fortune telling

I’ve been told people skip right over these posts, the This Week in History posts. But I love them, and let me tell you why. During the week, when I’m reading other blogs or watching Letterman, there will be a post or a joke where somebody says, “hey, you know what happened this day in history? Blah blah blah.” And when it comes to what they are talking about, I did know. So it’s like research for the week ahead, as well as a good predictor of how things are going to shape up. For example, you know how last week I wrote about the anniversary of Heath Ledger’s death? I mentioned it was too hard to find any good in that day. And you know what happened to me that day? The “a” key on my work computer stopped working. It was dreadful. But I already knew it would be a dreadful day. OMENS, people.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: JANUARY 25
On this day in history, my work computer’s “a” key started working again. Hey, it’s worth a shot, right? Also, on this day in 1971, Charles Manson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten were found guilty of the Tate/LaBianca murders. In college, I had to read the book “Helter Skelter” by the prosecutor in the case, Vincent Bugliosi, for a criminal justice class. My roommate was in the class also, and we both became kinda obsessed with the book. To the point that we downloaded Mp3’s of Charles Manson singing off Napster and went to several Blockbusters trying to find this Charles Manson documentary. We were convinced we were being monitored and were going to end up on some awful governmental list. But what can I say? It’s a really good book, one of my favorites.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: JANUARY 26
On this day in 1905, Maria Von Trapp was born! I admit I don’t know much about the real Maria Von Trapp; I know about the Julie Andrews Maria Von Trapp. I just spent some time on the Trapp Family Lodge Web site, for it seems that something not covered in the movie is how they moved to Vermont and opened a ski lodge. I was particularly interested in the dining menus as I am a little bit hungry as of this writing. It seems overpriced, but what are you going to do? There are real-life Von Trapps there!

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: JANUARY 27
As a resident of the state of Georgia, I feel compelled to mention that the University of Georgia was founded in 1785. When I was in high school, I had my parents drive me to Athens, so we could take a look at it. It was way, way too big for me, so I really wasn’t considering it, as I may have implied at the time. I really just wanted to be in the place where R.E.M. formed. This past year, when I was shopping for furniture for my current apartment, I liked this red couch. But I couldn’t get it, because I felt it sent a message of support to the University of Georgia that I wasn’t quite ready to send. I felt a red couch would have certain UGA meanings in Atlanta.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: JANUARY 28
Elijah Wood was born this day in 1981! Now, Elijah Wood was a childhood crush of mine, due to his roles in 1992’s “Radio Flyer” and 1993’s “The Good Son.” Since he was only a year older than me, I figured we could grow up and get married, though I remember being slightly turned off when I read in some sort of teen magazine that Elijah Wood really liked girls who had followed his career and could have deep conversations about his films. Cause even then I knew that sounded pretentious and self-absorbed and I really didn’t know how long talking about “The Good Son” might last before I became terribly bored. But it really didn’t matter, because once he became a hobbit (both physically and on the silver screen), I really wasn’t interested anymore.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: JANUARY 29
Today is Oprah’s birthday! Earlier in the week it was Ellen DeGeneres’s birthday! I don’t really get to watch any daytime television, but I’m mentioning this in case I have any readers who are giving birth this week. Maybe if you groom your child just right, they too will grow up and become talk show hosts! It’s an auspicious week for that.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: JANUARY 30
You know how earlier I was talking about omens? This does not look like it’s going to be a good day. Today is the day in history where Dick Cheney was born and the Beatles gave their last public performance. Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany and Martin Luther King Jr’s home was bombed. It’s also Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s day of birth, but I just don’t know if he can overcome all of the negativity emanating from today.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: JANUARY 31
Oh man, do you love Scotch tape? If not, why? It’s so useful, particularly when you’re wrapping presents! Anyways, on this day in 1930, 3M started marketing the product. According to Wikipedia, it’s called Scotch tape because they only put a little bit of sticky stuff on it at the beginning, and someone said that the stingy Scotch bosses needed to put more on. And voila, a valuable office supply was born.

i could have danced all night

Man oh man. What an Inauguration Day. We got to take a little pause from work and watch the swearing-in and the speeches. People in the office broke into applause after Obama took the oath of office and then you could have heard a pin drop while Obama gave his speech. What a moment.

But now I am home and on the couch and watching all the commentators re-live the day. And the Obamas are going to TEN balls! I would be happy just to go to one ball in a big poofy dress but they are going to TEN! So I decided to make a list ten balls that I would like to go to:

1. Pope Ball
This would be a ball held in Vatican City. The Pope sits in a chair and watches everyone dance. All the males have to come dressed as their favorite pope. Or they get assigned a pope, because we don't want everyone coming as just John Paul II or something. Maybe it would be creepy to dance with a man dressed as a pope; after all, they are supposed to be celibate. But I think I would get over it. Requested attire: Big poofy dress of the type wore in the Renaissance.

