Priorities

Team Columbia

I don't usually read Above the Law, but when I do, it's to watch law revue videos.

The Pelvic Mysteries

How can it be a surprise that you have a narrow pelvis? It's a bone. You can see it on an x-ray. You can feel it. This sounds like a fact determinable by means other than "will an x cm baby skull fit through it? no? guess it's narrower than x cm!"

(via the MeFi thread on Gawande's article, with extra added OMG from Deadspin and Rural Doctoring)

The piquancy of East Texas

The positively true story of how the nicest man in town murdered the meanest woman in East Texas, gave $2 million of her money away, and got caught when her son found the body under the pot pies. (via Alyssa)

What's keeping you from writing the Great American Novel

Pitfalls include using a child's POV, writing about adultery, and distractions like cocaine, the internet, and other people's opinions. Also, get out of your Brooklyn bubble:

Brooklyn novels are written by smart people who are tuned-in to all the various things that might seem like a life, but just because you’re smart and tuned-in doesn’t mean anyone is ever going to want to read your book. Most likely the opposite. Writing a truly page-turning novel is a weird skill set. And while I might take comfort in the idea that every backpack on the train contains a manuscript, they’re generally the wrong kind of manuscript.

I live in the Southside area of Williamsburg. Here I’m thrilled by the constant whoosh of traffic and trains on the bridge. I mourn the view that has been darkened by another ironic condominium. If you stand on the sidewalk in Brooklyn for long enough, they will build an ironic condominium on top of you. There is a large Hasidic community; I wish someone would write a novel about them. Or the abutting Dominican community. Or looking down from inside the Marcy projects. Why should I care about your story? You have a bad job and want to be doing something different but feel paralyzed because of something and so you gchat with your friends all day the end. Collins and Martin keep you reading deep into the night because at the end of a chapter Katniss’ head suddenly falls off. And you’re like, her head just fell off??? I have to keep reading. Like holy crap. And so you stay up all night furiously turning pages. What happens at the end of your chapters? Someone doesn’t reply to your email or something. Or, like, 9/11 happens. I’m so fucking riveted.

The passion of Bruce Springsteen

At SXSW:

In the beginning, every musician has their genesis moment. For you, it might have been the Sex Pistols, or Madonna, or Public Enemy. It's whatever initially inspires you to action. Mine was 1956, Elvis on the Ed Sullivan Show. It was the evening I realized a white man could make magic, that you did not have to be constrained by your upbringing, by the way you looked, or by the social context that oppressed you. You could call upon your own powers of imagination, and you could create a transformative self.

A white boy, moved to action! To embrace the magic formerly reserved for black men! To throw off the chains of his oppression and transform himself! Truly a triumph of the will.

Deficiency of dress or shelter

Despite there being no actual legal prohibition on public nudity in England or Scotland, the Naked Rambler has been imprisoned for most of the last six years.

One day I was walking and something happened." He had an epiphany: "I realised I was good. Being British, buried in our upbringing is that we're not good or have to watch ourselves – maybe it comes from religion, or school. I realised that at a fundamental level I'm good, we're all good, and you can trust that one part of yourself." This self-realisation led to Gough often choosing to be naked in public: if he was good, then his body was good. "The human body isn't offensive," he says. "If that's what we're saying, as human beings, then it's not rational." His former partner was "more conservative" and a visit from her parents proved calamitous. "One morning I came to breakfast naked and that was it, all over," Gough says flatly. "The thing was, her parents weren't even that bothered." The couple returned to Eastleigh together, but Gough went to live with his mother. He arrived back in England, he says, with an intense appreciation of what nakedness could offer, and questioning "things we're taught to believe are right". He visited a police station in Eastleigh and asked if it was illegal to walk naked in the streets. "They couldn't come up with an answer," he says.

...

In Scotland, breach of the peace is partly defined as "conduct which does, or could, cause the lieges [public] to be placed in a state of fear, alarm or annoyance". The prosecution has very rarely managed to rustle up witnesses to claim Gough's nakedness has had any of these effects on them. What is keeping him in prison is simply the theoretical idea that it could. "I do not believe that an ordinary, reasonable person would feel any of those things if they saw me [naked] in the street," Gough says. He believes that to achieve his stated aim – to leave HMP Perth and return to Eastleigh naked – "the law doesn't have to change, just the interpretation". Twice Scottish sheriffs found in Gough's favour that no crime had been committed, both in him being naked in public and being naked in court. "Both times the sheriffs were elderly females," notes Good, who represented Gough for more than three years (they parted company in 2010 so Gough could represent himself, making it harder for him to be excluded from the courtroom for being naked). "Stephen then chose to leave court naked and was arrested for being naked in public."

