bedlam.

tomorrow, november 9, is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall.  i remember learning about it as a freshman in high school, recognizing its importance.  but i think the most powerful experience i had regarding the wall and what it represented was when i visited the imperial war museum in london.  outside, on the museum's peaceful grounds, i found a chunk of the wall with wide open eyes and an even wider open mouth shouting the words "change your life."

i spent hours alone at the imperial war museum, wandering exhibits that captured and explained the horrors of the great war and its successor, world war II.  i've always had a fascination with these two wars--with how the entire world could get caught up in such violence.  my visit to this particular museum was as much an act of homage to those who died and fought in the wars as it was an educational excursion for my own benefit.  because i had lived through the end of the cold war and the fall of the wall, this particular piece was especially powerful for me.

but what was the most powerful was the location of the museum.  you see, the imperial war museum is housed in what remains of the priory of st. mary of bethlehem, later known as bethlem royal hospital, more commonly known as bedlam.  first the priory and then bethlem royal hospital specialized in caring for the insane.  the juxtapositions of this site, its current focus on two of the most disastrous wars in history, its name's popular connotation of insanity itself, and the birthplace of jesus strike me as not only interesting, but apt.  i do not believe that christianity necessarily causes either insanity or war, but i do believe that the bastardization and misunderstanding of christianity is at the root of a great deal of both insanity and bloodshed.  and this museum, with its long and rich heritage, captures that unfortunate history of christianity's bastard children.

romance.

what i learned about romance from refrigerator poetry:

• nothing happens to or is done by me, as there are no first person pronouns
• in other words, everything romantic happens to someone else
• everything happens in the past tense; no present or future loving, apparently
• more happens to him or by his than to her or by hers (very little by hers, actually, since there is no 's' to make her into hers)
• for some reason saber-toothed tigers are romantic
• as are big dogs
• and pirate ships
• there are some truly disturbing images for female genitalia
• and hilarious ones for male genitalia
• most nouns are adjectively enhanced
• most adjectives come coupled
• he is much more active and aggressive than she
• i'm too embarrassed of the naughty bits to display them on the fridge where my innocent taiwanese roommate would see them; they live in a little plastic box on top of the fridge

and now i know everything i need to know about romance.  too bad it won't happen to me (see items one and two, above).

booklust.

sometime in november, my brother S called home and reported that he and his colleagues had been taken on a tour of the library of congress. as part of that tour, they had seen various rare books, including a first edition of some blake poetry and books exchanged between whitman and thoreau, among other things. ever since that conversation, i’ve been filled with booklust. there’s something magical about seeing books that old—books that would have been read by an author’s contemporaries; books that show me what the texts i love were like when they were originally published; books with the original supplementary marketing material inside their covers; books with interesting provenances.

when i went to d.c. for a friend’s wedding and S suggested he could set up an appointment at the library of congress for me to see some books, i immediately jumped at the opportunity. so the first day i was there, i made my list—whitman, thoreau, hawthorne, and dickinson from my American interests; eliot, collins, and charlotte bronte from my british interests—and S sent it off in an email asking if it was possible for us to visit the library the following monday. and within half an hour or so we had our answer: monday morning at 11:00 for a visit to the rare books and special collections room and to the manuscripts division.

so that monday morning, S and i made our way from his office through the network of tunnels that runs under capitol hill to the library of congress for our visit. we started in the rare books and special collections room, where we were shown into the rosenwald room to see the books they had pulled for me. the room was beautiful—the furniture, shelves, and décor an exact replica of the benefactor’s private library in his home, most of it in art deco style. we sat at a table and the librarian started a grown-up version of show-and-tell:

an original 1830 edition of the book of mormon. i have a replica of this book that my dad gave me, but i’d never stopped and looked at the note from joseph smith to the reader trying to explain the circumstances of the 116 pages lost and the various rumors spreading about him. looking at the original edition made me think about the contemporary readership of that book, which put the note in a context that made me take note. they also presented us with the title page and clerk’s record from an 1829 attempt to copyright the book. apparently there had been intentions to publish it in that year in a slightly larger format, but it never happened.

books exchanged between thoreau and whitman. thoreau paid a visit to whitman in 1856. during that visit, whitman presented thoreau with a copy of leaves of grass and thoreau gave whitman a copy of a week on the concord and merrimack rivers. whitman made a rather extensive note in the front flyleaf of the thoreau recording the visit and the exchange of books. the two books came to the library in two separate gifts and it was only discovered afterwards that they had been exchanged at that 1856 visit. i was a little surprised by the format of leaves of grass. i had been told in a seminar that it was a larger than normal book—something akin to a coffee table book—, but this book was the same size as all the others we saw. maybe my professor was referring to one of the many revised editions whitman published.

dickens’ walking stick with an ivory handle that had a dog’s head carved into it. apparently dickens carried this stick with him regularly. it was very short—probably for someone closer to 5’6 than my own 6’.

the first American edition of wilkie collins’ armadale, which included marketing material inside its front cover. they also had a copy of collins’ play the frozen deep. the cover page attributes it solely to Collins, but has dickens’ name inscribed in pencil below Collins. dickens was heavily involved in editing, writing, and producing the play.

a manuscript copy in kipling’s hand of the first chapter of the jungle book.

lewis carroll’s scrapbook from his college years, in which he collected clippings from newspapers and popular magazines.

