February 13, 2008

norwegian film fan

I have inadvertently become a Norwegian film fan. After watching the film Buddy last night, I realized that it reminded me of both Elling and Kitchen Stories, two other Norwegian films. All three have the running theme of unlikely friendships and characters you love. I recommend all three.

Posted by charity at 06:14 PM | Comments (1)

July 22, 2007

ross & tom

Ross & Tom: 2 American Tragedies was the latest book on my Summer Reading List. An unauthorized biography, author John Leggett writes the story of two young writers whose lives end in suicide in the late 1940s. Reading the intricacies of what went on in the heads of Ross and Tom as they wrote and attempted to write, as well as the description of simultaneously experiencing publishing success and severe depression, were intriguing.

The stories of Ross and Tom are told independently of each other, but they were in fact living and experiencing their first literary successes around the same time. For both of these men, the road to success played havoc on their pride and insecurities. While the anxieties, paranoias, and depression surrounding great success in a sense seems "normal," the contemporary understanding of mental illness in the 40s led doctors to prescribe electric shock therapies and barbiturates for their severe depression. While the author of Ross & Tom more readily blamed the pitfalls of success and sudden fame as the ultimate downfall of these two men, I was surprised by his lack of recognition of the role that the combination of depression and barbiturates had to of played.

But the intriguing part of the book isn't the few pages of the author's reflections, but the stories of Ross and Tom themselves. I definitely recommend it.

Posted by charity at 06:51 PM | Comments (1)

May 24, 2007

alice munro II

My pure delight in Alice Munro's short stories continue. This time Andy picked up her newest collection for me: The View From Castle Rock. This collection of stories, almost a memoir, begins with Munro building upon the historical records of her Scottish relatives and then moves on to stories built from her own memories. These stories are not only captivating themselves, but also contribute to an intriguing larger narrative. Munro describes the process of writing these stories as

"exploring a life, my own life, but not in an austere or rigorously factual way. I put myself in the center and wrote about that self, as searchingly as I could."

As I read the latter half of the book, I found myself oddly relating to her story. Not necessarily in the specifics of her circumstances, but rather her specific emotions. Most of these connections were made in the moments in her story when she realizes she doesn't fit into the life she grew up in. In the story What Do You Want To Know For she writes:

I notice something new in the readiness of both this older woman and the energetic younger woman in the log house. They do not seem to find it strange that anybody should wish to know about things that are of no particular benefit or practical importance. They do not suggest that they have better things to think about. Real things, that is. Real work. When I was growing up an appetite for impractical knowledge of any kind did not get encouragement ... If you had to learn history or foreign languages to pass out of school it was only natural to forget that sort of thing as quickly as you could. Otherwise you would stand out. And that was not a good idea.

Posted by charity at 08:06 PM | Comments (2)

May 02, 2007

hungry for provence

We've been reading Peter Mayle's books on his experience as an Englishman living in Provence. My favorite so far has been A Year in Provence where Mayle records his and his wife's first year living as locals in southern France. The following passage makes my mouth water:

All good Sundays include a trip to the market ... At one end of the market, a van from the wine cooperative was surrounded by men rinsing their teeth thoughtfully in the new rosé. Next to them, a woman was selling free-range eggs and live rabbits, and beyond her the tables were piled high with vegetables, small and fragrant bushes of basil, tubs of lavender honey, great green bottles of first pressing olive oil, trays of hot-house peaches, pots of block tapenade, flower and herbs, jams and cheeses -- everything looked delicious in the early morning sun.

We bought red peppers to roast and big brown eggs and basil and peaches and goat's cheese and lettuce and pink-streaked onions. And, when the basket could hold no more, we went across the road to buy half a yard of bread - the gros pain that makes such a tasty mop for any olive oil or vinaigrette sauce that is left on the plate. The bakery was crowded and noisy, and smelled of warm dough and the almonds that had gone into the morning's cakes. While we waited, we remembered being told that the French spend as much of their income on their stomachs as the English do on their cars and stereo systems, and we could easily believe it.

Posted by charity at 09:39 AM | Comments (3)

August 20, 2006

a night with patty

Patty Griffin, North Carolina Museum of Art

Posted by charity at 11:12 AM | Comments (3)

August 02, 2006

food philosophy

The Omnivore's Dilemma - The first 400+ page book that I've read in its entirety (or very close to it) in a long time!

It isn't much of a secret that I love food. I love growing it, preparing it, serving it, consuming it and sitting back and reveling in the finished meal. I enjoy long lingering meals with a number of courses, flowing wine and conversation with old and new friends.

I've written about my thoughts on food before. What I just realized tonight is that the article I referenced in the blogpost is also the author of this book.

I've never been zealous about food needing to be organic, free-range or grass-fed, but now I'm wondering if I shouldn't be. I've always liked going to the farmer's market, but normally would buy a potato or tomato, more for the experience than the actual need. My general thinking was that limiting pesticides and the better treatment of animals was a good thing, but still looked for the least expensive price and the best deal.

But this book has me rethinking my food philosophy. The book follows four meals that each represent industrial agriculture, big organic industry, small organic industry and hunting and gathering.