Weekend Mix: Fesenjan Cocktail

An experiment in Persian themed mixology. Make this for Nowruz!

Supporting Fox Domestication

The famous Russian experiment on domesticating foxes is in danger. Why isn't this on Kickstarter or something? The internet LOVES cute animals.

Creative ideas wanted

What's something cool to do with a metal letterpress plate? It has a great design and I was thinking of stamping it into candy or some such.

Weekend Bake: Pistachio Golden Raisin Cake with Lemon Syrup

I made this cake over the weekend as a dessert and was a little let down, as it is not very sweet. But as a breakfast bread or coffee cake, it is much more satisfying. I converted the recipe to accommodate the ingredients I had, but some suggested changes are noted below.

140G all purpose flour
10G Baking powder
2 Large beaten eggs
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
150G  Sugar
2 tbspmilk or cream
2 lemons, juiced and zested
50G Golden raisins
75G Roughly chopped pistachios
75G Sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour a 6 cup bundt pan. Beat butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy.
2. Mix in eggs and flour; add milk and lemon zest, raisins, and 65 g pistachios. Spoon into pan and bake for 30-35 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, warm lemon juice and 75 g sugar in a pan until sugar is melted. Set aside.
4. When cake is done and still warm in the pan, pierce the cake all over with a skewer and pour the syrup over the cake. Let the cake cool and remove it from the pan. Scatter remaining nuts over the top.

I had salted nuts and rinsed them. In the future, I would only brush them and keep some of the salt, and also increase the raisins by fifty percent, for more of a salty and sweet contrast. The bundt pan worked well, but muffin tins would also be nice. And the lemon syrup soak needed more lemon juice, and maybe some cardamom pods to steep in it. I think I also should have only used 7 tbsp or so of butter!

Blogger fail

My blogging has not been regular lately, but a couple of weeks ago my laptop got a horrific malware infection that has crippled my ability to do much on anything online. I have a poky computer to use until things get restored, but if I seem slow to respond to happenings and overtures, this is why.

9 to 5, funk style

A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.

The law of war has never made much sense to me, either. Bludgeoning people with swords, shooting them with crossbows, burning them with chemicals, blowing them to pieces with grenades, and frying them with lasers all are pretty barbaric.

Resolved

That Caitlin Flanagan is the Leni Riefenstahl of anti-feminist writing.

His name is James Bond (NSFW)

This is pretty much my favorite thing this week.


What I'd like to see is a similar video about Vladimir Putin, who would also fuck you up with motherfucking judo.

Fighting the urge to name something from the Kill Bill soundtrack

From my new favorite Twitter account, Goldman Sachs Elevator Gossip:

#1: I like to ask candidates what song they'd walk out to before a heavyweight title fight.
#2: Easy. Ruff Ryders Anthem.

The mental image of Goldman Sachs interviewees doing this is almost as good as my original thought, which applied this to the slate of aspiring Republican nominees.

Signifiers

Louis CK on his parents:

My dad’s upper class for Mexico, and his father was an immigrant from Hungary. My mom was from Michigan, she lived on a farm in Michigan, and she grew up with nothing. She was just academically really bright, and she went to Harvard summer school to take some courses, and my dad was there going to grad school.

They weren’t undergrad, that’s the thing to remember. If you go to Harvard undergrad, you’re a spoiled brat, and you probably got in through some legacy, and you’re not even getting that good of an education, most Harvard people, but Harvard grad school is where serious professionals get their degrees and licenses. My father was there studying as an economist, and my mother was doing some post-grad stuff.

I get that all the time

"You look just like that girl from the movie with George Clooney!"

On a related note: Flat irons! Magical!

New year, new leaf

I've resolved to be a better blogger this year! Of course, this means I should find more things to be angry about, as those make for the most dynamic blog fodder.