Gemini: Better Than Rilke

Critics will call your first poetry collection a "stirring work of utmost courage and beauty," which just goes to show how much mileage that man from Nantucket has.

(Photos: Old Sarge)

Nesting: Home Sweet Home

Mandrew went home for Easter this last week, which meant I had a lot of time to myself. I mostly did a lot of cleaning. Our apartment starts clean, gets progressively more and more cluttered, until I can't take it anymore and have to clean it or I WILL JUMP OFF THE BALCONY TO ESCAPE THE DIRTY DISHES! THE DIRTY FLOORS! THE DIRTY LAUNDRY! THE DIRT!!!

I am becoming my mother. The woman that grounded me when I would say, "Come on, Mom! My room doesn't smell THAT bad."

The apartment really feels like home now, and I've been wanting to put up some kind of "Home Sweet Home," or "Home is Where Your Heart Is" decoration to punctuate the sentiment. But since I can't needlepoint, I made the following:

Now I just need to find the right frame.

Update: 8 x 10, Kinko's color toner on watercolor paper (hat tip: Rebecca)

Reading Rainbow: Atheists and Foxholes

Last week I went binge buying on Amazon and ordered Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, Great American Hypocrites and God is not Great. I’d seen the various authors give intelligent interviews, and I wanted to read more of what they had to say.

Don’t worry mom, I am not a vegan food terrorist, hubristic partisan hack, or atheist out to make everyone worship Darwin… at least not yet.

I had the books delivered to me at work, and our BYU intern brought one to my office. She’s always been pleasant, even though she knows I’m an ex-Mormon that’s “gone off the deep end.”

She handed me the package, and I said, “Yeah! One of my books arrived.”

“Oooh, what’d you get?” She said.

“Let’s see,” I replied, opening the package to find the book that mocked her religion and framed me as hostile to her and all other believers. WHY COULDN’T IT HAVE BEEN THE GARDENING BOOK! THE ONE ABOUT HOMEMAKING AND CANNING TOMATOES!

I blushed a severe shade of red and hesitated.

“Do you not want to share?” She said.

I didn’t want her to think I’d just purchased How to Enslave and Eat Innocent Children, so I pulled out the bright sunny cover of God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, and laughed with obvious embarrassment.


Luckily this intern has a sense of humor/strong sense of civility and laughed so hard that my face returned to its natural color.

Gemini: Drifting With the Current

Sometimes it is best to simply let events unfold. However, doing so for the last 25 years was probably a mistake.

(Photo: čolinica)

Life is a Mix Tape: Max Richter & Limitations

Walking home after work, I was listening to Radiolab's podcast The Obama Effect, Perhaps, which discussed the result Barack Obama's presidency may be having on the stereotype threat or the influence of group stereotypes to affect intellectual performance.

Since Obama's presidential nomination, some researchers have noticed a performance gap between whites and blacks narrow (on a 20-question test). *The findings have yet to be peer reviewed, and further replication is expected. However, the stereotype threat is a well documented phenomenon that can affect all groups of people.

While Radiolab's Jad Abumrad was discussing the power of stereotypes to distract and then discourage achievement, the song "Vladimir's Blues" by Max Richter played.

The music made the metro car glide on the rails, rather than speed forcefully onward. People began waltzing past, instead of rushing about gracelessly. And I stood at the center of it all, waiting for my train, wondering about my limitations.

The real subtle power of a stereotype isn't that it prevents you from doing what you want to do, it distracts you, for just a beat, from doing the thing you want to do. And that may be all the difference.

- Jad Abumrad, Radio Lab

This is another gem by Max Richter, "Fragments."

I also recommend "The Nature of Daylight."

Gluttony Primer: Rainbow & Unicorn Cake

Part 1 - Rainbow Cake

Years ago, while enduring late night pancake cravings with Ash Mae, we were inspired to make pancakes out of cake mix. Some inspiration comes from an inner voice, and some inspiration stares at you like a Duncan Hines mix adjacent an empty bag of Bisquick.

We colored every pancake green and then stacked them with vanilla pudding in-between each layer. We covered the cake with Cool Whip and devoured the best midnight snack every created.

While making cakes for a friend's birthday, I got A LITTLE carried away. This time around, I decided to make a rainbow cake by coloring each pancake a different color.

I told the birthday girl, "Pretend that I'm Ace of Cakes (and therefore insanely unlimited by reason or artistic ability). Name three things you want." She said, "Chocolate, Raspberry, Unicorn." If she had said, "Starship Enterprise, Non-Fat, Barack Obama," she would have been out of luck, and the whole "Pretend I'm Ace of Cakes and you can have anything you want..." exercise would have been a complete waste. Luckily, she picked the only three things I am capable of.

I decided to make an accompanying rainbow cake, because 1) I needed an excuse to try it out, and 2) she is one of a handful of people that can appreciate that much food coloring.

*It looks slightly burnt, and it is, in that "I'm-so-overwhelmed-by-frosting-and-color-that-I-can't-even-tell" kinda way.

In the end, I covered the colored pancakes in cream cheese frosting resulting in a very sad minimalist-looking rainbow-shaped cake (sorry, I forgot to take pictures of the final product).

However, when someone cut the first slice, the people rejoiced, Pocahontas appeared singing "Every Color of the Wind," and sparkles fell from the stars turning us all into our spirit animal.

Instructions
1. Make cake mix.
2. Color a 1/2 cup of batter any color of the rainbow.
3. Fry it like a pancake (Use lots of cooking spray)

Part 2-The Last Unicorn Cake

The chocolate cake & raspberry filling recipes are here. Smitten Kitchen, marry me.

The marshmallow fondant recipe is here. I'm convinced MM Fondant would have made more Republicans vote for the stimulus bill (I've forwarded this recipe to Obama's Chief of Staff).

Mandrew made the raspberry filling for the cake and then listened to me freak out as I tried to roll the fondant without tearing it.

"AAARRRHHHH. I'm RUINING it!!!!"

"Calm down. It's just a cake for a friend."

"NO! THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING I WILL EVER DO... [unreasonableness] [more unreasonableness] [long tirade of childish unreasonableness]."

Somehow Mandrew managed to calm me down, and I placed the fondant on the cake and decorated it. The party-goers loved it, and the birthday girl was happy.

And here it is, the pinnacle of my life's work. Every moment has only been in preparation for this cake.

Gemini: You'll Need to Google "Rhombus"

Jealousy, suspicion, and utter confusion will be yours this week when you find yourself at the center of a bizarre love rhombus.

Happy Freakin' Valentine's Day

(Photo: julianrod)