Oddly Popular
The other day I was looking at some statistics for this blog, and I decided to look at the blog postings that were the most frequently arrived at. Largely, this comes about through search engines and sometimes very loosely related search strings. I'm not sure I could ever have predicted beforehand that these five pieces would have topped the list.
- "Sandwich Thoughts" — For several years this small essay has persisted in my top five. It's merely some ruminations about big sandwiches and Subway sandwich shops changing the style of cutting their sandwich bread from what was known as the "U-gouge" to a "hinge cut". I favored the former, by the way, as do most people who've weighed in on the matter. I think that most people who arrive at this page do so by asking search engines for information on the question of whether all Subway sandwich meats are turkey based, a point I mention in the piece. The rather obvious answer is that some of it is, largely the cold-cut type meats, but things like chicken breast, roast beef, and tuna fish are quite evidently not. Sliced turkey breast is, naturally.
- "The Matthew EFfect" — A posting in which I tried to track down the origin of the phrase "The plural of anecdote is [not] data". I only got so far with the question but turned up some interesting things, including the fact that there is dispute even about whether the original aphorism had the "not" in it. Judging by the number of people who read this page, there are quite a number of people who care very much about this question. For the reason behind the name of the essay, look in the final footnote.
- "Beard of the Week XVIII: Bulgarian Wedding Bells" — About the wedding of pop celebrity Azis, "Bulgaria's famed Roma transvestite", marriage equality, and the discomfort that some gay mean feel about drag queens.
- "Stephen Hawking Erroneously Found Dead in 'Death Panel' Marketing" — A short piece about the very odd kerfuffle during the recent health-care-bill debate (i.e., "Obamacare"), when the peculiar, misdirected notion of "death panels" were invented and marketed by Sarah Palin and her Republican cohorts, in which an editorial explaining "how government-run-healthcare 'death panels' wold imperil your grandmother's life, used as the centerpiece of it argument that famed physicist Stephen Hawking, whose life is challenged with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease) would be dead today if he had to live under the UK's socialized healthcare system". Unfortunately, what they got wrong is that 1) Hawking is, actually, British and 2) is still very much alive, thanks to 3) the British National Health Care system.
- "When Celsius = Fahrenheit" — Finally, a blog posting with equations! As I explain at the beginning of the piece, quite a few people seemed to arrive at my blog by asking the google this question, something I found odd because I never had actually written regarding the question at all, but apparently I used enough of the words in a combination that made the google think I was relevant. So, since googling is destiny, I decided to write the piece that all these searchers were looking for and explain how to discover the single temperature at which the Celsius and Farenheit temperature scales refer to the same temperature with the same number. By all means, if you don't already know the answer have a go at figuring it out before you look.
In: All, The Art of Conversation, Writing
Snippets of Cruise Conversation
Between Christmas and New Year's Eve, we went on a pleasant Caribbean cruise, taking the Carnival Elation from the Port of New Orleans, to Cozumel, to Progresso, (both on the Yucatan Peninsula), then back to NO. Pleasantly, this gave us the chance to visit for awhile with our friend Loretta, who lives in Baton Rouge and was amenable to 1) putting us up for Christmas night, the night before the cruise; 2) making us a lovely dinner for Christmas evening; and 3) picking us up at the NO airport and ferrying us to thee ship on Monday morning. It was very thoughtful and generous on her part and it made for a relaxing transition into cruise-mode.
Herewith, three small stories with a point.
One morning at [open-seating] breakfast we shared our table with a bright-eyed grandmother, who was cruising for her birthday with her family. She seemed already to be having a "blessed day", but I'm afraid I didn't listen to her much after she found occasion to say "and I really like that Tim Tebow".
Remarkably, at the same table on the same day, a woman who taught high-school biology. The conversation faltered a bit when, in reference to Halloween, she remarked that "we don't observe that Satanic holiday". I guess the enormous, jewel-encrusted pectoral cross she was wearing wasn't just for decoration.
One day for lunch I went to the counter where one asked for sandwiches, to get a grilled ham-and-cheese made by the helpful young man from Pakistan. He hoped to make light conversation.
"Are you traveling with your family?"
"No," I said, "just my husband and two friends."
His eyes popped out a bit. "Your wife?"
"No, I assure you, he's my husband."
I hadn't quite realized at the time that by merely being married we had become political activists and gay ambassadors, but there you go. It turns out to be not at all a bad thing.
p.s. There were other gratifying, and more positive, conversations. For instance, on our plane trip home, I sat next to a pleasant woman who, on discovering that I was traveling with my husband, was delighted to let me know that at her "place of worship" (Baltimore Hebrew Congregation) they were very accepting and indeed had just welcomed a new lesbian Rabbi and her partner.
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In: All, Laughing Matters, Personal Notebook
The Inscrutable Muses
Last week I finished a story, known right now as "The Café Françoise". It is set in Nazi-occupied Paris during the second world war and involved a dangerous liaison between a French Resistance operative called Jean-Pierre Renard, and a Gestapo officer whose name was Klaus Nördlingen.
When I was looking for a name for the young German, I had in mind using the name of an old German city, thinking that doing so would lend an aristocratic air to the name, even if I didn't use "von" in the name. I looked at maps quite a bit and didn't see a name that jumped out at me as an obvious choice.
The name Nördlingen drew my attention when I saw it mentioned while reading Night Comes to the Cretaceous : Dinosaur Extinction and the Transformation of Modern Geology, by James Lawrence Powell, the clearest and most comprehensive book I've read about the Alvarez theory that the mass extinction that wiped out dinosaurs (among many others) was caused by the consequences following the impact of a large meteorite with the Earth. The book is from the late 1990s when the theory was still much more controversial than it is today.