2. Southern Belle Ball
By this I mean a ball that takes place in the south. I know I live in Atlanta, so it's not inconceivable that I could go to such a ball one day. But I'd like the ball to take place in pre-Civil War times, ideally. I am pretty much modeling this idea on a few scenes in Gone with the Wind. Requested attire: Big poofy dress of the type worn in the pre-war south.

3. Underwater Ball
I keep hearing about these snazzy restaurants where you eat in enclosed glass while fish swim all around you. This would be a ball like that. Where you dance in glass surrounded by fish. But only pretty fish. No scary fish. Nothing like eels or anything. Requested attire: Whatever dress you want.

4. Art Museum Ball
I was thinking of some awesome art museums in Europe that would be fun to have a party in. So just a ball where people get to run around in an art museum. Particularly one with sculpture all around. And you can say things like, "Darling, go get me a class of wine and I will wait for you by the Monet." Requested attire: an outfit that has actually been in a painting.

5. Castle Ball
I guess this is sort of obvious. But what would really make this ideal is if we still lived in the kind of world where there was really a chance of meeting a prince and becoming princess and have it mean something. If there was still really that stress of producing male heirs to continue the monarchy. I can't decide what time period I'd want, or even what monarchy I want to marry into. But basically a big ol' royalty ball.

6. North Pole Ball
This would be an outside ball. It would be all snowy, but not uncomfortably cold. There are a ton of elves, both male and female, so that you always have someone to dance with. Santa dances with all the ladies. You get presents at this ball. You arrive at this ball in a sleigh. I know these aren't Christmas per se, but if some adorable creatures could scamper around during the dancing, that would be ideal.

7. Cheese Ball
Picture a huge cheese wheel. Like the hugest cheese wheel you've ever seen. Now picture it 29384093840293840 percent bigger…so big that we could carve out the middle of it and have a circular cheese wall big enough for people to dance in. At the ball they would serve the cheese that was carved out of the middle, but it would also be encouraged to just take pieces of cheese from the wall. Cause the ball is not over until all of the cheese walls are eaten. Requested attire: a big poofy dress that is loose enough to accommodate you eating a lot of cheese.

8. Roller skating ball
You know how fun it is to wear a huge poofy dress? And you know how fun it is to roller skate? Well, COMBINE THE TWO and you have a roller skating ball.

9. Amusement Park Ball
You can dance all over the amusement park. OR YOU CAN RIDE ALL THE RIDES. Also all the concession stands are free during the ball so you can eat lots of hot dogs and funnel cakes.

10. White House Ball
But this isn't an inaugural ball. Oh no. This is a ball where all the dead presidents appear and dance with the living. You can chat them up about what they think about the country now and they try to offer you snacks that were typical of their time. Lincoln would be a total playa at this ball and would always be trying to show the ladies the Lincoln Bedroom.

frankie say relax

Today I had the day off from work. It was very relaxing. I was trying to think about a way to blog about my relaxation but I couldn't really think of anything that would be interesting. You probably don't want a list of television programs watched or foods eaten. Overall, people's relaxation can be boring when recounted to other people. Like dreams.

But I do have some pictures that really sum up relaxation. I took them at Kanuga at Mary Henry's wedding. For those of you that don't know, Kanuga is in Hendersonville, North Carolina. You should go there if these sorts of things look relaxing to you:

New photographic theory: it's impossible to take a picture of a rocking chair that doesn't create a feeling of relaxation. Well, maybe if it was something like this:

ROCKING CHAIRS ON FIRE!

Okay, it is not a very good drawing. But you certainly can't say that it's relaxing.

Here is the lake:

Here is a tree:

I will look at these pictures tomorrow, when I am back at non-relaxing work.

But I do want to say one thing, in case I don't do some sort of inauguration post tomorrow. Probably my favorite book of all time is "Woody Guthrie: A Life" by Joe Klein. The book deals with how once the song "This Land is Your Land" became something of a patriotic anthem, the last verses were dropped because they weren't as "hip hip hooray America" as the other verses. They were much more disparaging, because the song was an angry response to "God Bless America." Before Woody lost the ability to speak from Huntington's disease, he'd take his son Arlo out and make him memorize the lost verses so they wouldn't be forgotten.

Now, the fact that Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen performed "This Land is Your Land" yesterday at the big Obama inaugural concert yesterday would already be enough to make my little folk music loving heart skip a beat. But the fact that they did it with the extended verses was amazing. I don't know if I just don't look hard enough on YouTube, but prior to that performance I don't think I'd heard the extra verses sung. Here they are:

In the squares of the city, in the shadow of the steeple
By the relief office, I saw my people
As they stood hungry, I stood whistling
This land was made for you and me

A great high wall there that tried to stop me
A great big sign there, said Private Property
But on the other side, it didn't say nothin'
That side was made for you and me

When Woody wrote that song he put a note at the bottom of the page that said, "All you can write is what you see."

