Sniff

Ismail Merchant passed away yesterday. NYT's kind obituary here.

Counting the hours

Two days from now and I'll be at Wiscon! I am so damned excited. Except for a few days tacked on to business trips here and there, and a quick jaunt to LA for my Mom's birthday last July, I just realized I haven't been on vacation since I was in Israel a year ago. It's only a long weekend, but I'll take what I can get.

I need to rest up and get some sleep before I leave, since I have a feeling I'll be burning the candle at both ends this weekend. A very pregnant candle in the shape of the Venus of Willendorf.

The problem with conferences and conventions is that there are some time slots where there are four or five programs I don't want to miss and other slots where there is only one which sounds mildly interesting. Perhaps I'll take an opportunity to nap during those times or go for a walk along Lake Mendota. Or Lake Monona. A peninsular city is a beautiful thing for the flanneur. (Am I a flanneuse?) There is a seminar Saturday afternoon called Feminism and Bellydance: Breaking Preconceptions which I will attend for sure.

Bellydance is an ancient dance form that has gradually become associated in the Western world with stripping, exhibitionism, and subservience to the sexual desires of men. The general public, including parts of the feminist community, often think the dance is nothing more than "shaking your ass," when nothing could be further from the truth. This program item will include discussions of the history of bellydance, how the dance's reputation has evolved in the west, and how bellydancers can break the preconceptions others have of them and communicate their feminist views. This panel will also include a short bellydancing workshop.

These preconceptions, and the crappy slutty "dancers" in some restaurants, are why I usually tell people I do "classical Middle Eastern dance" and not belly dance. Perhaps I'll come up with some good retorts. I'm just not sure whether I should bring my hipscarf or not.

Never too much bonus material

Elvis Costello truly is one of the best, and most prolific, songwriters in the past 50 years.

''This is a possibly prejudicial statement,'' Stewart says, ''but I think his biggest curse is making too much good music.''

I own the Rykodiscs, but if I bought the Rhino reissues, too, Eli might disown me.

Star Crap

I'm not sure why I agreed to go, perhaps because eternally springing hope mingled with nostalgia, but I saw the latest installment in the Star Wars merchandising franchise Saturday night. Now, the people who saw it with me, including my typically discriminating husband, liked it. It wasn't nearly 1/8th as bad as the last two prequels. (Then again, what is? I'd rather sit through an Ed Wood film than that last debacle again.) I wasn't expecting riveting dialogue or fine acting. (Man, it takes a certain void of directorial talent to make Ewan McGregor flat.) I was relieved that none of the characters were explicitly racist or offensive. But I found the action scenes a little, well, lame. The opening sequence completely lacked the surge of adrenaline one should have during a space fight and the little droid parasites gnawing on the ship were ripped right out of The Matrix, but not nearly as cool. And, really George, how many light-saber-wielding arms need to be chopped off in one movie? It was effective and disturbing in Empire Strikes Back but now it's just ludicrous. Oh, so he tied everything together, did he? (Which is what my viewing companions were so excited about afterward.) About bloody time. Did we really need three movies for that?

More interesting, Saturday afternoon the kids next door were playing with toy light sabers. The longevity of marketing is the true act of genius here. We were probably doing the same thing 25 years ago. Only we had to make the sound affects ourselves.

Go Jackrabbits!

I've been busy here the past couple days writing a d'var Torah for tomorrow. I basically left it for the last minute but, miraculously, it's pretty much finished. I guess I'll edit it a couple times for odd prepositions and awkward phrases and call it a day. I am getting rather lackadaisical about the whole process, I'll admit. I sort of trust that just by doing a bit of research, leaving half of it on the cutting room floor and having a couple ideas it will still come out better than most. (Not bragging. I just wonder if some of the people who speak in our minyan were too busy at the kegger in college -- or 9th grade, where these skills should be acquired -- to learn how to write a coherent paper. Although we've had some good ones the last two weeks, so I shouldn't complain.)

So news. I am not one who typically reads Sports Illustrated. In fact, until this week, I think I have opened its pages only if it's the only reading material available in a bachelor friend’s bathroom. (I think those are probably the only times I've read Playboy, too, and that really was for the articles. And a few exclamations of, "Those can't possibly be real!" and "What, no razor burn?") But this week it was my favorite magazine. Why? Because my high school was selected as the number one high school for athletics in the country. Whoee! The accompanying, rather lengthy article made Long Beach Poly sound like a utopia of athletics and academics. Home of Scholars and Champions indeed! My nachas runneth over.