Anyway, what was a respectable, Medieval, Bavarian town like Nördlingen doing in a book like that? Mass extinctions is your clue.
It turns out that the town of Nördlingen was built entirely within an ancient impact crater from a meteorite that collided with the Earth some 14.5 million years ago and a possible cause of the "Middle Miocene disruption". The crater, known as "Nördlinger Ries", was thought to be volcanic in origin until the 1960s when it was conclusively shown to be an impact crater.
Aerial photographs of the town are popular because its boundaries so clearly show the edges of the ancient crater; here are some examples.
Anyway, the name "Nördlingen" suited my needs perfectly and I rather liked the behind-the-scenes fact about the town of Nördlingen and its impact-crater boundaries. One must be vigilant, never knowing when the muse might speak.
p.s. This note came about because I just uncovered a small note on my desk from some weeks ago now : "Medieval German town (located w/in impact crater) : Nördlingen".
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In: All, Personal Notebook, Writing
Frank Kameny on "Gay is Good"
Share on FacebookThe one thing I’ve said, if I want to be remembered for nothing else, it’s back in July, 1968 I coined the slogan “Gay Is Good.”
And that really, it sort of, it epitomizes really my entire approach to all the issues. You have to take an affirmative approach on these things. In other words, if I may expound for a moment — people tend almost automatically, since we are under attack, and we are under criticism, they tend to respond defensively and reactively. Around then, taking the next step and responding on the offensive and proactively. In other words, the tendency — we’re told that homosexuality is bad in all sorts of different ways so the response tends to be “It’s not bad.”
You have to take the next step and say, “Not really, it’s not bad. It’s good.” It’s not that same sex marriage will not damage the institution of marriage. Same sex marriage will enhance the institution of marriage. You have to consciously take the next step and move over into being affirmative and so here again, it’s not that gay is not bad, it’s that gay is affirmative and good.
That came out of, in those days — again you have to go back to the issues of that day and the rhetoric of that day — in June of 1968 I saw on television an item of Stokely Carmichael leading a group of students at a college in Salisbury Maryland, chanting, “Black Is Beautiful.” And again, same thing. It’s not that black is not ugly, or in other ways lesser. We’re going to take the next step, “Black Is Beautiful,” and I realized I had to do exactly the same thing. I tossed around words and phrases. “Homosexuality” was obviously too clinical. “Good” was sort of bland; on the other hand it covered all the possibilities. Some people had suggested to me, “Gay Is Great,” but that sounded a little bit too informal. So ultimately I came up with that. It was adopted in August at a meeting of what was then the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations as a slogan.
Meanwhile, in those days, Playboy had a separate little publication called the Playboy Forum, and they had a long article, just about that time, July, August, September, which was sort of, at best wishy-washy about the gay issue. So I wrote them a long letter — I can be verbose at times — and I included “Gay Is Good.” And to my pleased astonishment, the following February or March of 1969, they published my whole letter under their heading, “Gay Is Good.” And that sent it out to the whole public, and we’re off and running.
–Frank Kameny (1925–2011) [quoted by Jim Burroway, "What Frank Kameny Meant By 'Gay Is Good'", Box Turtle Bulletin, 12 October 2011.]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Faaabulosity
Because He's Conservative
Share on Facebook"So I don’t support gay marriage despite being a Conservative. I support gay marriage because I’m a Conservative."
– David Cameron, UK Prime Minister [quoted by Peter Lloyd, "PM David Cameron re-iterates backing for gay marriage at party conference speech", Pink Paper, 5 October 2011.]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Faaabulosity
Literary Statistics
Tonight, for a project that I'll describe later, I put together an inventory of my fiction writing, i.e., those stories and things authored by Jay Neal, my pen-name for fiction. I found things to interest me; your mileage will undoubtedly vary.
One thing : I'll refer to "stories", but it's a bit difficult to say exactly what is a "story". I include in my count a few incidental pieces, one of which is only 144 words long but that I'm rather proud of, but the longest, at about 7,000 words, is decidedly a short story. Most of them are stories of roughly 3,000 words, a length that was thought optimal for the magazines I wrote for for several years. So, while they're not all quite stories, they're all literary oeuvre clearly in Jay Neal's hand. The average length is 3,250 words.
My first story I slogged through finishing in December 1998. What I remember about it was that, with my 3,000-word target in mind, I put all the words into it I could think of and sweated and thought and typed and ended up with … about 1,200 words! Talk about demoralizing. But I rethought it from the beginning and redid the story, ending up with a new, improved, 3,500-word version. Phew. That story turned out to be a warm-up for writing a story that I'd long been thinking about but hadn't found a way to tell it, but with the narrative ice broken I did find a way into the story and I'm still happy with the result.
Story #4, "A Bedtime Story", was a fairy-tale / fable that came out very nicely but was anything but smooth writing — Isaac can attest that I screamed at the computer frequently trying to get it to behave. It's been in print on three occasions so far, my most-published story and a sentimental favorite for many of us.
Story #5 I wrote for the anthology Bearotica, edited by R. Jackson (happily, recently back in print thanks to Bear Bones Books and Lethe Press). With this one, called "Blade" after one of the central characters, I expanded my horizon out to 5,000 words, which gave me some good scope to examine what turned out to be two very interesting characters: a middle-aged, suburban, white-bread gay man, and a barely legal, street-smart punk, who happen to find themselves attracted to each other. At least I found them interesting! It also was the start of a very productive relationship with a very understanding and supportive editor and collaborator that continues to this day.
Well, I don't need to go on right now about each story when all I was going to do was mention some statistics.