a first edition of charlotte bronte’s Shirley. apparently the library doesn’t have much by bronte, which i suppose is not very surprising since she’s british rather than american. the librarian explained that most of the non-american items in rare books and special collections are at the library because they were originally collected and then left to the library by a prominent american.

a first edition of george eliot’s silas marner, which was a lovely example of a Victorian triple-decker.

hawthorne’s house of the seven gables, which i’ll likely be reading in the next few weeks.

poe’s “murder in the rue morgue” in pamphlet form, which left me wondering how most of his stories were originally published.

the first book of dickinson’s poetry published following her death (few of her poems were formally published during her life). i loved flipping through the book to see how mabel loomis todd (dickinson’s brother’s mistress) and thomas wentworth higginson (dickinson’s mentor) edited dickinson’s punctuation, capitalization, and rhyme schemes.

a 19th century American penny press literary newspaper which they just happened to be processing that morning in the rare books room.


after an hour spent perusing rare books, S and i and our host left the Jefferson building for the Madison building, which houses the library’s manuscripts division. we were met by the library’s literary manuscript historian, who took us into the manuscript “ranges” to see what the library had of dickinson, hawthorne, thoreau, and whitman’s manuscripts.

their holdings of dickinson, hawthorne, and thoreau are relatively minor, as most of those author’s original manuscripts are held in ivy league libraries in new england. however, they did have a handful of items for each—some random diplomatic records hawthorne kept while employed by the government; a short essay on education by thoreau, in which he calls for the government to provide universal education; a commonplace notebook in which thoreau recorded passages from books.

my favorite of the small collections was dickinson’s—unsurprising given my fascination with her. they weren’t original manuscripts; they were holograph images of four poems (one with an accompanying transcript) and a letter. but it was wonderful to see her poems in her own hand and to show S how she used dashes rather than standard punctuation and erratic capitalization in her handwritten manuscripts. and the letter had been written significantly earlier than the poems, so we could see the evolution of her handwriting (which is how they’ve dated her poems).

after seeing these small collections, ms. birney took us further into the manuscript ranges to look at the library’s much larger whitman manuscript collection. apparently they have received three or four gifts, leaving them with one of the largest (if not the largest) collections of whitman manuscripts.

she started by showing us manuscripts of several whitman poems, including his most famous poem “o captain! my captain!” which he wrote on the occasion of lincoln’s assassination. it was interesting to see multiple examples of whitman’s poetry, as “o captain! my captain!” differs rather drastically from the poetry he typically wrote in that it uses a fairly standard verse form and rhyme scheme. ms. birney also explained that whitman came to dislike that poem as he was always begged to recite it throughout the remainder of his life whenever he made public appearances.

as she showed us the poetry manuscripts, ms. birney called attention to whitman’s tendency to use any scrap of paper he could. for instance, one poem was originally written on the back of an envelope. she pointed out in one of his commonplace notebooks how he went back to the beginning of the book and wrote information in blank spaces—information dated much later than other information on the same page.

after showing us the samples of poetry and the commonplace notebook, ms. birney told us a tale of bibliographic intrigue. early in the 20th century—something in the twenties or thirties—the library received a gift that included 24 whitman notebooks. and a cardboard butterfly (more on that in a moment). during world war II, the notebooks (and the butterfly) were moved from the main library buildings to a military base for safety purposes. when they were brought back, ten of those 24 notebooks—and the cardboard butterfly—were missing. for more than 50 years those ten missing notebooks and the cardboard butterfly were the American manuscripts directors' mystery. the fbi even had a hand in the investigation.

until one day in the mid-90s when sotheby’s called the ms. birney and explained that they had some whitman notebooks to auction and they had reason to believe they were similar to notebooks once held by the library of congress—were they missing any? to which ms. birney responded: ‘yes, we’re missing ten notebooks and a cardboard butterfly.’ it was the cardboard butterfly that made the sotheby’s representative sure their four notebooks belonged to the library of congress. so ms. birney and the fbi agent made a trip to new york to bring the notebooks—and the butterfly—home.

she showed us one of the notebooks. it used to be called the ‘albot’ notebook, until they realized there was a ‘t’ in front of that. the ‘talbot’ notebook (if you're interested, you can flip through the entire notebook on the LoC webiste). the first few pages had been cut out. the edges of the pages that remained were lined with numbers, so scholars speculate that it had initially been used for bookkeeping. whitman, being a paper conservator (as most people at the time probably were), re-used the book. the early pages were fairly similar to those in the other commonplace notebook. notes jotted quickly. appointments. then he skipped a page or two (remember, he used paper so carefully that he wrote on the backs of envelopes). and after those blank pages came prose writing that was more philosophical and introspective. then two more blank pages. and after that—poetry. lines from ‘song of myself’ immediately recognizable to anyone who’s every spent much time with that poem. seeing those lines of poetry and recognizing them was a magical moment--understanding that this notebook contained the evolution of a brilliant man’s thought and style.

and then there was the cardboard butterfly. it was brilliantly colored on one side. and on the reverse there was an easter poem (not whitman’s). if you look closely at the butterfly, you’ll find a thin wire that runs through its body. that’s because whitman, being the rather eccentric man he was and being a bit obsessed with self-portraits, used the wire to attach the butterfly to his finger and pose for a picture.

my day in the library was wonderful. i couldn’t have asked for a better excursion. even if you can’t make private appointments to meet with librarians, take the time to go there next time you’re in d.c. the building and the public exhibits are well worth the visit.

poem.

