Proof Is in the Music

I absolutely, positively have not started thinking about my applications. I mean it.

So maybe I lied.

Blackout Notes

Now reading this:

SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act): Text of H.R. 3261 as Introduced in House

and this:

PIPA (Protect IP Act): S.968 (Introduced in Senate)

I wonder, sometimes, if the only people practically capable of effecting change are those willing to replace complexity with simplicity as a means to an end. Witness yesterday's Internet blackout by prominent sites such as Wikipedia and Reddit to protest the above bills. In consequence, representatives' websites were crashing, NPR was describing alternative ways to access Wikipedia content using Google's caching system, and (I can imagine) students all over the U.S. were praying that their research papers would not be due today. The solidarity was impressive.

And yet.

Disclaimer: I've only skimmed the two bills in question, and I would need to read more closely with a better knowledge of legal terminology to fully understand what is at stake. To my untrained eyes, however, while the language of the bills is ambiguous and in places troubling, it is by no means the simple "censor the Internet" message that has produced such enormous response. That slogan is far more compelling and accessible to the general public. It prompts action. It calls up negative associations. It creates buzz.

And yet.

I have a difficult time watching political debates for the same reason. On one hand, I'm stirred by the appeal to more jobs, lower taxes, and greater freedom. I want to argue back in short witty phrases and biting remarks against the candidates with whom I disagree or whose rhetoric seems to me to be especially short-sighted. I can play that game too.

And yet.

When we set aside the competition, the "winners-and-losers" denomination, the rhetoric itself is ambiguous, vague, and has little in common with the complexity that marks individuals' day-to-day lives. That conversation, which is missing from the public political arena, doesn't fit in thirty seconds of air time. It doesn't spur immediate response. It doesn't win elections. It doesn't stop the passage of a bill.

And yet.

Winning elections is our nation's way of choosing new leaders. Speaking out against restrictive laws and censorship creates the very space that allows me to muse about these things. Sometimes immediacy has to be a priority.

And yet, at what cost?

Call it a signature move of my generation, but I don't have a confident answer. If nothing else, this gave me something to ponder while I waited for Wikipedia to return.

While You Eat

I am a read-while-you-eat kind of girl. I cook infrequently, and it's a rare meal when I don't have a book open on the table. Tonight, 117 pages away from finishing Wandering Stars, I planned to celebrate a Saturday off of work by enjoying a sit-down meal and finally finishing my book.

My style of cooking might be called "variations on a theme" because I shop in bulk to take advantage of lower prices-per-unit. This week, the theme was pork chops, and I had borrowed a friend's recipe to try something new.

After half an hour, I sat down to a main course of breaded pork chops topped with caramelized onions and melted smoked Gouda cheese, with garden-canned green beans on the side, and a glass of red wine. An instrumental album by Acoustic Eidolon was playing in the background.

I opened my book, took a bite of food, and then closed it again.

Wandering Stars remained closed for the duration of the meal.

At that moment (movie's merits aside), I couldn't help thinking of a line from Kate & Leopold: "But perhaps one day...you'll understand that life is not solely composed of tasks, but tastes."

Tonight, still savoring my glass of wine, I could get behind that sentiment.

In Honor of Garlic

Sometimes on a gray day, you need to pile on the flavor to liven up your dinner.

Garlic-Apricot Pork Chop Singles

Ingredients

1 boneless pork chop, medium-cut
salt
pepper
garlic powder
2 dried leaves of basil, crushed
1/4 cup flour
2 Tbsp oil
1 large or 2 small cloves of garlic
1 Tbsp apricot preserves

Directions

In a shallow dish, season the flour with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and basil. Coat the pork chop in the flour mixture, thoroughly covering all sides.

Heat the oil in a small frying pan on medium heat. Mince the fresh garlic. When the oil is hot (just beginning to pop), toss the garlic into the oil and stir fry it until lightly browned (less than a minute). Use a fork to remove the garlic. Set aside in a small bowl.

Place the floured pork chop in the hot oil and cook until browned, about 5 minutes per side. Slice in half to see if the meat is fully cooked in the center. There should still be some liquid around the meat.

Reduce heat to low and stir the apricot preserves and the browned garlic into the pan. Spoon sauce over the meat and continue cooking, turning periodically, until thoroughly glazed and a caramel-colored brown.

Serve with cooked carrots, steamed broccoli or spinach (which I forgot to buy), and whole wheat toast. Enjoy!

Return of SMIOS

Being January, it seemed about time for a re-post: The Phases of Anticipation; or, How to Avoid Snowman SMIOS. So far, I'm right on schedule.

(Please ignore the flagrant typo in the title of the original post.)

A Chat with Sidney

Today, for a brief interlude between longer books, I'm continuing an annual tradition of spending some time with the winners of the Sidney Awards, named for philosopher Sidney Hook.

This year, my selections are pretty diverse:

• Dr. Don: The Life of a Small-Town Druggist, by Peter Hessler in The New Yorker
  • 9/10 - a whimsical, gently told narrative, character-driven and subtly shaped.
    
