Monday, February 28, 2011

Green Dresses.10, Michelle Obama Edition


I've always liked Michelle Obama's fashion sense--she picks feminine over business and I wholeheartedly approve.


Perhaps it's just that Laura Bush wasn't hard to beat on the fashion front.


Either way, I appreciate that Michelle Obama works the green dress. Also: I still want to be first lady for the gowns. (Since me becoming an actress is even less likely.)


(picture, picture, picture)

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Natural Gas.6

The New York Times article, "Regulation Lax as Gas Wells' Tainted Water Hits Rivers" is quite scary. It seems that there is radioactive material in the waste water that results from fracking that is not sufficiently treated in the sewage treatment plants, but is returned to Pennsylvania's rivers, including the Susquehanna. Lines like this make me worried: "While Pennsylvania is an extreme case, the risks posed by hydrofracking extend across the country." This makes me a little uncomfortable about possibly returning home next year.

Not all of the article was very good: because fracking is such a recent innovation, there are large gaps in our knowledge about its dangers. This was pretty unpersuasive: "Gas has seeped into underground drinking-water supplies in at least five states, including Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and West Virginia, and residents blamed natural-gas drilling." I'm curious about whether gas seeps into drinking water on its own, and if so, how often. However, and I think that the article emphasized this well, the fact that fracking is such a recent innovation means that we need to be careful and slow with putting it into practice (and make sure that there are enough inspectors to check on the gas companies).

But here is the best quotation of the article--it's from a Texan who is concerned about the effects of drilling on her family's health: "'I’m not an activist, an alarmist, a Democrat, environmentalist or anything like that,' Ms. Gant said. 'I’m just a person who isn’t able to manage the health of my family because of all this drilling.'" (I love the fact that she has to make it clear that her concern about natural gas drilling does not make her a Democrat!)

Saturday, February 26, 2011

"If we look for Christ only in the saints, we shall miss Him. If we look for Him only in those people who seem to have the sort of character we personally consider to be Christian, that which we call our 'idea,' we shall miss the whole meaning of His abiding in us." --Caryll Houselander, The Reed of God

Ian Shapiro and Aditi

I'm really not sure when my college restaurant-reviewing self cropped back up and decided that it was crucially important to write about the restaurants that I visit (although I bet it has to do with my realization [and terror] that I'll be leaving DC quite soon). I've been to Aditi a number of times, mostly for Georgetown events, and, honestly, I've never had a complaint. It's always empty in there, which seems like a bad sign, but I think it's empty because it's not as fancy-shmansy as other Georgetown restaurants. And DC just doesn't have good Indian restaurants--it doesn't help that my only pre-DC experience with Indian food was at the award-winning India Garden of Pittsburgh (I'm dying to go back there! Oh for the Indian pop music on the big screen tv's!). But of the DC Indian restaurants that I've been to, Aditi is certainly the best. This latest visit I had the lamb saag (I love spinach!). And their samosas are really quite good. On other visits we've ordered a number of entrees and all shared, which is also a delightful way to eat (even for someone as individualist about food as I am).

But not only was the food good, so was the company. Ian Shapiro spoke (before dinner) about the state of political theory. He advocated what he calls adaptive political theory: he maintains that what is distinctive about humans is our ability to think about our circumstances and imagine alternatives to them (although we always do this imperfectly). Political theory, according to Shapiro, emerges out of our reactive condition and out of the fact that we know much more about what is unacceptable than what is acceptable. He advocates a political theory based on non-domination (he defines domination as a lack of freedom as a result of human action that is able to be changed). He maintains that building a political theory based on non-domination is superior to building a political theory based on some ideal like liberty or equality.

I was struck most by his pragmatism: he maintains that it is impossible to eliminate all forms of domination, so we should attend to the worst forms, and attempt to decrease them. I have a soft spot in my heart for really pragmatic people. But, of course, I was curious about marriage and family relationships--which he also found to involve a sort of domination (but advocated putting exit strategies in place rather than eliminating those institutions).

