNA can't lie. This episode focused a bit on people who passed, such as Anatole Br*yard. It made me think about my Jewish grandfather, who in a similar way thought he was cutting something off when he converted/passed/etc., when all it did in the end was raise questions.

What ABBA Really Looks Like

Dork factor is really high...you might want to get out your cheese-reducing blogger spex.

Monday clean-up

* Newflash: That's twice, now, in the space of a week, that I've actively disagreed with/been annoyed by the New Yorker. First, their idiotic Limning the Fissures epitaph, and now with their re-look at How to Cook a Wolf, which I had already written about last month in this blog entry in the same reviewing spirit (new austerity regime). I made a particular point to complain about Fisher's commentary....they choose to call it "delicious." Seriously...delicious?

* I made up for whatever lack of testosterone I displayed yesterday notwatchingsooperbowl by watching some of the Sopranos marathon on A&E. But mostly I was...cooking! Two solid weeks of squinting at the news since the last time I bought groceries has me on a newly ferocious Hints from Heloise tear about stretching every little bit out of every little bit. Great plans (even with a wonky stove) for flank steak and pasta e fagioli and anything else involving a can of beans. Last night's success? Sloppy joes. They turned out really well: faked out a standard sauce w/ brown sugar, vinegar, mustard, tomato, garlic, onion, etc...served it on buns with white cheddar. And strawberries for dessert, which for some reason (Feb?) were incredibly good. Actually, now that I think of it I don't know that anything could have been more sooperbowly unless I had actually made the sloppy joes with little pimento decorations and football flags on 'em or something. V. yummy, tho.

* A very interesting cinematic double-feature this weekend, between the two of which I am tempted to draw connections just because...you can. You could. One might. I don't think I'd seen Pink Flamingos since college. Er, House Bunny...I hadn't seen yet, but had wanted to, partly due to a semi-embarrassin' but deep commitment to the G*rls Next Door. Also just cause I wanted to. They were interesting stuck next to each other, no way around it. Mostly because they fit okay. Both of them are just thrown at you. Waters flings his movie at you (comme poo!), daring you to have a reaction. HB is flung in a big pile of cliches and set pieces and scenes and premises. If I had to guess ahead of time what they had in common, I probably would have been right; i.e., HB is an inheritor of--borrows--weirdness (PF) for frosting, for gloss (but is a flipped version of PF culturally). For sexy contrast. For an easy goose. I can't handle Pink Flamingos, by the way. That doesn't mean I don't like John Waters or even that movie itself, but it tries to shock and it does. It's totally disgusting. That's just fine all the way around, though. He's trying to shock, yes? I always figured he was just laughing and laughing at the people trying to be so cool nothing in the movie shocks them even as they were totally nauseous. Divine was such a star, that was really the best part. One of the best voices, ever.

* I don't think I have a better consumer-based relationship than the one I have with my cell phone provider. Why must everything else be so fraught? It's strange in a way, because I don't use my phone that often, although I guess that's part of it. But I wish everything was like this. I pay $100, get 1,000 minutes for the year. No bills, no monthly gouging, no rates based on usage. No junk mail, no solicitations, no pushes for upgrading. I just use the minutes as I go. I can use just a couple one month, and a lot the next and it doesn't matter. Minutes roll over after a year. I can use them anywhere in US. I'm not actually sure the phone co. even has my address--I did everything at the store when I signed up. All this leaving me alone is making me as fiercely loyal a customer as any advertising mascot ever did.

* I indulged in a little satisfyin fussy housekeeping recently and outfitted my sewing kit! I bought this old-fashioned sewing chest second-hand, put in my little collection of dog-eared and random supplies and decided it was finally time to buy things I needed like...a thimble. A seam ripper. I also got sturdy elastic thread (black and white), a magnetic pin cushion, some decent-sized safety pins, a piece of tailor's chalk, a new measuring tape that's actually big enough for my hips, a few other things like that. What they call "notions." Incredibly satisfying, cheap, and will hopefully help me with keeping clothes mended, mending being one of my actual housekeeping likes. I like the quiet, sitting-in-armchair feeling of getting something fixed. Plus, you know...I'm fuckin broke. Gotta fix stuff. Isn't the chest cute?


* I have now made my fifth? sixth? try at Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time. I just can't get it started. Ever. Am I going to be one of those people who never reads it? It doesn't help that I have very glum editions that I'm trying to engage in. The covers (they are cheap paperbacks) are so bad I actually tore them off, a long time ago. They had daisies and bad drippy font choices--they looked like a 70s tampon ad or Judy Blume's Forever. Couldn't have been more off. So I'm left with these sad little fallin-apart paperbacks that I take out every few years and hope will be my gateway drug into all however-many volumes of the series, but it just never hooks me in. I've had them since college, when my dad gave them to me. I have to be honest...I find the books sort of impenetrably wordy, especially for ones that should be pullin me in for yards and years of narrative goss. Maybe when I'm older (wait, I already am). Hm.

* For those of y'all waitin for a resolution of the great Vanilla Issue, check out the latest Cooks Illus.