a couple years ago, my friend pam told me about then poet laureate ted kooser's valentine poems. a simple poem written and mailed each year for valentine's day. i helped her find a handful of his poems online and was struck by their earthy simplicity. so when i saw a collection of his poems titled simply valentines during one of my many visits to a bookstore, i picked it up. i immediately fell in love with the first poem. today i bought myself the book, after having picked it up longingly at least half a dozen times. here's the first poem:


Pocket Poem

If this comes creased and creased again and soiled
as if I'd opened it a thousand times
to see if what I'd written here was right,
it's all because I looked too long for you
to put it in your pocket. Midnight says
the little gifts of loneliness come wrapped
by nervous fingers. What I wanted this
to say was that I want to be so close
that when you find it, it is warm from me.


i loved it so much that i wanted to share.

weird.

sitting in jack-in-the-box. on the internet. feels very strange for a fast food restaurant to have free wireless access. i foresee future visits, though i think they'll involved more diet coke or dr. pepper than food. the food is lousy. but the internet--it's great. no matter how weird.

chocolat.

last spring i spent the night at RAF and JP's duplex in l.a. for the first time. and on saturday morning, RAF made chocolat chaud--french hot chocolate. just imagine smooth, dark hot chocolate that's intensely rich and perfectly delicious. with toasted challah to dip in it. i fell in love with the first sip.

sometime in the summer after RAF had made me more chocolat chaud one morning, i asked him if a hand mixer would whip up the chocolat chaud well enough. he thought not, but suggested using a traditional blender since i didn't have an immersion blender (which the recipe requires). and then for my birthday in september, RAF and JP surprised me with my very own immersion blender. bless them!

last night i introduced j(wh) to the beauty that is chocolat chaud. i had some 80% cocoa christian constant chocolate bars RAF brought me from paris and we picked up whole milk and some brioche at trader joe's. j(wh) gamely went along with my plan for dipping toasted brioche into hot chocolate, though he later told me he'd been a skeptic when i suggested it. he was quickly converted. you may initially be a skeptic, too, but i think everyone should know the beauty of chocolat chaud with toasted bread (an egg bread works best, thus the challah or brioche). so here's the recipe:

chocolat chaud (hot chocolate)
adapted from the recipe used at ladurée.

ingredients:
3 cups (750 grams) whole milk
1/3 cup (80 grams) water
1/3 cup (65 grams) sugar
6 ounces (175 grams) bittersweet chocolate (at least 80% cocoa), finely chopped

to make chocolate:
bring the milk, water, and sugar just to the boil in a medium saucepan. remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the chocolate. the hot chocolate needs to be blended at this point. at ladurée, this is done with a hand-held blender (also called an immersion blender). if you have an immersion blender, leave the hot chocolate in the pan and whip it for 1 minute. if you don't have an immersion blender, transfer the hot chocolate to a traditional blender and whip on high speed for 1 minute. serve the chocolate immediately while it is still hot and frothy.

to reheat chilled hot chocolate:
the chocolate can be made up to two days ahead and kept tightly covered in the refrigerator. to reheat, warm the chocolate in a medium saucepan over low heat, stirring gently, just until the first bubble pops on the surface. pull the pan from the heat, whip the chocolate for 1 minute with an immersion blender (or in a traditional blender), and serve immediately.

to make cold hot chocolate:
chill the hot chocolate until it is very cold, then stir in 3/4 cup (200 grams) cold milk. whip the cold chocolate for 1 minute with an immersion blender (or in a traditional blender). serve the cold hot chocolate over an ice cube or two. the cold hot chocolate allegedly makes for a yummy ice cream float, too.

make yourself a pot of chocolat chaud, toast yourself some strips of brioche, and indulge in a perfectly decadent breakfast or late night snack.

dance!
in october, i went out with j(wh)--dinner, hot cocoa at my favorite local cafe, and lots of conversation. by the end of the night, i knew i'd like to go out with him again so his day-after follow-up email (which has become dating protocol in our e-world, i think) inviting me out again was a good thing. except it was an invitation to go swing dancing.

now, i haven't danced at all in probably 5 years. maybe more. and swing? i'd dabbled in it 15 years ago or so, but my version of swing was complete slop. and j(wh)--he actually knows how to dance. so the idea of going dancing with him was intimidating at best and scary at worst. i turned my 'no' into a joke and suggested alternatives.

so we've done some of the alternatives, but the dancing invite stayed open. until i finally decided to bite the bullet and put myself squarely outside my comfort zone. so last friday night i went dancing. an hour-and-a-half of basic swing classes first. then 4 hours of social dancing. and the only knowledge i had going in was a couple of 5-minute parking lot tutorials with j(wh) a couple of weeks ago.

the classes helped. a lot. it also helped that j(wh) knows what he's doing and danced with me periodically. it's amazing what i could learn when dancing with someone who knows the dance and is a good lead (as opposed to the guys with spaghetti arms--impossible to follow). it also helped that everyone was incredibly nice and put up with my beginner's ineptitude. everyone including one of my current students who showed up. i have to say, it's a bit odd to dance with a current student...

honestly i didn't know what to expect. i decided i'd go and try something new. and i decided i would just relax and enjoy myself. so i expected to have fun. but i didn't know what to expect beyond a fun evening.

what i found was exuberance. part of that comes from the music, which bursts with vibrant energy. part of it comes from the style of dance, which responds to the music's energy. but i think most of it came from the people. i danced a lot of the night (which surprised me, quite honestly; i've never been to a dance where i was asked to dance so much). but i sat out quite a few songs, too. which i enjoyed. because it let me watch people dancing. and it was so very evident how much they loved what they were doing. it looked and felt like a simple celebration of being alive. and i loved being part of it. i think i'm officially hooked...


