Under 20, dammit! episode 2 -- or, In What Furnace Was Thy Brain?
Begin 9:18 pm ... (recall the 20 minute rule ... It is rule #2)
So many things I could write about. At one point this evening, I thought "This! This what I will write about tonight!" and I began to construct some in-my-mind elegant yet offhand post of close focus on some corner of a topic that has at this moment entirely eluded me.
The kids said the damnedest things though.
Me (reacting to the song that just came on): I love David Bowie.
David:Yeah. He's such a David Bowie.
Z (from other room, completely deadpan): Oh, yes. It is just exactly like he is David Bowie.
---
O: I just have a smidge more homework.
David: What would Orson do without the word "smidge"?
Me: He also uses the word "bit"
O (shrugs): That's true.
Me: What's the difference between a "smidge" and a "bit"
O (shrugs)
pause
O: I don't really want to tell you, but ...The difference is they're different.
I am also in love with my cat, giddy about the appearance of daffodils (whole post could be written on daffodils, maybe tomorrow), in a bit of disbelief that outdoor soccer season has arrived at last, and contemplating my friend Kristen's post about "A Broken Thing." She issues an invitation for others to write about the broken objects in their lives. I very much want to respond ... more about lost things than broken ones, but still (so a whole other post there too)
Still don't know what it was I thought of in the middle of the evening. Plus I would like to hire you to add tags to my blog. I will cook you dinner in return.
Reading: Gosh! Still not done with the Anshaw! And jonesing to read the NYT magazine from yesterday (food and wine editions), and a review article in the NYer about food tv ... food ... writing/communicating about food. That might have been what I was going to blog about.
Writing: Yes! Playing in the sandbox.
Dinner: On Saturday, I cooked up a whole mess of white beans - some so that David could make "boulanger" beans and potatoes with leeks (essentially a slow cooked non-dairy casserole of these ingredients.
I made tons of beans so we play a new game called "legume of the week!" in which we will try as many different ways as we can manage. So tonight for pizza night, I made a leek, chard, white bean, and feta pizza that was one of my best pizzas yet. Seriously. And a simple Waldorf salad of gala apples, celery, and pecans, with a dressing of mayo, plain yogurt, salt, pepper, and lemon juice. I rock.
Soundtrack: Duh, David Bowie. ... and well, The Beat, too.
Random thing: Poem of the Day (for April Poetry Month): Two classic poems that rattle around in my head and I have fancifully quoted from in the past two days. Even if you think you know these, take a moment to read them, out loud, and consider them anew.
The Second Coming
Ack! No time for pictures! (But really shouldn't it be something by William Blake? Damn.)
So many things I could write about. At one point this evening, I thought "This! This what I will write about tonight!" and I began to construct some in-my-mind elegant yet offhand post of close focus on some corner of a topic that has at this moment entirely eluded me.
The kids said the damnedest things though.
Me (reacting to the song that just came on): I love David Bowie.
David:Yeah. He's such a David Bowie.
Z (from other room, completely deadpan): Oh, yes. It is just exactly like he is David Bowie.
---
O: I just have a smidge more homework.
David: What would Orson do without the word "smidge"?
Me: He also uses the word "bit"
O (shrugs): That's true.
Me: What's the difference between a "smidge" and a "bit"
O (shrugs)
pause
O: I don't really want to tell you, but ...The difference is they're different.
I am also in love with my cat, giddy about the appearance of daffodils (whole post could be written on daffodils, maybe tomorrow), in a bit of disbelief that outdoor soccer season has arrived at last, and contemplating my friend Kristen's post about "A Broken Thing." She issues an invitation for others to write about the broken objects in their lives. I very much want to respond ... more about lost things than broken ones, but still (so a whole other post there too)
Still don't know what it was I thought of in the middle of the evening. Plus I would like to hire you to add tags to my blog. I will cook you dinner in return.
Reading: Gosh! Still not done with the Anshaw! And jonesing to read the NYT magazine from yesterday (food and wine editions), and a review article in the NYer about food tv ... food ... writing/communicating about food. That might have been what I was going to blog about.
Writing: Yes! Playing in the sandbox.
Dinner: On Saturday, I cooked up a whole mess of white beans - some so that David could make "boulanger" beans and potatoes with leeks (essentially a slow cooked non-dairy casserole of these ingredients.
I made tons of beans so we play a new game called "legume of the week!" in which we will try as many different ways as we can manage. So tonight for pizza night, I made a leek, chard, white bean, and feta pizza that was one of my best pizzas yet. Seriously. And a simple Waldorf salad of gala apples, celery, and pecans, with a dressing of mayo, plain yogurt, salt, pepper, and lemon juice. I rock.
Soundtrack: Duh, David Bowie. ... and well, The Beat, too.
The Second Coming
by William Butler Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
The Tyger
By William Blake
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
and ... end at 9:43 ... 25 minutes.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
The Tyger
By William Blake
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
and ... end at 9:43 ... 25 minutes.
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