Archive: April 2009
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Apr 30 09: Julie & Julia (& Nora) (& You)
I was going to post something about the Weimar cabaret orchestra that’s doing drop-dead fabulous covers of New Wave tunes, but this is even better.
Julia Child started cooking classes at Le Cordon Bleu in the late 1940s. She published Mastering the Art of French Cooking, her first, revolutionary cookbook, in 1961, and began her equally revolutionary television program not long thereafter. In 2002, a woman in Brooklyn named Julie Powell started a blog, The Julie/Julia Project, in which she cooked a different meal from MAFC every night in her teeny tiny NYC-style kitchen in a neighborhood with no decent grocery store, gradually working her way through the entire book. In 2004, Julia died; I found Julie’s blog through the lovely essay she wrote reflecting upon the yearlong experience and how Julia had transformed both Julie’s life and her own. In 2005 the blog became a book, as they were wont to do at the time. In August 2009 the cookbook that became a blog that became a book will become a movie, staring Amy Adams as Julie and Meryl freaking Streep as Julia Child. Written and directed by Nora Ephron, of course, because who else could it have been?
Come on, how can you not see this? With a group of dear friends who like to eat. And then you go out for a fabulous meal afterwards. Or — even better! — cook one together.
That’s all for tonight. For my part, I have completed the laundry and am going to bed.
Apr 28 09: Culture time!
I’m presently singing with the Dessoff Symphonic Choir, which is the giant economy-size version of the Dessoff Choirs, a long-running NYC amateur chorus. We’re preparing for a pretty spectacular series of June performances with the New York Philharmonic at Lincoln Center.
First, Britten’s “War Requiem,” his spectacular antiwar piece from 1962. Composed for the reconsecration of Coventry Cathedral in England (destroyed in a World War II bombing raid), the piece sets two soloists singing English-language poems by Wilfred Owen about the experiences of soldiers during World War I in juxtaposition to a massive choral performance of the traditional Latin Mass for the dead. It is harrowing and fabulous, sometimes angry, sometimes achingly sad, sometimes transcendently gorgeous. June 11, 12, 13.
Then, Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, which will feature about a skillion singers and instrumentalists packed so densely on the stage that frame-dragging phenomena will be measurable in local spacetime. Big, bombastic, wonderful. Probably the more listener-friendly to those arriving unfamiliar with the music. June 24, 25, 26, 27.
For tickets to either performance — going fast! — or more details, see the Dessoff website. (You may need to scroll down to get to the actual text; there’s something wonky in their stylesheet.)
Apr 27 09: Huh. Well, look at that.
It appears I am now a Published Author Person. My short story “Daisy” is now online as part of the CC-licensed anthology Thoughtcrime Experiments. My first sale!
In other news, would the person who left the dial cranked way up to “August” please look after that? Because dude, seriously, 90 degrees? It’s not even May yet.
Apr 1 09: Poetry Corner
My friend Elise makes jewelry. And writes stuff. Each piece of jewelry gets an interesting name. This one is called “Nine Things About Oracles.” It inspired one poem, and then another, and suddenly there are well over eighty-one poems and counting. My contribution is kind of dopey, but I had fun, anyway.
Nine Things the Oracles Told Our Interviewers
This seat is not as comfortable as it looks.
At the end of the day,
We cannot feel our buttocks.
Once I lost the stone we call the Eagle’s Tear.
It was missing for three days.
I used a jellybean instead, and
Nobody noticed.
The gods tell me the future
Because they know it will change nothing.
It takes twenty-two days
To wear out a deck of cards,
Usually.
In spring, seventeen.
I have an answer for your dog.
Tell her I said
Yes.
I miss my nephew.
If you leave right now, you will meet —
Oh. Too late. Never mind.
This happens all the time.
Sometimes I have a dream of my very own:
I cast the bones.
They say,
YOU ARE NOT WEARING PANTS.
Once I told the fortune
Of a man’s socks
By mistake.
He never knew the difference.