{edited to eliminate inadvertent rudeness...}

experienced.
i think it's time to reinstate posts about recent discoveries. because there have been so many good ones lately. i'd list a bunch of the stuff i discovered in the bay area when i was up there, but i've already done that. so instead, this edition is dedicated to

film.

• the darjeeling limited. which i've actually seen twice now. an absolutely stunning film visually, full of vibrant colors and gorgeously shot. and funny. in many ways it's more understated than wes anderson's other movies. but that simply underscores its humor. it also draws attention to its realism, in spite of the absurdity of so much of its content. and, in true wes anderson style, it juxtaposes life and death, exuberance and tragedy, beautifully. and then there's the fact that i have crushes on both owen wilson and adrien brody. and who knew that adrien brody could be funny?
  
• dan in real life. i love steve carrell, so that was all the incentive i needed to see this. and juliette binoche? she's wonderful. it was entertaining. not a great film. it's a romantic comedy and it has the problems so many romantic comedies have (implausible premises; too-fast falling in love). but it made me laugh. and that's really all i ask of my romantic comedies. that and a romance that makes me want to fall in love.
• the jane austen book club. another romantic comedy, this time for austen-lovers. i read the book a few years ago and enjoyed it (though it's entirely entertainment reading; nothing serious--not even as serious as bridget jones's diary). the film was about the same--mostly fun, even if it lagged at moments. i do think it failed to translate some of the austen parallels the book made, which is too bad. but if you're an austen fan, it's worth seeing.
• lars and the real girl. saw this one last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. lars is delusional and his family and friends go out of their way to turn his delusion into reality in an effort to help him. it had so much potential to become simply absurd, but the quality of the acting and the matter-of-fact presentation instead made it heartwarmingly funny. if you get a chance, see it; and don't read a plot summary before you do. just go. let yourself be surprised.

non-film. just because these two are too good not to list.

• tamarind. which i ate for the first time today at thai nakorn. they served it up slightly sweetened, slightly salted, and spiced with chili powder of some sort. it was delicious.
• public displays. as in public displays of affection. after the movie. who would have thought people made out under bright lights in the middle of a parking lot? i must admit that, given how chilly it was last night, it would be a good way to stay warm. and there's something a bit romantic about kissing out in the open...
  

ten(ish).
on the weekend, i asked a friend what his top five movies were. to which he responded first by groaning and then by pulling out his trio on which he has a list of 'top ten' movies (as well as a few other 'top ten' lists; in quotes because most of his lists exceeded ten). i found the idea of making 'top ten' lists, preserving them, and carrying them around amusing. and appealing. because i've found myself in that grasping-to-come-up-with-a-list of movies (books, museums, restaurants, or whatever other object you'd like) position more often than not. because the lists fluctuate--there's always more than five or ten; the ones i would include on my list shift based on any number of variables; and then there's the deer-in-the-headlights freeze that happens when i'm put on the spot to name my favorites, which happened later that night when my friend turned the question around on me. i think i could only name four favorite movies.

so i decided i'd do a series of 'top ten' lists on the blog. of various and sundry things, not just the usual suspects. but i think i'll start with one of the usual suspects. movies. of the 'serious' variety sometime in the future i'll post a list of the 'guilty pleasure' variety. not that the 'serious' ones have to be serious in content; just that they're what i would consider substantial in some way, rather than fluffy. with no further ado:

top ten(ish) 'serious' movies (or should i call them films?):

a room with a view: period piece, romance, and hilarious nudity. that's right, hilarious nudity.

13 conversations about one thing: a compelling look at the random intersections of lives, with one of the most life-affirming moments i've seen on film.

the sweet hereafter: stunning. a searing look at tragedy, grief, and anger.

little miss sunshine: i laughed so hard in the theater that i cried, which almost never happens. and a wonderful critique of the beauty culture.

lost in translation: beautiful. and bill murray was shafted when he didn't win the academy award for best actor.

on the waterfront: the film that convinced me marlon brando is a great actor. 50's hollywood at its best.

pride & prejudice: maybe this should go on the guilty pleasure list, because i'm in love with darcy. but it's so very well done. and austen's novel is such an insightful look at human relationships. so 'serious' it is.

the royal tenenbaums: darkly hilarious. my first exposure to wes anderson.

in the company of men: dating games turned destructive. and in showing how destructive they are in extreme settings, it also shows their innate deceptiveness.

being there: i like to watch. don't miss it.

in the mood for love: visually gorgeous. i think it actually captures what love looks like. literally.

amadeus: such a wonderful film. a thoroughly entertaining examination of genius and desire.

roadtrip.
on the weekend, i made a mad-dash roadtrip up the coast and back with friends. we drove. we talked. we laughed. we feasted. we listened to music. we magically arrived everywhere at exactly the right time. we witnessed everything from horrific to incredible live music. we browsed bookshops. in short, we had a perfect three days. the details:

1000 miles: the oc to l.a. up the grapevine and through the central valley to mountain view. to san jose and palo alto. into the city (the city being san francisco). across the bay bridge to berkeley. through oakland and back to san jose. down the 101 to san luis obispo. on to santa barbara. back to l.a. and home to the oc.