The best part of political theory dinners is that both religion and politics are topics that are totally in bounds. So Shapiro shared his critique of the Catholic Church's refusal to ordain women. And we all shared our thoughts on the Catholic Church. And the Amish. And raising children. While drinking red wine and eating Indian food. It was lovely.

(Small super nerdy addition: Shapiro and I discussed [and disagreed about] the importance of considering not only what political positions people hold, but also why they hold those positions [I tend to think that the reasons are important, as well as the particular position held]. His point, however, was pragmatic--it wasn't simply an avoidance of metaphysical questions, but rather a practical concern with what would be most effective. In fact, he mentioned a point from Quine's "Two Dogmas of Empiricism"--that you should avoid what is at the center of a person's beliefs, and work with what is at the periphery; it is not, however, the metaphysical beliefs that are always at the center--the opposite may be the case.)


(picture, picture)

Friday, February 25, 2011

Twitter.2

I washed my car in a dress this afternoon. The maintenance men were laughing at me.

Another twitter: So this man tried to help my laptop get internet at the coffee shop this afternoon. He claimed to have been a tech person at some point. He succeeded in deleting my wireless capabilities from my computer. I'm trusting enough to let someone try to delete stuff from my computer, but really not trusting enough to let them install anything (The Girl Who Played with Fire had enough about computer hacking in it to make me realize that my only defense against hacking is my anonymity). So I fixed it all by myself. And by fixed it, I mean, I returned my computer to its previous state of being unable to access the internet at the coffee shop. Really, though: it's okay--I pay them to offer me crappy internet access. Which is necessary to the completion of my dissertation.

Twitter

I just received a letter from Poland with cool stamps on it, and now I want to collect stamps again!

Thursday, February 24, 2011

The Girl Who Played with Fire

This novel was comparatively slow moving through the first half, as Stieg Larsson meticulously set up the mystery. The novel follows the same intriguing main character, Lisbeth Salander (a strong woman if I ever saw one), as the first novel in the series and much more of her history and psychology becomes clear throughout the course of the novel. While The Girl Who Played with Fire, like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, deals with sexual abuse and prejudice, this second novel also deals with mathematics (and, honestly, that part was entirely lost on me). My grade: B+ (and that's with grade inflation. It was a good read, which is just what I'm looking for at the moment.)


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A Modern Woman Living in the World of Yesterday

This Economist obituary covers not only Maria Altmann, who died lately, but also her aunt, Adele (who was the model for these two Gustav Klimts):


Adele sounds like quite a lady:

"Children annoyed her, because she had none of her own; small-talk made her furious, because she wanted to discuss religion and politics. ('My darling,' Mrs Altmann would sigh, 'Adele was a modern woman living in the world of yesterday.') Adele smoked like a chimney, and would drift around in loose white gowns with a gold cigarette-holder. Or she would sit, regal in black, holding court for musicians, artists and writers in the salon of her huge house just by the Vienna Staatsoper."

The pictures above and two others were stolen from the family by the Nazis in 1938. At 82, Altmann fought to get the pictures back from the Austrian National Gallery.


(picture, picture)

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Because I Forgot to Send a Card

When I was at the Natural History Museum the other day, I read something about moraines in the section on meteors (I really mostly try to avoid reading when I'm in museums as it speeds up the process of me getting tired). Coming across the word, "moraine" took me back to my home schooling days and our Bob Jones history text (all I could remember while I was at the museum is that moraines are formed by glaciers). And it reminded me of how many of the things that I know were taught to me by my mother.

My mother, as many of you know, is quite a lady: more intensely hard working than almost anyone else I know (I suppose that her siblings rival her in this--and it sure is a characteristic that I wish that I'd inherited). She's incredibly generous, especially with her cooking, which is inevitably delicious (there are rumors from the early days of her marriage to my father of a couple of dishes that she got wrong, but that is ancient history). And her primary concern in life is with her family--she's such a mother (even now, as she and my father are empty nesters, she has found a little boy to teach at home). This, of course, means that when she visits Stearns and I in DC, she mostly ends up scrubbing our kitchen floor. And it means that she has spent more hours listening to me talk than anyone else in the world (which alone merits like 18 awards!).

