Tuirgin

Found in Werner Herzog’s book, Conquest of the Useless:

Las vanidades del mundo
Las grandezas del imperio
Se encierran en el profundo
Silencio del cementerio

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The vanities of the world
The greatness of the empire
Withdraw into the deep
Silence of the cemetery

In a letter dated July 5, 1814, Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Adams Monticello:

Our post-revolutionary youth are born under happier stars than you and I were. They acquire all learning in their mother’s womb, and bring it into the world ready made. The information of books is no longer necessary; and all knowledge which is not innate, is in contempt, or neglect at least.

I came to Kij Johnson's The Fox Woman after reading her award winning short story, 26 Monkeys, Also The Abyss. From these two works it would seem that Johnson is an author of sensitivity. She deftly weaves wonder, beauty and sorrow together while preserving mystery, and a respect for both her characters and her readers. She leaves room within the stories for her characters to breathe, and for her readers to reflect without heavy-handed explanations of theme or meaning. (continue reading…)

I dare you to find a bagel like this. While I can’t claim to have dreamed up the flavor profile on my own, I eagerly adapted the flavors of Chris Bianco’s Pizza Rosa al Bianco to fit my bagels. It wasn’t hard, and the results are wonderful.

Only the best bagel ever...

This bagel is home-made using Peter Reinhart’s bagel recipe from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. It’s topped with red onion, asiago, pistachio nuts, fresh rosemary and extra-virgin olive oil. Ideally I would have used red torpedo onions and Parmigiano-Reggiano, but the torpedo onions I’d have to grow myself, and the Pargmigiano-Reggiano would have required some forethought and a trip to the store. It is excellent with asiago. It would have been transcendant with the parmesan.

Out of boredom and, well, obsessive annoyance with events that fall outside the domain of this post, I was catching up on Penny Arcade when I came across a jab at Roger Ebert in “Again With The Art Stuff”. Ebert has stated in his blog that “video games can never be art”. Gamers tend to think this is “reeking ejaculate”. It is a month since Ebert’s post and he’s still collecting comments. At the time I’m writing this, the count is up to 4154. 4-1-5-4. 4154 comments not counting the presumably countless number of YouTube-esque brainless screeds that are probably submitted and mercifully rejected by him. A lot of people are interested in games and art and whether or not games are or can be art, but what the comments—and even Ebert’s post—make clear is how foggy people’s thoughts on art are. (continue reading…)

I had one of those moments where there was real presence, real present-ness. Everything I saw had a definiteness. It was. I was. Everything was keenly perched in existence, looking the way things used to look to me all the time when I was constantly viewing the world as a photographer. With it came the realization—it’s been so long. I’ve forgotten some part of me. I stopped longing. Instead of longing, I’ve just wanted to be left alone. Instead of wanting something, I just wanted a peaceful nothing. (continue reading…)

First a caveat—this is more of a preliminary evaluation of the book than a proper review. I will eventually give it its proper due.

Being a long-time reader of works in translation, I know how important it is to find a worthwhile translation before beginning the reading of any particular work. Poor, or merely dated, translation can render the life out of even the most vibrant and vital of works. My initial feeling is that Hugh Aplin has done a fine job in translating Pushkin here. I began simply by reading the introduction and a few of the stories, with attention to the notes.

As for the introduction, it is helpful and interesting reading, placing this work of prose within the context of Pushkin’s literary development, and of Russian literature in general. The stories are quite readable. They don’t suffer from strangulated translation. They don’t read like a 21st century writer wearing the affectation of 19th century “pantaloons, waistcoat, and frock,”—“these words are not of Russian stock…”—and therefore give relatively direct access to English readers of Pushkin’s stories. (continue reading…)

I made 8 pizzas tonight for my brood, my wife, and my parents, all using the Neapolitano dough from Peter Reinhardt’s American Pie. Not only was it the best pizza I’ve ever made, it was some of the best pizza I’ve ever had. I made the Margharita, Marinara, and the Pizza Rosa al Bianco. And for the last I threw one together with the remaining fresh mozzarella, parmigiano, and little bits of Roquefort, then slices of fresh tomato, and a drizzle of olive oil. It was all very, very good. The crust was easy to work, despite being very wet—maybe I’m just getting better at working with wet dough—and I didn’t have any problems with ripping. Once cooked, the dough was crisp to the bite with a mellow, nutty flavor within. The Bianco was excellent — red onions (substituted for the red torpedo onions called for), parmigiana, pistachios, and rosemary.

Now it is time for a dark rum and coke, and to watch Battle Star Galactica. I’m up to season 3 in my current favorite brain-candy.

Anton Chekhov was a master of the short story. However, he gets poor treatment by the Interwar Period translations of Constance Garnett. I first came to dislike Garnett’s Russian translations while discovering the writings of Fyodor Dostoevsky. The great Russian writers all have very distinctive writing styles and Constance Garnett succeeded in making them sound like Victorian era British novelists. She is known for her very fast, “smoothed over” style of translation in which difficulties in the original are simply dropped from the work. This is simply not the way to get the flavor of the great Russian writers. I can only surmise that the decision to go with the Garnett translation of these stories rested upon the economics of public domain versus newer, licensed translations.

My preference would be for one of the modern translations, and in particular the Pevear/Volokhonsky translations are wonderful. They are quite literal and maintain a strong sense of the “Russianness” of the works. They don’t Westernize, they don’t turn Russians into Latins, they don’t turn a perhaps unfamiliar “liturgy” into a familiar “mass”. Instead, they provide ample endnotes to ellucidate the aspects of Russian culture and history which are likely to be opaque to the Western reader.

With a poor translation as the foundation for this audio book, I still held out hope for a powerful reading. Unfortunately, the problems were only compounded by poor production choices made by reader/producer Max Bollinger. (continue reading…)

Tonight’s menu:

• Frisée aux lardons
• Roquefort on toasted baguette (home-made)
• Pommes sautées au lard
• Poulet roti
• Blueberries with lime sugar (with mint, lime zest confit, and crème fraîche)

[Thanks to Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook.]

I’ve been cooking since about 10p.m. last night, finishing tonight at maybe 8:00–8:30p.m. The blueberries were damned good. Everything else was good, too, except for my broken reduction gravy. Not sure what happened there. I’ve only made southern-style fat-flour-milk gravies, so I’ll have to do some research to find out what caused my sauce’s demise. The frisée salad had a chicken-liver vinaigrette which was passable, but suffered from lousy quality chicken livers. I’ll have to hunt down a good source for them before trying that recipe again. I also need to find a source for slab bacon and quality birds as even our fancy store was lacking in these gastronomic fundamentals.

Interesting to note that of all these fancy sounding dishes, the only expensive items were the blueberries and the Roquefort. Everything else is just butter, chicken, herbs (fresh, of course), bacon, etc.

Mmmm. Blueberries.