One of the biggest reasons for rethinking my food philosophy comes from the book's challenge to the assumption that a chicken is a chicken or a tomato is a tomato no matter how it's grown. In recent months I've definitely tasted the difference between an industrially grown tomato and an organic tomato in a basil and tomato recipe where the organic is head and shoulders better than the industrial. But the book goes beyond taste and looks at nutrition. Depending on how food is grown, the nutritional content is different, especially in reference to polyphenals - "a group of secondary metablites manufactured by plants ... Many are potent antioxidants; some play a role in preventing or fighting cancer." According to new research:

The reason plants produce [polyphenals] in the first place is to defend themselves against pests and diseases; the more pressure from pathogens, the more polyphenals a plant will produce ... The [University of California-Davis] authors hypothesize that plants being defended by man-made pesticides don't need to work as hard to make their own polyphenal pesticides. Coddled by us and our chemicals, the plants see no reason to invest their resources in mounting a strong defense.

The nutrition question is also addressed in animals. Did you know that cattle cannot digest corn (which is a major portion of their diet in industrial agriculture) on their own? For a variety of reasons, not the least of those being the overproduction of corn in the U.S., industrial cattle farms use cheap corn for feed. I won't go into the details here, but in general the cattle's high corn diets lead to diarrhea, ulcers, bloat, rumenitis, liver disease and general weakening of the immune system. In addition, "corn-fed meat is demonstrably less healthy for us, since it contains more saturated fat and less omega-3 fatty acids than the meat of animals fed grass. A growing body of research suggests that many of the health problems associated with eating beef are really problems with corn-fed beef."

There are tons of other interesting things in the book such as the predominance of high fructose corn syrup in American food products, butane in Chicken McNuggets, the perils of the "big organic" industry, and the question of cost for alternative food systems.

I finished the book feeling like Michael Pollen was a friend. I wanted to have him over for dinner when it was finished. The book takes a relatively unbiased look at where our food comes from and the tradeoffs we've made to have cheap food when and where we want it. It's a must read that will only take a couple of days.

Posted by charity at 09:04 PM | Comments (5)

April 21, 2006

bossa nova

As of one week ago I had never heard of "bossa nova". Then after sitting in a hot, stuffy dive of a bar for about an hour, I was hooked. You can't help but move your body and do a little chair salsa.

Take a listen.

Posted by charity at 07:12 PM | Comments (2)

April 11, 2006

bustin' up a Starbucks

I whipped my little red car into Starbucks this morning as Mike Doughty was jamming in my speakers:

James Van Der Beek and them sisters from Sister, Sister
The only one that's ever felt this is you
The force that's forcing you
To feel like busting up a Starbucks.

It made me feel a little like a rebel and enjoy the album even more. A recommendation from Ian to Andy to me and now to you.

It's good to have new music.

Posted by charity at 09:30 AM | Comments (1)

January 15, 2006

catch-22

I've been enjoying Catch-22 over the past couple of weeks; a satirical novel about war and relationships with quick wit that keeps your eyes quickly moving down the page. Here's one such passage where Yossarian and Milo discuss the just way to retrieve a bedsheet from the thief:

"Let me try to explain it again," Milo offered with growing weariness and exasperation, jerking his thumb toward the thief with the sweet tooth, still grinning beside him. "I knew he wanted the dates more than the bedsheet. Since he doesn't understand a word of English, I made it a point to conduct the whole transaction in English."

"Why didn't you just hit him over the head and take the bedsheet away from him?" Yossarian asked.

Presssing his lips together with dignity, Milo shook his head. "That would have been most unjust," he scolded firmly. "Force is wrong, and two wrongs never make a right. It was much better my way. When I held the dates out to him and reached for the bedsheet, he probably thought I was offering to trade."

"What were you doing?"

"Actually, I was offering to trade, but since he doesn't understand English, I can always deny it."

"Suppose he gets angry and wants the dates."

"Why, we'll just hit him over the head and take them away from," Milo answered without hesitation. He looked from Yossarian to McWatt and back again. "I really can't see what everyone is complaining about. We're all much better off than before. Everybody is happy but this thief, and there's no sense worrying about him, since he doesen't even speak our language and deserves whatever he gets. Don't you understand?"

But Yossarian still didn't understand either how Milo could buy eggs in Malta for seven cents apiece and sell them at a profit in Pianosa for five cents.

Posted by charity at 12:31 PM | Comments (3)

October 24, 2005

pi pieces

I finally finished Yann Martel's Life of Pi. I struggled through the painful details of life at the Pondicherry Zoo and Pi's somewhat interesting fascination with religion to get to an adventurous story with a wonderfully illustrated ending that leaves the reader wondering, "Did that really happen?!"

One of my favorite passages came from Pi's description of fear:

[Fear] has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One momemt you are feeling calm, self-posessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disblief and disbelief tries to push it out. But disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weaking, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread. . .

Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your last allies: hope and trust. There, you've defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.

The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear beacuse you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you."

Posted by charity at 08:50 PM | Comments (3)