I had my test for gestational diabetes on Wednesday. One is considered in the risk zone with blood sugar over 150 and I scored a happy 116. I would have celebrated with a cookie but that nasty drink they gave me temporarily turned me off sugar. Blech. My iron was a little low, which isn't a surprise really. I'll just have to take more iron. Otherwise, everything is progressing as it should.

Veggie happiness

Yesterday was the day I blocked out on my calendar months ago and have agonizingly counted the weeks ever since. No, not my 28th week of pregnancy, silly, but the first day of the Chicago Farmers' Market. Finally, I can get tasty produce, for an affordable price, that's not bred to be shipped a gazillion miles across the country. Of course, this early in the season the pickings were slim, but still enough to make us a delicious dinner last night and for the next few nights. My $25 bought us:

• morels (I got the last few attractive ones. The mushroom guy said the morels are scarce this year. Very sad, since last year they were plentiful and scrumptious, for about $6/lb. -- 1/4 of what I paid yesterday.)
• shitakes
• asparagus
• spring onions
• French breakfast radishes (These are divine. Last time I was in Paris, we started off every morning with baguette smothered in fresh cheese & topped with breakfast radishes, tomatoes and a little sea salt. Tony & Eric are in France right now, and probably breakfasted on this fine concoction this very day.
• shallots
• green tomatoes
• grape tomatoes (It is not yet tomato season here, so they were hydroponic. Last year I restrained from purchasing hydroponic vegetables -- you know, that fascistic Berkeley attitude of only cooking what's in season, well, that's easy to have when you live in bloody California. I figured, any tomatoes in the grocery store were either hydroponic or shipped so far that they were bred with tough skins, I might as well buy some guy in downstate Illinois' hydroponic tomatoes. Besides, they weren't sprayed and were inexpensive. And tasty.)
• some Wisconsin goat cheese

The herb lady was not at the Farmers' Market. I hope this was a temporary oversight, since I live for the herb lady. In the summer I typically buy a bunch of basil on Tuesday and then another on Thursday, on the theory that one can eat neither too much pesto nor too many caprese salads. (BTW - I wish caprese salads had not gained popularity in this country. I swear, one day I'm going to turn around in a lunch line and sock the person behind me who orders a "ca-preeez" salad. Hearing bruschetta and radicchio mispronounced was painful enough.) Fortunately, Eli agrees with this culinary theory, since he has to eat what I cook.

If I get my d'var Torah edited in time, I am going to head out to the Evanston Farmers' Market on Saturday morning before shul to buy more, more, more vegetables. I LOVE this time of year.

Hey Joe

Saturday night we went to go see Joe Jackson. For whatever unfortunate reason he was touring with Todd Rundgren. The audience was polarized -- it was easy to tell who was there for whom. The record company must have lumped those two together out of perversity, since I can't imagine anyone has both those artists in their Top 10 favorties. Or even 50.

Joe was, as usual, excellent. It was just him in a long jacket at the piano and it was an intimate pairing. He is truly an exceptional musician. As I pointed out to Eli, he never does more than the song needs, which is atypical for someone capable of virtuosity. Sadly, he only played for a bit over an hour, due to the aforementioned pairing. I would have paid double to discard Todd and hear Joe for another hour.

We came from dinner, so we didn't show up at the stroke of 8, since typically opening bands just aren't worth it. Well, we made a boo boo. The string quartet, Ethel, opened and they rocked! Yes, a rocking string quartet. I would definitely try to catch them again. I'm going to go put their album(s?) in my shopping cart right now.

David Mitchell

Great interview with David Mitchell about his writing process and a bit about his novel currently in the works. Sounds fantastic. There's also a picture. He's a cutie.

Prickly heat

It's about 55 degrees here in Chicago today. I am wearing a cotton sweater, which is entirely reasonable. My office is sweltering. I have my own thermostat and it's set as cool as it can go. I know I am pregnant and not the best gauge of climate control but I do think 80 degrees is too hot for an office. The building can't seem to get it right. I have half a mind to close my door and finish the day out in my underwear. I am getting very grouchy.

Laserpod!