Happy birthday, Mom!


(picture, picture)

Restaurant Review: EatBar Brunch


While EatBar is mere steps from my apartment, it is only lately that I've begun to enjoy it's delights. This Saturday, I went for the cartoon brunch. The cartoons didn't start playing for a couple minutes after we'd arrived (the waitress said they couldn't find the dvd and it was a bit of a stressful situation in the back).

I forget what the fancy word for a Chef's bite is, but before brunch started, there was a donut hole, fresh and warm and delicious sent out from the kitchen. The eggs benedict (I really vary so rarely!) was very good--it was small (made on top of little pieces of bread about the size of the poached egg), but the bread itself was soft (what annoys me most about eggs benedict is when the bread is tough and hard to cut through). I wasn't crazy about the home fries--no one's been impressing me lately--they were good, but I can cut up and broast potatoes that well (okay, fine: they were very good, but not great). I had some grits as well--the grits were very good--cheesy with a spicy kick.

All in all, I was impressed. Dear readers: you should fuss at me if you're sick of reading a survey of the eggs benedict at DC brunch places. I really can eat other things!

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Dissertation.5

While editing my chapter, I found the word, "conglomerance," as in, "for a conglomerance of reasons..."

Oh my.
The shoe repair place to which I'm taking my favorite black pumps per Hopkins' recommendation has the most charming shoe repair-er: every time I walk in he says, "Hello lady!" just the way that Fezzik says it on The Princess Bride (only his voice isn't that low).

Smithsonian Butterflies


Myrrh alerted me some time ago to the existence of a butterfly tunnel at the Natural History Museum. I finally got to visit the butterflies this weekend and they were great! Unlike the rest of the museum, there is a cost to visit the butterflies. The place is charming, though! There are lots of little butterflies and a couple of big ones, including this blue one (above--my favorite). There was also a butterfly that had "Mormon" in the name (because there are various types of female, but one type of male, I think). There are knowledgeable staff around who are happy to tell you lots about the butterflies. For instance, there's one type that never eats, but only mates (they die within a week). Other butterflies I noticed had quite beat up wings (I think that it was near the end of their lifespan). There's something really mesmerizing about watching them flutter around and even about watching them beat their wings in the air, sometimes fast, sometimes slow.

My other favorite part of the Natural History Museum: the minerals and gemstones.


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Monday, February 21, 2011

I'm listening to Native Son in the car when I drive (it is an assigned text for the course I'm TAing), and I hate it so much that I don't want to get into my car these days (and I love my car).

Peter Berger

What a delightful man! Really--his continuous stories and jokes make listening to him talk much more interesting than other luncheon speakers (the lunch was primarily Q and A, which is why my comments on Berger are especially disjointed).

Best Berger quote: "He was slightly mad, but in an interesting way" (referring to some French economist who works at Mars, the candy company).

He was happy to critique the field of sociology as a whole (or 80 to 85% of it), particularly the aspects that were concerned with methodology to the exclusion of other forms of knowledge, as well as the aspects of sociology that are ideologically driven.

He offered something of a defense of the prosperity gospel, which was intriguing. He mentioned in particular a South African pentecostal church at which he said he heard a sermon with two points: 1) God doesn't want you to be poor; 2) Here's how not to be (the church itself had started a business school to aid in the development of small businesses). He pointed out that there isn't much to object to there, and that it could be that at least this version of the prosperity gospel could aid the Global South.

Berger, originally an advocate of the secularization thesis, changed his mind on this point in the 70s. He said that this change of mind was due, in part, to his experience with the American counter-culture. By which he explained that Woodstock convinced him that religion was not disappearing. He sees the problem that the modern man faces as the problem of alienation from the spiritual.


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Saturday, February 19, 2011

The King's Speech

Since what I loved most about this film (and I loved it a lot) was the aesthetics, I'm going to include lots and lots of pictures here.


It is such a beautiful film--lots of browns. If I could dress myself and everyone around me just like this, I would.


I am crazy about this couch. I think that I'll make our Little Gidding couch look like this eventually.