In total, there are 40 stories (pieces, oeuvres, etc.). Of those there are 7 that have had no public airing — I put it that way because 2 have been published online and one, in the form of a short play, was given a public reading some years back. The rest (30) have been printed on paper in some form, either magazine or anthology, for a total of 39 publications events (i.e., seven have been printed twice, one has been printed three times).
The number that fascinates me, though, is that together these 40 completed things contain 129,970 words. Not so much, really, compare to quite a number of authors — I'm a very slow writer at fiction and I don't focus my attention on it as often as I'd like. Still, it seems a bit of a marvel to me.
Oh yes, I still write, and I still quite like to write fiction. Not to mention that there are at least half a dozen stories in my mental queue, waiting to be put down slowly on paper (literally, since I generally write on paper with a fountain pen). Also not to mention that I have a story in progress that I really should be working on right now rather than writing this.
Ah well, so many words, so many ideas, so little time.
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In: All, Personal Notebook, Writing
Android Wallpaper & Eye for Science Images (Again)
I'm still inspired by joining up images from the "Eye for Science" project database with smartphones, and today I implemented another way to make it easy and quick way to turn an image you like into smartphone wallpaper.
All I've done is add a QR Code to the image page, i.e., the page you get when you click on the thumbnail image in the widget at the upper left (if you're looking at this in my blog, and if you're not you can do so to see what I'm talking about by clicking here).
When you see an image that you think will make a stunning wallpaper image on your smartphone, just use of the available bar-code scanner apps to scan the QR Code, which will translate to the URL of the image page it's on. You can then easily load the page on your smartphone and use your phone's image options to make the image your wallpaper. At least, that's the way it works on my Android phone.
By the way, if you just want to look through some random images you can access this URL : http://scienticity.net/efs. Then, if you see an image you'd like to make into wallpaper, follow the steps above. You can do this repeatedly : every time you access that URL you get a different image randomly chosen from the "Eye for Science" collection. It's a great way to waste a few minutes or a few hours late at night.
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In: All, It's Only Rocket Science, Speaking of Science
"Eye for Science" and Android Wallpaper
You may recall my mentioning Scienticity's "Eye for Science" project, a Flickr group to which members contribute interesting and provocative images that tell a story about science or nature or something related, which images we then try to get in front of others to provide a brief science moment. One way we do this is through a widget that shows a clickable thumbnail of the image; you can see it in action right there on the right of this blog page (or the left, if I've redesigned the theme). Every time the page is reloaded, a different image, chosen randomly from the group, shows up. At the time of my writing this the project has been going for a little over two years and the group has 97 members who've contributed 994 images. Why not consider joining us?
Ever since smartphones started to appear I've wanted to have an "Eye for Science" app that would serve up a random image from the collection whenever the user accessed the app. But, I've never taken the time to learn how to program in the necessary way to create such an app. Very recently I upgraded my own phone to something "smart", an Android model as it turns out, and the thought crossed my mind again, and I made a happy discovery : no programming required!
Well, nearly. Which is to say that I could accomplish the best part of what I wanted with tools that existed on my phone, without writing an app. What I decided I wanted one afternoon was to use an eye-for-science image for my phone's wallpaper and be able to change it easily whenever the whim arrived to do so, maybe every day (or more often). I did have to do a little behind-the-scenes programming with the Scienticity-hosted webpage that accesses the Flickr database, but that I knew how to do.
So, here's how I have a pseudo-app–a bookmark, actually–on my Android home page that let's me view a random sciency image and make it my wallpaper.
I used the "web" app (browser) to access the url, http://scienticity.net/efsm/ ; you can do this in your regular browser, too, there's nothing magical about it. Accessing this URL returns a random, full-sized image from the Flickr database, along with the title and caption, the same thing you'd get by clicking the thumbnail in the widget on this page.
Once I have this page in my browser I can make a bookmark ("menu / more / add shortcut to home") on my home screen. From my home screen, then, touching the bookmark opens this URL in my browser with a new random image. If I'm already looking at an image page I can get a new image, randomly selected, by touching "menu / refresh", because each time I access the URL I get a new random image. Then, I can keep trying images (and enjoying what I see) until I get to one that strikes me as something that will make good wallpaper.
Then — on my phone at least — all I have to do is touch the image on my screen and hold my finger there until I get a menu of options, one of which is "set as wallpaper". I touch that option and I have new wallpaper!
I'm a little embarrassed to say how inordinately pleased I am to be able to set my wallpaper so easily to new eye-for-science images whenever I feel moved to do so, but there you go.
Please, I invite you to give it a try, It's quick, it's easy, and you'll see interesting things that might make you think "hunh", which is the goal of the project. Have fun!
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In: All, Eureka!, Personal Notebook, Speaking of Science
"The Third Man" and Artistic Inevitability
Recently I watched, not for the first time, the film "The Third Man", directed by Carol Reed and starring Orson Welles and Joseph Cotton. It's an extraordinary film and one of the few that seems to stand up to my repeated viewing. This time I thought to watch it because I wanted to study some aspects of the narrative and characterization as entertaining research for a story I'm working on.
Watching the story whose screenplay was by Graham Greene so closely as I did was a firm reminder that I had yet to read anything by Graham Greene, clearly a deficiency that needed to be remedied. I'd suspected for some time that I'd find his style and subjects sympathetic to my tastes, so now was the perfect time to find out.
On the next library night (Monday) I even remembered to have a look for some Greene. I still have the Collected Stories to look forward to, but I have now read The Third Man, the novella that Green wrote as a preparation for the screenplay and later published. I was quite right about my liking for his writing, for his language, for his sentences and narrative details that seemed natural and unintrusive, and for the way he worked through his story. It was very vivid writing, easily rivaling the movie.
What interested me most, though, was not the similarities to the movie but the differences. I'll try to say why after recounting a couple of them, but I fear it may be still too complicated a thought for me to be clear about.