Now that Eli has opened his birthday present I can officially blog about the laserpod without spoiling any surprises. Leafing through a design slide show on the NYT over a month ago I came across said laserpod. I thought it looked really neat, but neat in the way of housewares only affordable to Manhattanite financial planners and trustaffarians. Lo and behold! It was a gizmo both artistic and reasonably priced! Since Eli has a lava lamp (not a real 1960s one, but one of those fake ones readily available in the 1990s when American youth was experiencing a brief and regrettable return to hippiechic) and rejoices in finally having a rumpus room, even if I have outlawed the sectional sofa, I thought it would be the perfect compliment to the decor. A little kitschy, but fundamentally cool and scientific. Plus, it's very difficult to get him a non-practical gift, but this I knew he'd love.

He opened it Saturday afternoon and we played with it for a bit, but it wasn't until Saturday evening, when we turned the lights off in the basement and played with the different diffusers that we saw some of the spectacular images a 3 lasers and 3 LEDs create. As the website says, pictures don't do it justice. And the lights really do evolve over time, very organic. At one point, it looked a little like being inside of someone's brain. Or at least a science fiction film interpretation thereof.

It's going to be fun having guests over.

Footsie

Because my mother expressed concern, yes, my feet are completely back to normal today. Although I suspect that's not the last I've seen of the clubfoot. (Me and Lord Byron.) At least my blood pressure is nice and low, which cuts me out of risk groups for all sorts of nasties.

What's new pussycat

I am not weighing in on any ethical or licensing issues here. But aren't they gorgeous? Me-ow!

Inconceivable

Something hitherto unimaginable has occurred. I wore sneakers to work this morning. Before you jump to conclusions and start to imagine me looking like a suburban secretary coming from the train wearing bulky white socks over nylons, let me elaborate, since something this radical deserves an explanation.

I knew it would happen sooner or later, since my feet are prone to slight swelling in my natural state (natural meaning without a parasitic life form growing in my uterus, although some would argue this is the most natural state in which a woman should find herself), as are my mothers'. Yesterday, the combination of the heat, standing waiting for the el, probably not drinking enough water and the lovely parasite sucking up all my moisture for its own benefit caused my feet to balloon. Especially the right one. I felt like a lopsided clown. I was fine all day and then was in actual pain on the walk home from the el. When I got home, my right foot didn't even fit in my Naot sandals. I've had some shoes feel tight after a flight or dancing for long time, but never painfully swollen just from walking 3/4 of a mile!

By this morning, my foot was better but not normal. I've decided to wear my Tevas to work and then switch shoes once I arrive, but it was pouring this morning and had dropped over 30 degrees, hence the sneakers.

I really shouldn't complain -- our neighbor was due during the summer of 1995, you know, the one when all the old people died in Chicago. (I remember it being over 100 in the middle of the night for weeks.) She said she was so swollen she could press anywhere on her body and it would leave an indentation for a minute.

So, I guess I'm going to increase the swimming, guzzle water, prop my feet up at work off and on, and actually rest for a bit when I get home from work. Hello third trimester!

Mundane

Nothing much doing here, yet I still have no free time. We've been so busy that our Netflix, delivered to our last address, are collecting dust and we still haven't seen Sin City or Hitchikers, despite our best efforts. We've penciled in a movie the past few Fridays, but always seem to get a last minute Shabbat dinner invitation. It's difficult to pass up a yummy dinner with friends for a movie that we can catch another time, even if we never do. Our birth class, of which we've attended two of seven, is Sunday late afternoon, and my jazz lessons are Sunday morning, which further slices our weekend. Also, we just had friends in town and helped our friends out at a garage sale Saturday. I should go check how much money we made.

My reading has really slowed down. We're still unpacking (or going to dance class or meeting a doula or...) at night and I'm up late, so I tend to nap on the el instead of reading. I did finish The Time Traveler's Wife and yet another Murakami novel, A Wild Sheep Chase, and am working on Bellow's The Victim, one of his few novels I haven't read. So far so good. The Murakami was a bit inscrutable and, well, Murakami-esque. Enjoyable, but far from his best. His worldview has definitely changed since his earlier novels, he's considerably more optimistic, less isolated.

The Time Traveler's Wife was essentially enjoyable. A good read, nice Chicago tidbits, and the author handled the whole time travel concept amazingly well. Was it the best book I've read this year, as some friends have claimed? Far from it. I like a good love story but it did lack depth. Perhaps it's because I'm unfamiliar with reading novels where two people actually love each other and have a healthy relationship -- Tolstoy's happy families and all that -- even if there is a wrench thrown in it. (Happy marriages are the stuff of comedy. Although the novel was comedic in moments, I think it was going for something a bit more powerful.) It wasn't even one of the best love stories of the past few years. For that, see David Grossman's Someone to Run With; even if the protagonists are teenagers, the poignancy of their yearnings and relationship are much more moving and honest than in The Time Traveler's Wife. Even Byatt's layered Possession, from which Niffenegger quotes, was a better love story and a much richer novel. Yes, I would recommend it, but not as enthusiastically as it was recommended to me.

