Danielle and I curated our first gallery show this week in Greenpoint, amidst eighteen inches of newly-fallen snow. A collection of our mom’s work, as a surprise for her birthday. It was fantastic.
Klieg Lights - pop-up gallery @ kill devil hill
Inquisition - lagniappe
"Something given as a bonus or extra gift."
A word I’d never seen prior to last night, and yet between then and now I have come across it everywhere I turn on the Internet. I know, I know — confirmation bias.
Being There - 8.65 miles by foot, february 17th
galleries, strand, j&r, pam, cider, babycakes, rubber
Alchemy - bundt cake pan year
In advance of last year’s National Bundt Pan Day (November 15th), I bought a classy Nordic Ware rose bundt pan, a source of endless joy and stressful cleanup. My bundt inspiration, including tonight’s Cinnamon Chocolate Bundt, mostly comes from The Food Librarian. The recipe comes from Vintage Victuals, in which it is presented as a “money cake,” a numismatist’s wet dream. The idea of baking currency into a cake makes me a little nervous, so I accepted the librarian’s altered version.
I sifted the confectioner’s sugar on with a spoon, which I fortunately licked when I was done. This alerted me to the fact that it was in fact cake flour, not sugar, that I had sprinkled on to the bundt, in my haste to get out the door. But in a rare MacGuyver moment, I realized I had a can of compressed air in my office, so I took the cake and leaned over the bathtub and blasted away the flour before attempting the sift again.
I thought the recipe needed some kind of ganache-y glaze. Maybe next time. Also, I am saving up for the chrysanthemum bundt, next.
&c - lesson plan
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. – Lazarus Long, Time Enough For Love, Heinlein
Standing; Pondering - tenement museum
I want nothing more than to be allowed to breathe in a space. Does anyone go to site-specific museums to see historical recreations or be distracted by a guided tour? (Perhaps the two attentive British families shoehorned into this council flat with me.) She meant well, but the appeal was just over her shoulder — not the true stories of the Levines and Rothschilds, simulacra of which I have seen often — but the squalor they left behind. Archaeology. Fingerprints. I needed more time to really exist there, to suss out signs of life.
Then, back into the slush and around the corner for a Babycakes cupcake, and over to Lafayette for an Excellent Dumpling House wonton soup. (They brought me the wrong one, but I guess that’s what makes it an adventure.)
And one other thing: in the museum’s gift shop I saw a book entitled New York City Museum of Complaint, consisting of letters written to the Mayor of New York between 1751 and 1969. Reproduced below is the text of my favorite one:
Sir:
I should like to express to you my admiration and appreciation of the new Zoo in Central Park. However, there are two commodities lacking in the cafeteria which I feel should be included, to wit: lady fingers for the children to eat with their ice cream, and pretzels for the grown ups to munch with their beer. My six year old son dutifully consumes peanut butter crackers, but always hopefully asks for lady fingers, and I am sure most of the children who frequent the park would appreciate their inclusion.
Two commodities, pretzels and lady fingers, Your Honor, that will make a 98% proposition a glorious one hundred per-center!
Sincerely,
A---- T----
15th May 1935
- Don’t run, Don’t hide, Be happy.
- I love you, and am amazed by you.
- You are just born.
- Peek outside the shell.
- Past the hard white exterior.
- The soft pink skin of yourself.
- Reach out. Your heart can take it.
- Feel the warmth coming towards you.
- A quarter century.
- Two and a half percent of a millennium.
- Congratulations. You have come this far.
- You can push farther. Go further. Press on.
- A quarter century.
- I am at your side. I have your back.
- I will be your lookout, your scout.
- I will ride with you. Walk with you.
- I will always be with you.
- I am the wind.
- The ground.
- The sea.
- I love you.
- Happy Birthday.
&c - dig we must
This cannot be an impossible task.
I’ve been feeling more and more like my brain is spinning around at magnetic north, like maneuvers both basic and advanced are intractable; refusing to be plotted out. It’s a queer, shiftless feeling, and I grow more and more comfortable with it every day.
This, obviously, will not do.
So: these twenty-five nuggets pose a baseline challenge. At once both overly broad and overly narrow, they are nonetheless ready to scatter in the wind. I can’t really think of any way around it other than to hold my breath and dive in. (Too early to second-guess the list? I do not know how to dive.) I suppose we’ll see if anything germinates.
Anyway, feel free to play along at home. It’s kind of like NaNoWriMo, except there’s no peer motivation, transparency, clarity, rhyme, reason, or final work product. Oh, and the loser doesn’t get slaughtered at the end.
Perfect is the enemy of good. I never tire of that little pearl.