There were a number of little differences, but here are two that seemed significant plot or character points.
1. In the movie, when Martins goes one night with Anna back to Harry's apartment and there is a crowd outside the door, the little boy accuses Martins of murdering the concierge, and that seems to be the reason Martins runs away, to escape what could be a mob after him as accused murderer. In the book, the boy says the same things but there's no feeling that the people are turning toward mob behavior; Martins makes a quick get-away with Anna in order to avoid getting tangled up with the police right then, and not out of fear of the accusation.
2. In the movie, Martins appears at the reader's group meeting to speak on "the modern novel" and does a miserable job of answering questions from the audience; he seems quite preoccupied and his poor performance seems to cause him so much anxiety–that and all the people leaving–that he rushes from the meeting to his next scene. In the book, however, he performs adequately, if without much sparkle. The Q&A session goes along, he makes answers that are passable, and the meeting ends without providing him the same motivation to rush off to Anna's apartment.
I am not disturbed by these differences at all. I rather enjoy seeing/reading different version of a thing, seeing how ideas get worked out. I have a few personal stories about that to tell in a little bit.
The big question that interests me here, one that has interested me for some years, is the process whereby some thing being made by a creative person — an artist, composer, writer, musician, etc. — goes from being a spontaneous/considered product of creative work to being an artistic artifact and subject to artistic reverence.
For example, a painting. When the painting leaves the hands of the artist and becomes "art", it becomes an untouchable relic of some sort of artistic perfection. It must be touched — if it be touched at all! — by fresh, lint-fee cotton gloves, and it must be preserved in the state and condition that it was when the act of creation ended. I have two anecdotes to tell.
My art teacher in college painted large canvases by laying them down on his studio floor and working over them, as we've seen, say, in photographs of Jackson Pollock working. My teacher took great delight in the various things that might fall onto the surface of his canvas as he worked : bugs, used matches, bits of this and that. He felt that the universe was participating in the creation of the art work by contributing these more-or-less random elements. In one view, random bits of crap fell on his paintings and he didn't much care. But once that painting entered a collection and was hung on a gallery wall it became Art, and all of those random little bits of crap had to be preserved and taken care of as part of an unchanging, not-to-be-corrupted "artistic statement". When and how did that transition happen?
I heard a story once concerning Jackson Pollock, since we mentioned him. Apocryphal or not, I don't much care because the point of the story is useful here. It seems that Pollock had painted various unstretched canvases that were going to be mounted on frames as the backdrop for a ballet. When the canvases arrived it was discovered that the canvases were a foot longer than the frames. What to do? It was a quandary that confounded the set designers and trustees. In desperation someone suggested cutting a foot off each of the canvases to make them fit. People were horrified. This was suggesting sacrilege! These canvases were Art, created by a famous Artist!!
As the story goes, someone finally realize they could call Pollock and ask his advice. His suggestion : "Cut a foot off the damned things!"
What is the inhibition that makes the art work inviolable when it leaves the hands of the artist? I'm not saying that the attitude is entirely misplaced, not at all, but I find it hard to understand, too.
My own stories in this conceptual file folder have to do with the short stories I write. The reactions I get as a writer sometimes mirror this reverence for Art. Sometimes I have occasion to ask an editor how many words she'd like in a story to suit the space she has to fill. "Oh," she'll say, "however long it comes out is fine. I know that creativity can be unpredictable sometimes and the muse must be satisfied!" [My paraphrase, of course.] If I try to explain that I am a writer and if the editor wants exactly 2,873 words she will get exactly 2,873 words; she'll either be unbelieving or disillusioned.
A good story, of course, seems inevitable when a reader reads it, but that's the art (if you will) of fiction, making the story seem natural and inevitable. That what Graham Greene did in his novelette, then did again differently in the movie as Carol Reed filmed it. Now I hope you see my point : both tellings of The Third Man seemed unforced and natural, the uncontrived telling of this unique story in its inevitable working out. Except, it clearly wasn't that–couldn't be that–because there are two versions and they're both good.
I know many people like the idea and believe it possible to point to the correct version of a story. the one true and authentic artistic expression. Well, they will inevitably be disappointed. I have several stories that have been published multiple times and my experience says there are never two versions that are identical, even when one tries to make them so. Things happen–so do copy editors! To be honest there are a number of things about my writing that don't strike me as at all sacred and untouchable and I easily adjust to house style and hard-working copy editors. Occasionally something turns up that I feel strongly about; it's usually unexpected and since I'm generally easy going I usually get my way if I feel strongly about that detail.
Once, for example, I had written that a bear in a story went to a bar and asked for a "Diet Coke". The copy editor, for some reason, suggested changing it to just "Coke", perhaps to say a word, who knows? I saw the suggestion and suddenly realize that it mattered greatly to me. Bears tend to be larger men, some are concerned about that and the calories they consume, many others might be (as I am) diabetic, so I felt that there was an important if barely noticeable issue involved with my character's choosing "Diet Coke" and I really wanted to keep it that way. I explained and we kept it, of course.
But sometimes these things happen and changes get made because they don't matter very much to the story, really, and then the story is published and becomes Art, expected to be unchanging and untouchable, even though it can hardly happen.
Some years back I started a story, got 1,000 words into it and discovered that I had absolutely no idea what happened next. Those 1,000 words sat unused for about 3 years until I one day realized how I might finish that story. Now, if that doesn't sound like a muse of inevitability and only-one-way to tell a story I don't know what does. I mean, it took me 3 years to find the single, unique possibility that existed for finishing that story.