I love the speech therapist's face--the long face and big nose.


I even like this wall (especially in front of that couch). You should have seen the windows in the speech therapist's office (I couldn't find any pictures of the windows on the internet.)


Palaces and chandeliers are okay.


Even the tent made to keep the king comfortable is built from gorgeous fabrics.


The wall! The couch! Colin Firth!


This is the best scene in the movie (okay, other than the speech itself): not only are (as Hopkins pointed out) Lizzie and Mr. Darcy back in the same room together (!), but her surprise is delightful! (As is the fact that Lionel is more scared of his mild-mannered wife than he is of the king.)


The wallpaper! The hat! The pearls! The fur! The teapot! Okay, going to cut the gushing now.

Not only is the movie aesthetically absolutely perfect, but it's also a great film about friendship and love. Both the king's wife and his speech therapist are his devoted friends. Lionel's bossy insistence on equality is the only thing that manages to get through the king's fears and stutter. This equality is required for friendship, and friendship is the answer to the bullying and abuse that the king suffered as a child. The queen never gives up in her dedicated, determined support of her husband. The King's Speech honestly treats the difficult, miserable parts of being royalty.

The movie is also very funny. Without the humor, the awkwardness of watching someone stutter would be absolutely painful (I don't know if there's ever been a movie that I walked out of that out of breath--I'd been holding mine for so much of the time). The speech itself is masterfully shot--the viewer moves from being stressed for the king, to aching for the people of England who are going to war, to laughing at the speech therapist who prompts the king to swear under his breath when he gets stuck. The range of emotions elicited by that scene is amazing.


(picture, picture, picture, picture, picture, picture, picture, picture, picture)

Friday, February 18, 2011

"Remember who you are." --my grandmother (Well, my grandmother used to say it to her children, and my mother, in turn, said it to hers.)

Never Let Me Go (Spoilers!)

I guess that I only stay up all night reading books that I don't like (the last time this happened was with I Capture the Castle, although I only stayed up reading that until I stopped liking it and then went to bed).

I'm an Ishiguro fan--I just read A Pale View of Hills and really liked it. Never Let Me Go was just a problem. It was partially a problem because it has such a wonderful and misleading title--it sounds like a very romantic story. Also, it was so different from A Pale View of Hills and The Remains of the Day.

First I'll give you the difference, and then I'll give you the similarity. Never Let Me Go is a futurist distopia--the narrator is a clone who was made for the purpose of donating her organs. The novel is excellent at only gradually unfolding what is happening--the reader discovers it just as Kath, the narrator, herself discovered it as she grew up. I don't care for stories that get drawn out like this one; on the other hand, I stayed up till 5:30 a.m. to finish it, so Ishiguro really had me. The novel is also quite good at grappling with how the rest of society dealt with the clones--recoiling from them in horror; some people, however, made it their life's work to show that the clones had souls, too--they did this through collecting the art that the children produced and showing it in exhibitions around England. The novel itself is the biggest argument that the clones were people with souls--two (Kath and Tommy) fall in love.

All of this I found quite different from Ishiguro's other novels (although there was still the tight focus on one character with the reader's perspective limited by the knowledge of that character). What makes this novel so obviously Ishiguro's has to do with the title and and an event that happens at the beginning of the novel, but isn't explained until the end:

The clones cannot have children. One of Kath's most treasured possessions of her childhood is a tape with a song on it called, "Never Let Me Go." The song is clearly addressed to a man, but Kath always believes it to refer to an infant: "Never let me go. Oh, baby, baby. Never let me go." Kath says, "I imagined it was about this woman who'd been told she couldn't have babies. But then she'd had one, and she was so pleased, and she was holding it ever so tightly to her breast, really afraid something might separate them, and she's going baby, baby, never let me go." One of the guardians sees her as she dances to the music, holding a pillow, imagining that she's holding a baby. This guardian has a different interpretation of the situation: "I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. Very good. But a harsh, cruel world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one she knew in her heart could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go." This is Ishiguro at his finest--tracing the movement from an old society to a new society; in this boundary and conflict between the two, he finds his themes, whether the setting is in England, Japan or the future.