gastronomic hedonism: singaporean dinner at the spice islands cafe in mountain view. the roti prata was divine and everything else yummy. brunch at country gourmet in mountain view. pumpkin pancakes with cranberry syrup and ginger butter. french toast (made with cinnamon streusel bread) topped with banana, almonds, and caramel rum syrup. an omlette with bacon, cheese, tomatoes, and roasted tomatillo salsa with sour cream and avocado. it was a flurry of shared dishes and expressions of delight. i've never had a more delicious brunch. i'm already planning a girls trip to the bay area just so i can take my mom and sisters there. brunch at yank sing for dim sum. i'd never done dim sum before and it took all of two minutes for me to fall in love with it. probably because we started with soup dumplings (another first for me) which were amazing. everything else was delicious, too, but i'm determined to find somewhere in so.cal to get soup dumplings. yummy. and we capped off the culinary indulgence with fabulous mexican food at a shack with a tent attached in santa barbara. i loved its quirky blue and white structure and its three-car parking lot as soon as i saw it. and the food was amazing. i envision driving to santa barbara for dinner in the future. it's that good.

music: the reason for the trip was the bridge school benefit concert organized annually by neil and pegi young. eight artists in seven hours. regina spektor, tegan and sara, my morning jacket, john mayer, tom waits, neil young, jerry lee lewis, and metallica. that's right. i can now say i've seen metallica live--something i never aspired or hoped to say. but it's humorous. they were horrific. it was, however, entertaining to watch. both them and their fans, who were sorely disappointed (the metal-head next to us called out "come on, metallica! make it worth my money!" i think the rest of the line-up left him cold). jerry lee lewis looked stiff--like if he moved too much he'd keel over dead on the spot. but that didn't keep him from being a dirty old man. and his penchant for putting his name into his songs was endearingly humorous. in spite of his obviously advancing age, he was fun. i had to leave during john mayer, who elicits an almost viscerally disgusted reaction in me (even if he is a good guitarist). and tegan and sara were only okay. but i loved regina (who i'm seeing again on wednesday). it was fun to see neil young, who has this very low-key but compelling stage presence. my morning jacket was fantastic--i'll be listening to more of them in the near future. and tom waits stole the show. the man is brilliant--as a lyricist and a performer. and i took a secret pleasure in all the teeny-bopper (whether actual teenager or older) john mayer fans being forced to listen to him.

bibliophilia: a quick trip to green apple books in the only unclaimed twenty minutes we had in the city. a drive-by of city lights books en route to dim sum. and a detour off the 101 to visit leon's in san luis obispo. can you tell we were a carful of book nuts?

college tour: some of us went to visit stanford (not me; i went to the airport to pick up george). we took a quick walk around berkeley. and we did a drive-through of cal poly san luis obispo's campus (the other reason for our detour there). there was also a bit of pointing out various schools from the road. because the big dangerous and our scapegoat (he really is unnecessarily blamed for too much) are looking at college options.

it was a wonderful weekend. i didn't want it to end. i've spent my day dealing with the let-down, wishing i was still immersed in music and laughter and conversation and friendship (with an occasional argument), driving through california's beautiful valleys and along the coast with occasional stops at bookshops and eateries. but i suppose every day can't be so perfect. i'm glad i had the ones i did have--they make mundane daily living much easier to deal with.

harmony.
about a month ago, i helped run a training workshop for grad students teaching literature for the first time. my cohort was out of town for a wedding the two days immediately before the workshop. and my parents, who i had been counting on to take me to costco to get some materials, were also out of town. all of which resulted in me running around on my own, begging favors from friends, and left me generally a bit frazzled. on sunday afternoon my right foot started hurting and by the end of the evening my foot was swollen and hurt so badly that i was limping. this was A Bad Thing, as i had to be on my feet much of the next two days, not to mention hauling all kinds of stuff between my car and the classroom. in tears i called seymour and asked if he would come give me a blessing. which he did, along with mbn. and then they helped me wrap up the last minute details i still needed to finish. i actually ended up in bed before 1 in the morning.

monday was a long day and my foot was aching and swollen by the time i got home. but i had to do some prep for the workshop the next day. and my parents were coming home, so i needed to do a bit of cleaning. my time was limited and i knew my foot couldn't handle too much, so i made my list of tasks in my head and set about accomplishing them as efficiently as i could. no movement was wasted. every trip from one room to another served multiple purposes. complete economy of motion. i was in that mode where mind and body and purpose flowed together so smoothly that the only way to describe it is harmony. i have these moments occasionally and they feel like perfection. everything fitting together to make a whole that is more than merely the sum of its parts. there's a feeling of grace, of blessedness, that comes, leaving me feeling like life makes sense, even if the work i'm doing is as menial as dishes and laundry and taking out the trash.

as i reflected on that feeling, i thought back to the morning i spent at fallingwater in august. the building is such a work of absolute harmony that it seems wrong to call it a building. everything, from the glorious design to the building materials, works together to manifest perfection. there was absolutely no detail too mundane for wright to consider so that it would add to the being of his creation. this is true of all of wright's work. for instance, at the pope-leighey house, wright used long horizontal lines to reinforce the design and to add a sense of spaciousness to what is a very small building. in laying the bricks, the mortar that ran horizontally was recessed a good half an inch inset from the front of the bricks, while the mortar that ran vertically was flush with the bricks, allowing the shadows cast by the bricks into the recessed horizontal mortar to create long lines. wright even dictated that the screws used in the building be flathead rather than phillips and they were to be turned so the groove on the head of the screw formed a horizontal line.