So, I finished it and sent it to an editor. Well, he responded, he liked the idea but he wasn't so sure about the ending. Would I consider changes? Well, yes I would, but it might take another 3 years! In fact, I jest. It required backing up nearly to the original 1,000 word mark but I wrote a second, significantly different ending the next week. So much for the inevitability of the original ending!
It got better than that, of course. The story in that second version didn't end up in the projected anthology. When another opportunity came along I wrote a third ending, once that combined elements of the first two endings, and that's how it was published. The experience did confirm for me how silly it was to believe that there's only one way to tell a story.
My final summary point? I don't have one. That's not the way I'm telling the story. I don't have a final answer for how artistic creation transforms in Art, but I'm enjoying working on the question.
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In: All, Music & Art, Reflections, Writing
"Lay" vs. "Lie"
When it comes to the inscrutably arbitrary intricacies of the English language (any major variant), I am quite pleased with myself that I somehow managed to memorize the differences between the verb spelled "lay" versus the verb spelled "lie" many years ago. However, my dirty little secret is that I am hopeless at any sort of conjugation of said verbs and tend to construct my sentences so that I only use the simplest forms.
Well, no more. I feel like empowering myself! I am grateful to Geoffrey K. Pullum at Language Log ("Be appalled; be very appalled") for putting this very useful information in front of me:
- lay = {lay, lays, laid, laying, laid} is the transitive verb meaning "deposit, or cause to recline";
- lie1 = {lie, lies, lay, lying, lain} is the intransitive verb meaning "recline"; and
- lie2 = {lie, lies, lied, lying, lied} is an additional confound, an unrelated intransitive verb meaning "tell a deliberate untruth under conditions where truth was expected"
Here are those same forms in a table:
lie
"fib"
(intransitive)lie
"recline"
(intransitive)lay
"deposit"
(transitive)plain form / plain present tense lie lie lay 3rd person singular present tense lies lies lays preterite (simple past) tense lied lay laid gerund-participle lying lying laying past participle lied lain laid
Now, Mr. Pullum is rightly appalled at the chaos apparent in the table above — a situation clearly not directed at ease of use or learning, for that matter — but there you go. Perhaps someday we can all get behind new verbs and new verb-forms to replace this hopeless muddle, but until that happy time we must try to press ahead and conjugate uneasily but correctly. Unfortunately, these verbs crop up too frequently in writing to avoid their use altogether.
After I finish with these, I think I will move on to trying to figure out "awaken".
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In: All, Naming Things, Writing
Perfection Salad
For quite some time I have had a fascination for congealed salads or, as they are more commonly known today, Jell-O Salads, "congealed" rather having fallen out of favor as a descriptor since it seems to have developed unsavory connotations and association, as evidenced by the fact that discussing "congealed salads" at this recent, about-to-be-mentioned dinner, led to a discussion of blood puddings and blood sausages.
Anyway, we were invited to a small, pot-luck dinner this past Saturday. For some time I've been wanting to prepare a "Perfection Salad", to my mind the most famous and renowned congealed salad ever created, so I did. Imagine my surprise — dismay even — when I discovered that the other eight people at the dinner had never heard of "Perfection Salad"! I couldn't believe it either.
"Perfection Salad" was the invention of one Mrs. John E. Cooke, who submitted her recipe to a contest sponsored by Knox Gelatin. For her efforts she won $100, a not-to-sneeze-at amount in 1905. The recipe was published in the 1905 Know cookbook Dainty Deserts for Dainty People, edited by Janet McKenzie Hill. Here is the text of her recipe as originally published. Ms. Hill was a graduate of Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking School; here's an appreciation of Janet McKenzie Hill.
So iconic was "Perfection Salad" of its time that Laura Shapiro used it as the title of her fascinating history of the development of "home economics", Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century (New York : North Point Press, 1986). It was a time when technology was starting to impinge on the kitchen arts. Here is Ms. Shapiro on salads, and why salads encased in sparkling gelatin were the epitome of modern cooking:
Salad greens, which did have to be served raw and crisp, demanded more complicated measures. The object of scientific salad making was to subdue the raw greens until they bore as little resemblance as possible to their natural state. If a plain green salad was called for, the experts tried to avoid simply letting a disorganized pile of leaves drop messily onto the plate…This arduous approach to salad making became an identifying feature of cooking-school cookery and the signature of a refined household…American salads traditionally had been a matter of fresh greens, chicken, or lobster, but during the decades at the turn of the century, when urban and suburban middle class was beginning to define itself, salads proliferated magnificently in number and variety until they incorporated nearly every kind of food except bread and pastry…Salads that were nothing but a heap of raw ingredients in dissaray plainly lacked cultivation, and the cooking experts developed a number of ingenious ways to wrap them up…The tidiest and most thorough way to package a salad was to mold in in gelatin. [pp. 96--99; quoted here]
"Perfection Salad" is an example of the savory gelatin salad, a taste for which Americans at least seem to have left behind by about 1970. Yes, there is sugar in the recipe (I used a non-sugar sweetener to good effect), but there is also vinegar, so that the overall effect is a pleasant sweet-and-sour effect rather than the dessert-sweet of, say, fruit cocktail molded in Jell-O. The idea easily strikes the uninitiated as somewhere between "odd" and "ooh, gross!" (read, for instance, the disdainful discussion and grossed-out comments here), but it's really quite tasty and refreshing, and entirely suitable for a salad meant to accompany an entree.
I am delighted that I finally got around to making this classic and introducing it to some friends. One taste told me it was a classic combination and a keeper of a recipe that I plan to make again real soon. I am equally delighted that it fit my parameters for "easy to make" : chop a few vegetables, stir some things together, combine and put in the refrigerator. I think my reputation as our pot-luck go-to-guy for all things molded Jell-O is about to be seriously enhanced.