That performance was probably my one non-relaxing moment of the weekend. That song gets me worked up.

Book #2: Persepolis

I don’t remember reading a whole lot of picture books when I was little. Once I knew how to read, I went straight to big, fat, no-picture books. I remember informing my first grade teacher that I had permission to look all sections of the library, whereas I believe kids at my school weren’t allowed out of the picture book section until like, the second or third grade.

I only bring this up because I feel like it makes my selection of a book with pictures, especially as an adult, much more significant. I just finished “The Complete Persepolis,” by Marjane Satrapi, which is told in graphic novel form. It’s a memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Now, if someone had handed me a big, fat, no-picture book on the same subject, it probably would have taken me a lot longer to get around to it than a picture book did. I guess that’s the point I’ve been trying to make for two paragraphs.

Anyways, once I started reading this book, I had to spend about an hour on Wikipedia figuring out exactly what was going on. I’m not the most knowledgeable person about the Middle East. Once I figured it out, I read the first 30 pages or so again, felt caught up, and then just let the story wash over me. Not having much experience reading picture books, sometimes I felt like I had to remind myself to look at the pictures. Then I got in the groove.

The first half deals with Satrapi’s childhood in Iran, and it ends with her going off to Vienna to pursue a western education and to leave the danger and repression behind. Vienna proves no easier though, and after finishing high school she returns to Iran. Despite how much she’s been through, you have to keep remembering that she’s only 18. But going back to Iran is a whole other can of worms because she can’t quite determine her identity. As she says at one point, “I was a Westerner in Iran, an Iranian in the West.”

In the introduction, Satrapi says that writing “Persepolis” was important to her because after living in the West, she knew the kind of perspective some people had of Iranians, and she didn’t want the whole nation judged by the extreme fundamentalism and terrorism of a few. I think the book succeeds on that count. It’s a very relatable tale of growing up, except for all the war. And the pictures.

last night i saw snowflakes!

It’s soooooooooo cold in Atlanta as I write this. Sure, we’ll be back in the 50’s and 60’s soon, and I have no right to complain. But imagine if you lived in a place where it was always warm, and then suddenly out of the blue it was cold? Isn’t that a little worse than living in a place where you’ve come to expect really cold weather? What will warm me up? Reviewing what happened this week in history, of course.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: JANUARY 18
On this day in 1861, Georgia seceded from the United States. Man, what if Georgia had never come back? What if the country had never been reunited? I would probably never even have been born. But let’s say that I had been born…where would I live? Who would I be? Maybe I have hypothermia but suddenly I find this very freaky to think about. Earlier this year I was reading the Mental Floss blog, and there was this entry that showed a hypothetical re-drawing of state lines: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/17550. Isn’t that weird? I’d kind of rather live in a state called Piedmont; it sounds nicer. But I would be from Cumberland, not Carolina, which makes me slightly sad. Perhaps I would have moved to Superior merely for the humor factor. Hmm.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: JANUARY 19
Continuing on yesterday’s theme, I feel compelled to tell you that on this day in 1807, Robert E. Lee was born. Maybe if things had been different, that would be a holiday or something. Also on this day, Dolly Parton and Paula Deen were born. So a fairly good day for the south, until you consider that on this day in 1862, at the Battle of Mill Springs, the Confederacy suffered its first major defeat.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: JANUARY 20
I couldn’t find anything of interest to Southerners today. Unless you live below the Mason-Dixon and really like “The Office.” Then you might be interested in knowing that it’s Rainn Wilson’s birthday. Even if that show is all about Yankees.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: JANUARY 21
On this day in 1924, Vladimir Lenin died. When I was in Moscow, I got to go see the embalmed body. It was creepy. You walk around in a line, no talking at all, while soldiers stare at you with a look that will make you very nervous. I just read what they do to preserve the body, if they’re preserving an actual body, on Wikipedia, and it only furthered the creepiness/nervousness I feel about the subject.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: JANUARY 22
Man, I tried to find something to cheer me up after all those unpleasant thoughts about Lenin. Well, let me tell you, there was absolutely nothing pleasant to be found in all my scrolling. I was getting near the bottom and thinking I was going to have to scroll through again and try to find something at least mediocre to share as pleasant. And, then, do you know what I found at the bottom of the Wikipedia page? Today is the one-year anniversary of Heath Ledger’s death. Blurgh. The press will make this day so depressing. So why should I try to find any sort of pleasant value in it?

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: JANUARY 23
Today was a pretty good day for women in the United States! We had the first female doctor (Elizabeth Blackwell) and the first female secretary of state (Madeleine Albright). And also, Tiffani Amber Thiessen was born??