fallingwater is full of gorgeous details that contribute to its harmony. the boulder around which wright built the house jutting up to form a rough hearth in the primary living space of the house. the stone floors inside polished so they look like the stones of the terraces when they are wet. the glass corner of the house opening out so the corner disappears altogether, breaking the box of the room, the house refusing to inter its occupants in a living tomb. the low ceilings and vast stretches of glass directing the eye out to the beauty of the forest. how could anyone live in such an environment and not find herself existing more often in that state of harmony that i find only so rarely?

in my mind, wright's magnificent masterpiece is akin to the gorgeous perfection of beethoven's symphonies--beings in their own right, full of life and beauty that can make the world better. when i left fallingwater that day, i resolved to go back. as often as i can. to immerse myself again in a place where all of the best of humanity and nature work together to manifest god's glory.

bitten.
i'm in love with edward cullen. yesterday, before my five hours of poetry, i picked up stephanie meyer's twilight and read the first chapter. i liked it. but i had to read poetry. today, after working all morning and then an afternoon appointment, i decided to go back to barnes & noble to read more poetry. but first i thought i'd read one more chapter in twilight. five hours later, i finished the book head-over-heels in love with its undead hero. and now it's 11:41 p.m. and i have a drive to and from l.a. to make tomorrow and work to do in the morning. and i really shouldn't start new moon. but edward's kiss beckons...

rundown.
so here's the reader's digest version of my last month (longer bits about some of this to come):

a week spent with family. 15 to 20 people staying with us. wall-to-wall sleeping arrangements. lots of laughter and fun.

a niece being stung by a sting ray complete with a trip to the life guard station and an infection that developed a week later.

late nights talking.

flying cross-country with my sister, brother-in-law and their two girls. M and B sharing the seat next to me on the plane to watch a movie.

rescuing a small frog from sure death by lawn mower.

delicious desserts from mrs. london's in saratoga springs.

babysitting so J & R could celebrate their anniversary. complete with "pat pat" and playing with friends.

a picnic in a park complete with visiting (and surreptitiously feeding) the ducks, riding the carousel (twice), and making wishes in the pond.

exploring the hyde collection (a local art treasure only about 20 minutes from J & R's house), where we fell in love with works by degas, rubens, picasso, rembrandt, among others.

discovering rock hill bakehouse cafe, home of the best chicken salad sandwich i've ever eaten. and, to top it all off, the best cookies i've ever eaten. (and then there was the boylan's diet creme soda--so tasty). have i mentioned that i love bakeries?

a day trip to boston, with stops in concord, at the isabella stewart gardner museum, faneuil hall, the north end, and harvard square.

a roadtrip south to visit our brother and his wife and family.

two days in deep creek, maryland, full of fun and rainstorms.

an excursion to fallingwater. which confirmed to me frank lloyd wright's absolute genius.

a couple of days in virginia with children playing and action movies.

finally finishing a school project that i let hang over my head for way too long...

a horse and buggy ride through saratoga springs on an absolutely gorgeous summer night.

a meandering drive through glens falls in an effort to retrace our steps to the rock hill bakehouse only to be thwarted when we got there and discovered they were inexplicably closed for the day.

a long trip home to the tune of wilco in anticipation of their concert (which i went to last night).

and throughout it all, lots of laughter and conversation and beautiful little children.

eclectic.
my last 48 hours have been full of eclectic culture. here's the run-down, in brief (i'll write more about a few of these later):

thursday evening:

• incredible ethiopian food for dinner at merkato in l.a.'s little ethiopia.

• followed by a run up beverly and sunset to the echo where we hoped to catch dr. dog in concert. the show was, unfortunately, sold out. but driving through the neighborhood and hanging out in front of the club for an hour gave me a taste of the l.a. hipster crowd.

• topped off with a conversation about the relativism of cultural values and right and wrong.

friday:

• a day spent perusing photos ranging from the 1930s to the 1970s. just think of the biggest game of concentration you've ever seen, in which i try to remember miniscule details in order to sort a few hundred photos of people i don't know. it was an interesting tour through 20th century clothing, interior decorating, and automobiles.

• dinner at the house of blues, with a predominately southern flair: pan-seared voodoo shrimp with rosemary corn bread, cajun meatloaf with mashed potatoes, sweet potato fries, chocolate cake, and raspberry apple breadpudding (and a few samplings of ribs, fried chicken, and jambalaya).

• stephen stills in concert at the house of blues with a crowd made up mostly of aging hippies and 60s protesters.

• ending with a middle-of-the-night stop at the kwik-e-mart at venice and sepulveda. alas, they were out of buzz cola and krusty-o's, but we did enjoy blue squishees and pink donuts with sprinkles.

saturday:

• a drive across the west side of l.a. and into downtown.

• a couple of hours wandering the WACK! feminist art exhibit at the geffen contemporary with friends.

• my first trip to a raumen shop. daikokuya in l.a.'s little tokyo (the geffen contemporary is in little tokyo). it's supposed to be the best raumen shop in l.a. i loved it.

• followed by a stop in fugetsu-do for mochi. this place has been in business, owned and operated by the same family, since 1903. i got one white mochi with strawberry inside and one lime mochi. delicious.