The recipe I give here comes from a fun website called "Recipe Curio" (source), and it's very faithful to the original. Where the recipe calls for finely shredded cabbage, I agree that shredding it as finely as possible is essential to the presentation and the taste; the very fine shreds present more crunchy texture and ensemble taste with the other vegetables rather than a full-on cabbage effect. Remember, it was originally "Dainty".
———-
Perfection Salad
- 2 envelopes (1 oz. each) or 2 tablespoons unflavored gelatin
- 0.5 cup sugar or substitute (I used Splenda for cooking)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1.5 cups boiling water
- 1.5 cups cold water
- 0.5 cup mild vinegar
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice (about 1 lemon's worth)
- 2 cups finely shredded cabbage (about a quarter of a head; green cabbage is preferable to red)
- 1 cup chopped celery (about 3 stalks)
- 0.25 cup chopped green pepper (about half a pepper)
- 0.25 cup chopped pimiento
- 0.33 cup green-olive slices (I didn't use these and I'm still of two minds about whether I want to)
- Thoroughly mix unflavored gelatin, sweetener, and salt. Add boiling water and stir to dissolve. Then add cold water, vinegar, and lemon juice.
- Chill until partially set, about 1 hour.
- Stir in the shredded cabbage, celery, green pepper, pimiento, and green-olive slices.
- Pour mixture into an 8.5 x 4.5 x 2.5-inch loaf pan that has been oiled or sprayed with Pam.
- Chill until firm; at least 4 hours. Unmold (it helps to run a thin knife around the edges of the mold.
I ♥ Bariolage
I was very happy today to be reminded of the word "Bariolage", which refers to a technique of playing a stringed instrument in which a changing note played on one string is quickly alternated with an unchanging note played on another string; the unchanging note frequently is an open string. It's commonly heard in Baroque music, particularly Baroque violin sonatas, and sometimes gives a sense of an accompanied melody issuing from the solo instrument. The technique has always appealed to me and I knew there was a word for it that I'd heard decades ago but had forgotten, much to my annoyance. Now I can reinforce the memory of the word by telling you about it.
Here is a ready example of bariolage from the first Cello Suite, in G Major, of JS Bach. The bariolage occurs in a short passage that begins at the 1:54' mark, where the "melody" is fingered on the D string, alternating with an open A string. The bariolage is foreshadowed in the way the arpeggiated figures are written, particularly at the beginning, with alternating notes at the end of each short figure.
This is Mischa Maisky playing.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
Bariolage refers strictly to the alternation of two notes on two strings, but is frequently misapplied to figures of rapid arpeggios across strings. These arpeggios are also a very characteristic form of passage work, particularly in Baroque music, but it is distinct from bariolage. Here is an excellent short demonstration of rapid arpeggios on the violin, mistakenly called bariolage even though the violinist is speaking French.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.]
So, as long as we're talking about rapid arpeggios, here's one of my favorite passages to play, also from a Bach Cello Suite, this one is #3 in C Major. Playing it is my favorite cellist, Janos Starker. The arpeggio fun beings at 2:25'.
[YouTube link for those who don't see the embedded player.] Share on Facebook
In: All, Explaining Things, Music & Art
Pride in New York
It's the Empire State Building with its gay-pride colors on, but this celebration is special. New York City's gay-pride events were already scheduled for this weekend but they are a bigger-than-ever party celebrating the arrival, late Friday night, 24 June 2011, of marriage equality in the state of New York. The New York assembly has handily passed a marriage-equality bill several times in the past two years; the Republican-dominated Senate finally did so Friday night by a vote of 33 to 29. They join Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and the District of Columbia as jurisdictions where same-sex couples may now marry legally. California, as you certainly know, is in marriage-equality limbo but presumably on its way back. Maryland, I might note (since that's where I live) nearly managed to join the small but growing crowd earlier this year but balked, giving the initiative to New York, which I hope will gall our assembly so much that they get over themselves next session.
There was, rather quietly, some movement on the marriage-equality front in Maryland this past week as well, as a friend (BR) pointed out. The background is that last year (2010) in Maryland our attorney general, Doug Gansler, wrote a legal opinion in which he said that our current state laws required the recognition, in Maryland, of any marriage entered into legally in any other jurisdiction; specifically, this was directed as same-sex marriages. It was one reason Isaac and I decided that the time had come for us to commit our own marriage. That idea had not, however been tested in court until this past week when the question came up in a Circuit-Court case in Maryland. It arose in a case involving a couple, two women, who had been legally married in Washington, DC. At issue was whether one of the couple could be compelled to testify against the other. The court found that, because of state law and in light of Gansler's opinion, that the privilege of not testifying against a spouse applied (details in this story). This feels very significant to me.
Most people I hear, both in favor of and opposed (for inscrutable reasons), seem to feel that New York's move marks the tipping point in favor of marriage equality in this country. I do think that. Marriage-equality foes have been fighting the "inevitability meme" with all their might and money, but The People — basically a Fair People — have heard the arguments (endlessly!), or perhaps more precisely "tired platitudes", and see them for the empty fear-mongering in the name of some religious righteousness that they are. When I was listening to the unhappy, distinctly non-gay groups making their threats of retribution over Friday's vote in New York, it sounded to me like the roar of an old tiger that's lost its teeth. Beyond this point all the secret money from the Catholic and Mormon churches can't keep these party poopers from becoming ever more marginalized.
The bill in New York passed after lots of "compromise" negotiation went on over the issue of "religious exemptions". There are several written into the legislation, most of which covers issues that were already addressed in other laws, but a few of which may prove useful in the future for lawyers looking for work. I rather like the attitude of the Friendly Atheist who wrote about them,
You know what? I’m fine with the exemption. Years from now, it’ll be proof that while the majority of the public — and the majority of NY senators — was in support of marriage equality, certain religious groups wanted to hold back progress. They wanted their bigotry enshrined in the law.