• A Beauty, by Robert Boyers in AGNI Online
  • 5/10 - a bit esoteric and abstract for my taste, but the style is appropriate, given the topic.
    
• The Order of Things: What College Rankings Really Tell Us, by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker
  • 6/10 - statistically based, but not to an extreme. The parallel anecdotes are extensive, almost to the point of distraction.
    
• The Accidental Universe: Science's Crisis of Faith, by Alan P. Lightman in Harper's Magazine
  • 6/10 - interesting content, but the casual narrative style seems to clash with the more formal statistical explanations at points.
    
• The Bitch Is Back, by Sandra Tsing Loh in The Atlantic
  • 6/10 - witty and (I suspect) insightful. I'll have to re-read it in 20 years to be sure.
    
• The Epidemic of Mental Illness, Why?, by Marcia Angell in The New York Review of Books
  • 7/10 - weaves together approachable background information with a convincing presentation of the implications. I would pick up any of these three books.
    
  • Part II of Angell's review is called The Illusions of Psychiatry.
    
• The Movie Set that Ate Itself, by Michael Idov in GQ
  • 8/10 - fascinating and slightly unnerving. I would be curious to see the film if it's ever completed and released internationally.
    

My top pick? At least in this universe, I'll have to go with Dr. Don.

Telling Stories

I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilized. I wish it showed me in a better light, if not happier, then at least more active, less hesitant, less distracted by trivia. I wish it had more shape. I wish it were about love, or about sudden realizations important to one’s life, or even about sunsets, birds, rainstorms, or snow.

Maybe it is about those things, in a way; but in the meantime there is so much else getting in the way, so much whispering, so much speculation about others, so much gossip that cannot be verified, so many unsaid words, so much creeping about and secrecy. And there is so much time to be endured, time heavy as fried food or thick fog; and then all at once these red events, like explosions, on streets otherwise decorous and matronly and somnambulant.

I’m sorry there is so much pain in this story. I’m sorry it’s in fragments, like a body caught in crossfire or pulled apart by force. But there is nothing I can do to change it.

I’ve tried to put some of the good things in as well. Flowers, for instance, because where would we be without them?

Nevertheless it hurts me to tell it over, over again. Once was enough: wasn’t once enough for me at the time? But I keep on going with this sad and hungry and sordid, this limping and mutilated story, because after all I want you to hear it, as I will hear yours too if I ever get the chance, if I meet you or if you escape, in the future or in heaven or in prison or underground, some other place. What they have in common is that they’re not here. By telling you anything at all I’m at least believing in you, I believe you’re there, I believe you into being. Because I’m telling you this story I will your existence. I tell, therefore you are.

So I will go on. So I will myself to go on.

--The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood

So many beautiful passages in this book.

A Look Back at 2011...

10...typically causes one to crash into 2012 with unfavorable results.

[and other bits of wisdom I've garnered in the past year]

9...A cough should not last a month; however, repeating the refrain, "I'll get it checked out tomorrow" for 29 days is likely to produce this outcome.

8...Remembering to take a picture of the odometer at 99,999 miles may decrease, rather than increase, the odds of remembering to photograph the odometer at 100,000 miles.

7...Typos happen. They happen even on the first page of a many-times-proofread thesis. They often wait to reveal themselves until the document in question has been published and bound.

6...The Coffee-Drinker's Catch-22: until you've had your morning coffee, it is practically impossible to drink coffee without spilling it down your shirt or splashing it on your computer.

5...Pre-coffee tea drinking does not bypass the Coffee-Drinker's Catch-22. Even if it's caffeinated.

4...Don't mess with the warty pumpkins. They will destroy you, one jot of self-worth at a time.

3...Whether in writing or in life, transitions are a beast.

2...The plague of "lasts" is unavoidable. For that reason...

1...Whether you have two years or only 300 words, make it good.

Goodbye, 2011!
Hello, 2012!!
Happy New Year!!!

Merry Christmas!

And when the night has finally gone.

And when we see the new day dawn.
We'll wonder how we wandered for so long, so blind.
The wasted world we thought we knew,
The light will make it look brand new.

Day after day
We'll find the will to find our way.
Knowing that the darkest skies will someday see the sun.
When our long night is done,
There will be light.

Movies for the Season Ahead

**UPDATE -- okay, so this has to be on the list as well. Duh: The Hobbit -- **

I'm excited to watch...

1. War Horse - Once a horse person, always a horse person. Just wish I'd seen the play in NYC.
2. The Iron Lady - I may be a sucker for historical/political drama, but it's Meryl Streep.
3. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Waiting with bated breath to see if it lives up to the book.
4. The Dark Knight Rises - Another must-see.
5. Coriolanus - Was T.S. Eliot correct? Let's ask Ralph Fiennes.

Still need to see...

6. The Ides of March - I've heard mixed reviews, but see #2, and also, the cast...
7. Melancholia - Despite its leading lady, I'm curious if this one will hold together.

What else should be on the list?