• another long drive across town, this time ending up at the beverly center. think enormous shopping mall. i wanted to try on a dress JP pointed out to me in a catalog. found the dress but it fit funny, so i didn't indulge.

you can see that it's been a wild mix of foods, places, and experiences the last few days. as i was driving back across town this afternoon, i was thinking about the simple variety of experiences and it struck me that such variety is perfectly representative of l.a. as a city. i've spent a lot of time in london (lived there for four months), boston (lived there for a year), d.c. (visited so many times i couldn't count), and new york (annual visits for about five years running). and i don't think any of them is quite as eclectic as l.a. while they certainly all offer amazing diversity and a huge variety of experiences--as much variety as l.a.--, they all have something of a unified feel to them. boston is historic. new york is colossal. d.c. is governmental. london is cultured. los angeles is eclectic.

now i realize none of those cities can be reduced to a single word. i know they're all wonderfully various. but none of them has quite the same feeling of hundreds of disparate elements together forming a single metropolis that l.a. does. i love that about l.a. the diversity that is just there without necessarily calling attention to itself. like a city cobbled together out of anything at hand, refusing to be classified or even to fit an idea of what a city is.

recommended.
a few recent (re)discoveries.

viewing.

• house. a show i've watched on occasion with a friend. it's sardonic antihero, dr. gregory house, both amuses me and occasionally horrifies me, though in an entertaining way. now that my brother has provided me with cable tv and tivo, i'll be enjoying this one much more regularly.
• finding neverland. a beautiful representation of j.m. barrie's friendship with the llewelyn-davies family, which inspired his writing of peter pan. it's obviously fictionalized, but it's well-done. i've been wanting to watch it for a couple of years, but never got around to it. when i found it on sale at target for $7.50 i just bought it. i watched it friday night. and quickly fell in love with j.m. barrie. or maybe johnny depp (though i was already infatuated with him before starting it). or i suppose johnny depp as j.m. barrie.
• a bit of bizarro www. when i watched finding neverland, i did a quick google search for "peter pan" to learn a bit about its literary genesis (it was a play first; then a novel). and the results turned up "the home page of peter pan." which i had seen before, but which i had forgotten. it's good for a laugh. and a head-scratch while wondering exactly what this person means by "like minded souls." don't miss the photos...

anticipated viewing.

• special edition monty python. i made a quick target run friday night. and i never go to target without perusing the dvds just to see if there's something on sale. i found the special edition dvd of monty python and the holy grail for $13. i picked it up and turned it over to see what special features this two-disc set offers and ended up laughing out loud standing in the middle of a row at target. among it's special features, it boasts:
• NEW! High Definition widescreen presentation with pink frilly edges!
• NEW! Subtitles For People Who Don't Like The Film (taken from Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part II)
• NEW! Exciting "Follow The Killer Rabbit" Feature!
• ALMOST NEW! A glorious extra 24 seconds absolutely free!
• NEW! How to Use Your Coconuts (an educational film)
• NEW! Behind-The-Scenes Photos -- hitherto unseen by human hand!
• NEW! A Load of Rubbish -- a surprise package of mystery items specially included for the mentally challenged.

you get the idea. i'm particularly looking forward to the coconuts instructional film...


{update: since i bought the monty python dvd, target has put it on sale for $10. this week only. y'all should really get it. because no life is complete without a little monty python in it.}

wii.
i have been initiated into the wonderful world of wii. and i'm totally hooked. it's ridiculous. it's made my arm sore. it's made me laugh so hard i nearly fell over. it's given me two hours of high entertainment with my brother and his girlfriend.

and i haven't even given anyone a black eye with the controller yet.

we're hatching plans to get our mom and dad in on the action. now that should prove thoroughly hilarious.

{addendum: i'm sitting in the family room working on my computer; my brother and his girlfriend are in his room playing wii tennis. and i just heard my brother's girlfriend, in a slightly panicky-concerned voice, say: 'oh--sorry!' it really is only a matter of time until the wii produces stories of bodily injury...}

surprise!
so today i opened a piece of mail from the american honda corporation. i don't normally do this because they're just account statements and my payment is automatically deducted from my bank account twice a month and i monitor it all online. so i only open these lovely envelopes when i plan to file the last several months' worth and shred older ones. but today for some reason i picked up the envelope from my mail and opened it. and rather than an account statement, i found my title. i'm now the proud owner of my own honda civic (that i've been paying on for the last five years). i knew it would be fully paid for shortly, but i had forgotten that by opting for a twice monthly payment plan, i'd save myself three months' worth of payments in the form of interest not accrued. yippee!!

explore.
i had a perfectly lovely weekend. i listened to great music. i ate good food. i explored a little more of my world. and i got my first sunburn of the season. here's a brief rundown:

art. i spent friday afternoon (after an hour and a half in traffic) wandering the norton simon. it's a beautiful little museum in pasadena with an impressive collection. i started with the 20th century and worked my way back in time and ended up in the scuplture garden, where the water lilies are promising to burst into bloom anytime. i didn't take the time to go downstairs to the asian collection, prefering to spend my time contemplating the works i loved rather than cramming it all in. i'll go back, i'm sure. my favorites:

• picasso's 'woman with a book.' a brilliantly colored portrait that i'd never seen before. i love its combination of dramatic lines and air of contemplation.
• matisse's 'the black shawl (lorette vii).' i love the way that black shawl is simultaneously insubstantially transparent and inescabably heavy--almost confining. it seems a fitting representation of beauty and sexuality.
• adam and eve. luminous. and such a fascinating mix of innocence and sensuality.
• the humanity of joseph holding the infant christ; personality captured in portraits; and the dutch tendency to include insects in still lifes of cut flowers (as i looked at a couple, it struck me as a humorous trend).
• as much as the dutch cut flowers amused me, it was cezanne's tulips that i loved.
• and rodin's burghers of calais always absorbs me, especially the figure of pierre de wissant. the norton simon has the full size nude and clothed studies of de wissant as well as the ensemble. rodin's ability to capture intense emotion through hand and foot gestures and with exaggeration amazes me.