I have to say it reminds me mostly of the Boy Scouts who fought loudly and publicly for their right to discriminate against gay people (NB: the Girl Scouts have always taken a much more inclusive attitude) until the Supreme Court said they were free to hate and exclude gay people as much as they wanted. It was definitely a Pyrrhic victory : have the Boy Scouts ever been less a social force in America than they are today? Vehemently hating on gay and lesbian people has been a losing proposition for some years now but the news is slow to get to the ones who need to hear it most.
I do get upset by the anti-gay forces who try, in the face of their own hateful rhetoric and actions, to pretend that gay and lesbian people do not face any discrimination, are not hated and feared, are not marginalized, and are not in need of "special rights", as they try to brand moves toward equality. They seem to suffer no intimations of irony as they try to convince that some of their best friends are gay and that they really have no problem with gay people if we just wouldn't keep flaunting it. It's not like straight people have straight-pride parades, after all.
As I wrote once here:
Forty years ago, in this country, within my lifetime, homosexuality was both a mental illness and a crime. That has changed slowly through the intervening decades–at least in law if not entirely in attitude–because of the courage and sacrifices of untold numbers of gays and lesbians and other sexual outlaws, people whose persecution was violent, bloody, often fatal. Too much of it still continues to this day.
In the 1950s and 1960s gay and lesbian people, while looking for routes that might lead to some social respect, were a relatively low-profile group. I hate to sound childish about this whole "in your face" gay thing but we didn't start it. Despite the innocent expression on the faces of the haters, they just couldn't leave us alone. Societal disapprobation, persecution, raids on queer bars, oppressive laws, shock treatment as "therapy" — there was a limit to it all.
If you think I'm making up this pervasive anti-gay attitude, let's take a quick look at this paragraph from a 1964 essay, "Homosexuality in America", from the pages of Life magazine (quoted here) :
Homosexuality shears across the spectrum of American life — the professions, the arts, business and labor. It always has. But today, especially in big cities, homosexuals are discarding their furtive ways and openly admitting, even flaunting, their deviation. Homosexuals have their won drinking places, their special assignation streets, even their own organizations. And for every obvious homosexual, there are probably nine nearly impossible to detect. This social disorder, which society tries to suppress, has forced itself into the public eye because it does present a problem — and parents especially are concerned. The myth and misconception with which homosexuality has so long been clothed must be cleared away, not to condone it but to cope with it.
This would appear to be a "friendly" article, despite that suggestion that we were "flaunting our deviation". You can see that gays and lesbians had become the scapegoats representing the demimonde, to blame for everything that had caused all the most idyllic aspects of the fondly remembered 1950s — fondly remembered by the white middle- and upper-class — to start melting away, leading American society into an abyss from which it might never be freed. Not only that but apparently we were expected to accept this role without demur.
Well, sooner or later that pot was bound to boil over, and boil over it did on the night of 27 June 1968 outside the Stonewall Inn in New York City, a night noted as a riot of drag queens. There's a lot written about "Stonewall", as we refer to it today. There's a fair amount of myth that swirls about, but we needed some myth, and the reality is a lot more than some people would like to admit. It's very hard these days to imagine the oppressive milieu in which the Stonewall riots took place–it just doesn't seem credible. If you find it incredible, read (here at Joe.My.God) this reprint of the news article "HOMO NEST RAIDED – QUEEN BEES ARE STINGING MAD", by Jerry Lisker, New York Daily News, July 6th 1969. This contemporary account was thought to be news reporting!
You see what happened that night at Stonewall : the shame under which we were supposed to cower, knowing our place, accepting our fate, started to be replaced by pride, pride in accepting who we are and what we are and pride in finally knowing that we are all human beings worthy of respect.
If you've wondered why there are all these "Pride" events going on around the country in June, there's your reason : they started, and they continue, as commemorations of events outside the Stonewall Inn on 27 June 1969.
If you want to know why these celebrations are called "Pride" events, there's your answer.
That's part of the answer, too, why the events this past week in New York seem like such a big deal, because we've been traveling a long way and it's nice to have a spot where we can rest our tired, weary selves awhile.
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In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity, Personal Notebook
Maddow on Birthers
Share on FacebookThe idea that the birth certificate is the real story, and Osama bin Laden is the distraction from it, tells you everything you really need to know about the people who are invested in the birth certificate.
–Rachel Maddow on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, 3 May 2011
In: All, Common-Place Book, Current Events
Protecting "Traditional Spaghetti"
My purpose in quoting this news excerpt is not to recapitulate the dreary and clichéd patter of anti-gay politicians, as you will see below.
BOSTON — For anyone paying attention to the Governor's Council recently, the questions were predictable, the exchanges inevitable.
Charles O. Cipollini repeatedly pressed [Massachusetts'] Gov. Deval Patrick's latest state Supreme Judicial Court nominee, Barbara Lenk, with questions about same-sex marriage during Wednesday's confirmation hearing.
Lenk, if confirmed, would be the court's first openly gay justice in its history.
Cipollini, a Fall River Republican whose District 1 stretches from the Rhode Island border to the tip of Cape Cod, has billed himself as a "traditional family values" councilor. He has indicated he thinks marriage should be between a man and a woman.
In the Supreme Judicial Court confirmation hearing for Fernande D.V. Duffly earlier this year, he appeared to conflate same-sex marriage with polygamy and communal living.
Wednesday he said "I am tired of attempts by the court to redefine common words … especially those that we hold dear, like marriage."
"Will the definition of spaghetti be next?"