One thing more that this novel explores: It is quite similar to Children of Men in its consideration of what happens when reproduction is not possible. Not only can the clones not have children, but, in addition, Hailsham, the school where Tommy and Kath and their friends went, is closed. This elimination of their origin breaks the bonds that hold them together. The lack of reproduction--of new students coming out of that school--changes their relationship. Even though Hailsham is inhumane, it is the least inhumane of the schools for the clones. In Children of Men, with ubiquitous infertility comes a lack of hope, a lack of thought about the future that leads to ennui and depression.


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Thursday, February 17, 2011

Poor! I'm wrong in so many ways... (of course, I also don't mind myths).

Martin's

Martin's is the Georgetown restaurant probably best known as the place where JFK proposed to Jackie. It was also the place where I was introduced to the Bourbon Manhattan, the drink of my academic lineage (it all started, so the story goes, with H.L. Mencken). I've been there twice for brunch in the last couple of weeks, so I thought I'd tell you about it. I am pretty unimpressed by their Eggs Benedict (I had it with ham, and the home fries were super disappointing). Eggs Benedict is only my favorite brunch item ever, as I may or may not have mentioned here before (followed closely by sausage and biscuits and quiche--okay, so I just like a lot of brunch items). But what did impress me was their "Hot Brown" (this is a southern thing, I guess). The Hot Brown, at least at Martin's, is comprised of turkey on toast, topped with tomato and bacon and a whole lot of sauce, served in a skillet. The sauce is called "rarebit" and I don't really know what's in it (besides lots of cheese), but it sure is good.


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Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Letter Opener Shopping Guide!

By Hopkins!

I recommend letter openers to you, dear reader: mine has really changed my life. Opening letters is delightful under almost any circumstances, but especially when you have a tool that is beautiful and efficient. (Mine is green with a flower on it.)

Happy and Tired

Northside social, conversation hearts from Carrot, and Myrrh and Warren's super cute baby hanging on our fridge (not literally).

Mandragola

After hearing about The Prince and The Godfather all class for the last couple of days, I finally read Mandragola. What a funny, bawdy play! And a much more enjoyable way to get Machiavelli, I think, than The Prince (which I've just never cared for--too much history, I think).

Machiavelli doesn't seem to have a super high view of women; then again, he doesn't seem to have a super high view of people in general, except insofar as they're clever and manipulative. The main character, Callimaco, convinces a friar to advocate an affair with him to a woman who is his confessee. The friar and the woman's mother convince her, a previously pretty pious woman, to sleep with Callimaco. All in an effort to get the woman and her husband to conceive. The play doesn't say anything about whether or not she conceives, but it seems at the end of the day she will, and it will be Callimaco's baby (which is to say, at first she is reticent to have an affair and her husband is pushing it as a means to get her pregnant, but by the end, she's embraced the affair and completed the cuckolding of her husband).

Next up: Must watch The Godfather.


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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

North and South

Every time I'm in Williamsport, some combination of my mother, Ilana and Stearns are in the basement watching North and South, the BBC adaptation of the Elizabeth Gaskell novel. I tried to get into it on several occasions, but always gave up before I got 10 minutes in.

A couple of weeks ago, though, Hopkins invited Stearns and I over to watch North and South. And I watched it. And it was wonderful--a combination of a novel of manners and a treatise on economic life. It reminded me oh so much of Tocqueville--Margaret Hale, an Anglican vicar's daughter, moves to an industrial town and meets John Thornton, who runs a mill in the town. Margaret Hale is the aristocratic age bumping into John Thornton's democratic age: she doesn't know how to behave at all at first. She offends the people of the town with her charity, which appears to them to be condescending. At first, she idealistically opposes the people who run the mills, taking the side of the working masses. Interestingly, it is the industrialization itself that makes the masses peers (of a sort) with the mill owners.

The film isn't a critique of industrialization, however: it is pretty fair and balanced, I would say. The ending simultaneously affirms industrialization and recognizes its problems. Just like Tocqueville and democracy.