books. on saturday, i spent my afternoon at the l.a. times book festival. it takes place every spring on ucla's campus. with 300 exhibitors and hundreds of authors in attendance, it's a book lover's kind of event. i found a few treasures to be given as gifts. and a book or two for myself. the highlights include:

• meeting bill peet's son. as a child, i knew exactly where bill peet's books were in the children's room at our local library. his stories of creatures in crisis and fantastic beasts fascinated me. there's something almost magical about forging a real life connection (no matter how brief or secondary) with the source of one of my childhood dream worlds. if you don't know bill peet's books, you should.
  
• walking ucla's campus. i'd never been there before. it's a gorgeous campus.
• taking a break for a diddy riese ice cream sandwich and an hour spent reading aeschylus.
• don cheadle and john prendergast's presentation based on their new book, not on our watch, about the crisis in the darfur region of sudan. their passion about the issue was inspiring. and their suggestions for actions practical, with potential to effect real change. i was frustrated that the corporate sponsor cut short their presentation in order to have them sign books. they had been scheduled to speak until about 4:45 and then spend an hour signing, but for some reason they couldn't stay as long as previously planned. so barnes & noble's shill tried to end the presentation and Q&A at 4:30. the crowd (with my vociferous contribution) called for more Q&A, rather than the signing, but needless to say a corporate sponsor couldn't give up the opportunity for a marketing event in favor of disseminating actual information. i'll be writing more about this book (which i bought and started reading last night) and this cause.

food. i stayed with RAF and JP overnight. which of course meant i could count on not only great company, but also wonderful food.

• mexican at la cabinita in montrose. not the best mexican RAF and JP have introduced me to in the last couple of months (that distinction is reserved for another restaurant which shall remain nameless for all but the lucky few), but incredibly good. some yummy cheesy, creamy spread with fresh corn tortillas for an appetizer. followed up with some very good carnitas. and topped off with a positively delicious guava and cream cheese empanada.
• RAF's homemade chocolat chaud. which is positively, absolutely delicious. so completely decadent. a lovely way to start a day. followed up by his homemade pancakes. which were wonderful. and i'm a little demanding in my expectations of pancakes. i eat them with nothing but butter, so there's no syrup or sugar or fruit to mask their quality. these passed with flying colors.
  

and between my excursions, i had a few hours spent in the company of RAF and JP, complete with great conversation, my first ever northern exposure episode, and photos of paris and london.

as you can see, it was a fabulous weekend. and to top it all off, i got to raise temperatures a notch or two today for the, ahem, rather conservative member of my sunday school class by suggesting that the society in which christ lived was sexist (shocking of me, i know).

satisfied.
a few discoveries and experiences that have left me feeling happy.

decadent.

• delicious. it's official: thai nakorn is back. and it's as wonderful as ever. after not having had the absolute perfection of beef panang curry and barbequed catfish, among many other delicious options, for nearly five months, it was heaven to partake again. if you like thai (and you should; if you don't there's something wrong with you), you need to get yourself to the new location. 11951 beach boulevard in stanton (at the intersection of chapman and beach). go. indulge. and give your support to this fantastic restaurant run by some of the nicest people i've met. you won't regret it.
• christian constant. RAF just returned from a whirlwind trip to paris and london. and wonderfully thoughtful man that he is, he returned with a stash of christian constant chocolate for me. four perfect bars of dark chocolate, each with its own distinct flavor based on where the cacao beans were grown. and this time a box of truffles with fillings infused with flowers including tuberoses, frangipani flowers, tahitian vanilla flowers, and more. i'm salivating thinking about them but i need the thai-fullness to wear off.
• macarons. as if the christian constant weren't enough, RAF also brought a selection of macarons from laduree, the home of the 'new' macaron which sandwiches flavored garnishes between two traditional macarons. i can't wait to sample these beautiful little pastries.

stories.

• vampires and demons. i've been re-reading dracula this week, as i'm teaching it in my lit class this quarter. and i'm remembering just how fun this book is. it's totally unpredictable in spite of the cultural capital it carries in our society. even having read it before, i'm still surprised by its twists and turns. it will keep you turning pages. it's a fascinating glimpse into the world of the victorian fin-de-siecle--a world of high speed transportation, fabulous new inventions, and crumbling social mores. and it's a compelling examination of the way humans define themselves by establishing, and attempting to police, nebulous borders which are always subject to violation.
  
• jekyll & hyde. another literary classic that's become such a commonplace in our cultural language that many never bother to check out the original. a quick and entertaining read, the strange case of dr. jekyll & mr. hyde remains startlingly current in spite of its rather far-fetched science. in the fraught cultural atmosphere resulting from last week's tragedy at virginia tech, jekyll & hyde gave my students and me an opportunity to examine the ways we demonize those who commit atrocities in an effort to understand the inexplicable and to reassure ourselves that we could never commit such acts ourselves.
  

attention.
just wanted to call your attention to that new link at the top of my sidebar. time to work a little change in my life. and while what i like may tell you a lot about who i am, i think what i do will tell you every bit as much (of course, those two things are often the same).