[from Dan McDonald, "Cipollini presses openly gay SJC nominee on same-sex marriage", SouthCoastToday.com, 28 April 2011.]
Now, it's quite possible that Mr. Cipollini was not paying attention in — what was it? — the 1980s when 'spaghetti' and 'macaroni' fell out of favor and were largely replaced by 'pasta', a term that embraced greater diversity, but it seems to me that 'spaghetti' is a relatively insignificant word over whose redefinition one should fret. Will we be hearing soon about new crusades to protect "traditional spaghetti"?
I suppose we must imagine that Mr. Cipollini holds the meaning of 'spaghetti' especially dear.
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In: All, Faaabulosity, Laughing Matters
Balancing Basic & Applied Research
Share on FacebookThe transistor, the LED, and the medical isotope technetium-99m are important applications of science, yet as far as I know none of them was invented as the result of a government initiative to fund industrially relevant research.
The transistor was invented at Bell Labs. The LED was invented at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and technetium-99m was discovered—and its usefulness to medicine recognized—at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
My short list is not meant to buttress an argument that governments shouldn't fund applied, goal-directed research. They should. The challenge lies is striking the right balance between basic and applied research. If a government overemphasizes applied research, it risks depriving basic researchers of the funds they need to make discoveries and inventions that could prove industrially important.
[from Charles Day, "Striking the right balance between basic and applied research", The Dayside, 21 April 2011.]
In: All, Common-Place Book, It's Only Rocket Science
You've Got to be Carefully Taught
Remarking on the news that the Catholic Church in Rhode Island was to kick off a program to "educate" parishioners about the "dangers" of marriage equality:
Share on Facebook[P]eople must be coached into seeing [gays and lesbians who wish to marry] as a threat, since the instinct is to see us as the benign lovers that we truly are.
[Jeremy Hooper, "Just in time for Lent, RI Catholic leaders give up all pretense of church/state separation", Good As You, 26 April 2011.]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Faaabulosity
Beard on Salads
Tonight I was thumbing through James Beard's American Cookery (1972, in a reissued edition), and noted these two remarks on the subject of salads.
[from page 34]
When a Pennsylvania housewife won a national prize for a jellied salad in 1905, she unleashed a demand for congealed salads that has grown alarmingly, particularly in the suburbs. The jellied salad does have its delights, though, and it is without question an American innovation.
[from page 44, considering different ways to serve "Sliced Tomatoes"]
(10) Place strips of crisp bacon across the tomatoes and add oil & vinegar dressing. This is sometimes called a Greased Pig Salad if served on greens.
It's the first I've heard of a "Greased Pig Salad", but I think it could quickly become a favorite.
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In: All, Books, Common-Place Book, Food Stuff
The Gingrich Theology of Sex and Sinning
It was, for a change, a quiet evening at home. Dogs curled at their feet, Frank was reading the newspaper while Kenneth furrowed his brow over a challenging Sudoku.
Frank rattled the pages of his paper, drawing Kenneth's attention. "I was just thinking earlier about serial adulterer Newt Gingerich and his seemingly serious–to him–bid to become President. Now I read that it was his 'passion for America' that caused him to cheat on his succession of wives. That's a novel name for it, I guess. Say, maybe it was former-governor Sanford's 'passion for America' that had him out 'hiking the Appalachian trail'. Still, it doesn't seem to affect Gingrich's polling numbers much."
Kenneth paused, tilting his pencil at Frank. "Thats because he applies the Gingrich Theology of Sex and Sinning."
Frank knew better than to encourage Kenneth, but he couldn't help asking. "And that would be…?"
"Apparently you can sin as much as you like and, so long as you really beg God to forgive you he will and Jesus can still be your best friend. I'm thinking of converting myself."
"What! You would give up your cherished secular humanism, and for what…?"
"More sex, of course, plus greater happiness. See, every time you're forgiven again by God you feel a little better, knowing that you are a morally superior person. As Gingrich has demonstrated, the more sin the more forgiveness and the better you feel about yourself. So I'm going to the bar more often and try to pick up more men, and every time I have a sinful episode of sex with another man I'm going to beg forgiveness and feel a whole lot better about myself."
"I would think you'd feel wonderful. After all, Gingrich and his crowd tell us that gay sex is just about the worst sin there is, so you should experience even more forgiveness and, therefore, even greater happiness than serial-adulterer Gingrich."
"Well, you might very well think that, but it could be that one of the Commandments has to be involved. Adultery is covered, of course, but homosexuality isn't mentioned anywhere in the Commandments so it may be that God won't deliver so much forgiveness for sinful gay transgressions as he does for sinful adulterous transgressions."
"Oh dear, that could be a draw back. What can you do?"
"Sin more. I'll try to have multiple sex partners every night."
"Sounds tiring."
"May be impossible. I regret that as I grow older I have but one orgasm to give each night for my sins."
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In: All, Current Events, Frank & Kenneth
Do As He Says, Not As He Does
Newt Gingrich, lately infected with delusional notions that people want him to be president (yes, of the United States!), enjoys his sinning but apparently gets his sin-tickets fixed through his very special relationship with Jesus. Don't forget, however, that he finds the idea of marriage equality, well, unforgivable. So, I repeat the following just because it seems to me that it deserves repeating.
Share on FacebookNewt Gingrich would like to remind everybody that that marriage is between one man and one woman whom you abandon riddled with cancer on her hospital bed while you fuck the shit out of your mistress whom you later marry and cheat on with a third woman while screaming with Godly moral outrage about the infidelities of the president.
["Anti-Gay Marriage Money Gingrich Sent To Iowa Went Through Focus On The Family", Joe.My.God, 16 March 2011.]
In: All, Current Events, Splenetics