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: JANUARY 24
On this day in 1947, one of my favorite singers, Warren Zevon was born. In celebration, I advise you to have a sandwich, and to enjoy it. The nice thing about YouTube is you can watch many clips of Warren and David Letterman, which is how I found out about Warren. But sadly I didn’t see any of the clips where Warren Zevon talks about being the comedy deputy, which is one of the reasons I’ll always like him. Cause I thought that was so funny when I was younger. Well, here is a song:

a chicken and egg scenario

A sad fact of the universe is that the marketplace forces us to think about holidays far earlier than we are ready to think about them. Before all the Fourth of July fireworks have gone off, then the stores will be decorated for Halloween. Or they might go straight to Thanksgiving. Without a doubt, Christmas will last for several months, and as soon as that’s over, then it’s Valentine’s Day. I mean, I can’t even have a proper President’s Day party without having to think ahead to my Veteran’s Day party!

Well, most of the time I am a grumbling goose about how early the holidays are celebrated in certain retail stores. But I finally found something that is to my benefit…the Cadbury Creme Eggs are already out! Easter is not for three more months! I don’t remember them ever being out so early before. I guess I could have missed them in years past. But there is no missing them now. They are everywhere. The Cadbury Chicken has been pumping them out in overdrive.

Cadbury Creme Eggs are one of my very favorite candies. It probably helps that they are seasonal, and only come out at Easter, because if you think about it, it is fairly gross to eat something that is chocolate on the outside but that tries to mock an egg on the inside.

Here is how to properly eat a Cadbury egg: First, say a little Easter prayer that you will not get an egg with a sticky wrapper. Those are the worst. Hold the egg longways, like you do when you’re trying to get an egg to stand on end on the summer solstice. Then, unwrap just the top of the egg, much like how you should unwrap just the top of a burrito, and not the whole thing. Take a bite of the top of the egg. Then suck out all the egg-like frosting that you can. Then, another bite of chocolate. Then repeat. Now, sometimes when you eat a burrito, you try to get those perfect bites that have a little bit of everything—some cheese, some guac, some salsa and meat. Don’t try to do that here. Keep the bites of chocolate and cream separate.

There you go. Apparently eating a Cadbury egg is kind of like eating a burrito.

I feel like this should go without saying, but bring me no imitations of the original. No Cadbury Caramel egg or the like. You will just be insulting my intelligence if you do this. And Cadbury mini-eggs…I’m not quite convinced that those things are not just stale M&M’s.

Anyways, consider this blog a public service announcement: If you love Cadbury eggs and wait for their arrival every year, then they are in stores now! Perhaps it’s crass commercialism, or perhaps they’ve arrived early so that people who give up chocolate for Lent can enjoy a few. Because once Easter is over, those bad buys are gone. Risen like the Lord, I guess.

Book #1: The Road

Ah, the new year. A time to party. A time to think about life-improving resolutions. A time to get married, if you are my cousin. But for me, the new year was a time to think about the landscape of nuclear winter, for the first book I read in the new year was “The Road,” by Cormac McCarthy.

McCarthy tells of a father and son who follow the titular road south, in hopes of better climates. They scavenge for food and fend off the “bad guys”, who commit such heinous acts that bad guys seems like kind of an understatement. They have to go on, claims the father to his son, because they are the good guys, and they are carrying the fire. Yet the father knows he is dying, and he wonders to himself several times whether he will have the strength to kill his son when the time comes, for that would be a death more merciful than any other kind the boy might face on the road.

I read this book for many reasons, primarily because Entertainment Weekly named it the best book of the past 25 years. (#2? “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”) Also, it won a Pulitzer, but I’m more inclined to trust the Entertainment Weekly people than the Pulitzer people.

I think this book is a sort of litmus test for how a person will deal in a post-apocalyptic world. Granted, I don’t have any children, but I frequently found myself wanting the father to go ahead and kill the son because the son was just a huge fraidy-cat and there just didn’t seem to be that much to live for in this world of theirs. There didn’t seem to be one bit of hope left anywhere. This, of course, is all the evidence you need that I will be absolutely useless to anyone else in the nuclear winter. You shouldn’t root for the main characters of a book to die even though the world they live in sucks. You shouldn’t root for fathers to kill sons. That is what I learned from reading “The Road.” Rather, you should aim to be a good guy who is carrying fire. A lack of good guys carrying the fire is probably what got the world into the mess that the characters in “The Road” are dealing with.

And, as Whitney Houston once said, “children are the future.” So that is probably why the father felt compelled to go south with his son, even though the son just complained and was scared and wanted to give all their food away. The son is the future. The son is carrying the fire. This book will probably mean more to people who have children than it did to me. Though I did really enjoy the beautiful and evocative language.