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Monday, February 14, 2011

On Winking

“Between friends, it means you share a secret. Between strangers, it means you wish you had a secret to share.” --from the advice column of The Paris Review
From Mrs. Lawrence of Arabia (in response to a question I asked her about Dante translations for Whigwam):

"I'm happy that your friend Whigwam has decided to read Dante. Everyone should read Dante, especially those who may soon by their reading influence you to do the same."

Valentine's Day in Georgetown


Sunday, February 13, 2011

Ladies Who Lunch


"The thing is, I would like a blingy ring." --J

My mother always exhaustedly tells me how intense I am. Which is why I was so happy to meet several girls much more intense than I am for lunch. It makes me feel like I'm laid back.

We went to Teaism and ordered Bento boxes, something I'd read about, but never tried. What a wonderful alternative to a sandwich for lunch! The food was not only good, but also interesting (mine was salmon, rice with some crunchy green and yellow stuff on top, edamame, and a cucumber/ginger salad) and super healthy. Ironically, while the tea was fine, it wasn't the best I've had in my life.

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Saturday, February 12, 2011

Winter in Georgetown


These are not lace curtains, as I'd always thought--they're curtains made out of cut paper!



Friday, February 11, 2011

On Yellow


I have found myself liking yellow lately. It started with a yellow house in Georgetown that I didn't hate and then moved to a yellow sweater from Goodwill. And now I sort of crave it.

Because I associate yellow with insanity (especially via The Yellow Wallpaper), this scares me a little bit.

Plus, I don't know what accessories to wear with yellow--gold seems wrong; silver seems wrong: this leaves me with fuchsia or light pink. But I do always remind myself of what my Kuwait friend emphasized in college: try not to look like an Easter egg. (On Gray here.)

(picture)

Thursday, February 10, 2011

The Stranger

This book gave me a quite similar impression to Crime and Punishment: both are novels in which you're in someone's head who seems to be less than perfectly sane, and yet sane about that insanity (which is to say, both men violate the law, but have really complex personal explanations for why they've done this).

I was most struck that the narrator breaks down at the end and yells at the priest passionately; this was remarkable, since throughout the novel, he was cool and calm and collected. Also, this passionate railing against the priest does not convey the apathy that Meursault means to convey to the priest; rather, it is a response on the love/hate end of the spectrum.

Meursault's understanding of morality seems to be that there are no morals, except what society imposes. Everyone dies--this is the primary truth of life. There's no difference between the dog and the wife of his friend. Marie (his girlfriend) can kiss someone else; nothing matters. The judge and the chaplain want Meursault to repent and show remorse. The narrator is true to himself and will not show remorse simply because he's afraid.

Meursault cannot live in society--the society cannot understand him and so rejects him (and Meursault himself understands this). The narrator sees the only good as life; the only good of a life after this one would be to remember that life.

Albert Camus asks us to read Meursault sympathetically----it isn't that Meursault is a great person with a lot of feeling and a lot of friends; rather, Camus asks the reader whether anyone else has those feelings and friends, either, really. Camus asks us whether those feelings (which we think we have) are a lie. As the reader, I wanted to defend Meursault from the prosecutor, that is, until I realized, with the narrator, that what the prosecutor was saying was not untrue. Meursault didn't especially care for his mother; Camus asks the reader to consider whether he does, either. Is Meursault any worse of a human being than the man who beats his dog? Is he any worse than his friend who beat his mistress? Does he deserve any more than these people to be excluded from society? (Of course, coupled with these characters' ill treatment of dog and mistress, seems to be some affection.)

And so the book leaves us with the unsettling question of whether or not Meursault should have been convicted. Didn't he just kill the man in self-defense?


(picture, pict
ure; gosh, I love popped collars on men's coats!)

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Random Pictures


Layering tights--I've been wanting to try this for ages! (Okay--weird picture--my legs are pretty normal in real life.)


The Goodwill bag I found for a dollar! It's leather with wood on the bottom. Best. Goodwill find. Ever.


Where I study mostly.