I still haven't been able to track down copies of the most recent novels by the guests of honor at Wiscon and it's getting a bit late to put them in an Amazon order. I'm going to start calling around.

So much geekdom, so little time

I am so excited! Isabel just sent me the programming schedule for this year's Wiscon. (For those not geekchic enough to be in the know, Wiscon is the world's leading -- and until recently, only -- feminist science fiction convention. It's over Memorial Day weekend in lovely Madison, Wisconsin.) I almost wish she hadn't, because now I have three extra weeks in which to agonize over which competing panel to attend at any given time slot. I mean, how does one choose between 'Using the Lesser-Known Mythologies,' 'Close But No Cigar: Non-Genre Fiction that's "Secretly" SF&F,' 'Political Correctness, Creative Integrity, Social Responsibility--How Do We Maintain a Balance?,' and 'The Role of the Witch?' And those aren't even all the programs in the 8:45 p.m. time slot on Friday night! If one's idea of a good Friday night is drinking cheap beer and watching crappy TV, I can see how this might not excite. Me, I haven't had such difficult choices since college, when I had to choose between 'Byzantine Manuscript Illumination' and 'Gnosticism and Manicheanism.'

Tweet in the morning

Last night I woke up around 4:00 a.m. and couldn't fall back asleep. So as not to disturb Eli with my tossing and turning, and to get away from Theo's purring, I went into the guest bedroom, where I tossed and turned. In our back yard a very loud bird was practicing its song over and over. Tonic-tonic, major third-major third, repeat a few times, tonic-tonic, sustained major-sixth. Yes, it did it a lot. It sounded like it wasn't quite sure about how many times it was supposed to repeat the tonic-major third lick, since it varried between one and four times. Also, a few times the last note came out more like an augmented 5th than a major 6th. Poor bird. No wonder it's not getting laid. It would truly suck to be a tone deaf bird.

As a kid I found a record of bird songs somewhere in my parents' collection. It wasn't vinyl, but that wiggly translucent plastic of freebie records found in magazines. (A friend in high school had one of a Depeche Mode single on flimsy red plastic. It is probably worth about $500 by now.) I remember listening to it for a while. Of course, none of the birds featured on the record would have come by our house, so I'm not really sure what I was trying to accomplish.

Take that, Harvard

Finally, U of C gets a bit of it's due in the WSJ. The author also has nice things to say about Stanford. My mother must be so proud.

The sacrifices begin

Man, a friend of mine just asked if I'd be interested in being on the Jeff committee. (For those of you non-Chicagoans, the Jeffs are basically the combined equivalent of the Tonys and Obies -- the nominating board for both equity and non-equity theatre in the Chicagoland area.) Would I ever! Free admission to well over 100 plays and the power to help determine what receives a citation and/or nomination. Catch is, I understand it's difficult enough finding a babysitter these days, let alone for 125. A couple of years ago, I would have groveled for this opportunity. First the sushi, the raw milk cheese, the booze, now this. I guess I will wait until retirement -- it seems like the perfect activity for my sixth decade.

Still, it was nice that he thought of me.

Fairy Godmother

I have a fairy godmother! Yesterday I received two books -- Baby Bargains and Baby 411 -- directly from the publisher without so much as a card or receipt saying who they were from. I have my suspicions. (Marsha? She would look fabulous in a fairy godmother costume and sparklers.) Anyway, a big thanks to my mysterious benefactor! Now I can start comparing strollers and breast pumps with solid data.

Book catch-up

Last week I finished a book by a Ukranian author, Andrei Kurkov, called Death and the Penguin. It was a fantastic premise for a book. A struggling writer with a pet penguin who writes obituaries that turn out to be more like death warrants. It was by turns hilarious and tragic, just like a good Slavic novel should be, but it really petered out in the end. I wasn't looking for a cathartic ending, I just want to know what happened to the damn penguin!

Also, like any satirical novel originally written in another language, I wonder how much humor or how many references were lost in the translation. I felt a bit of that "I think I missed something" when I read Bulgakov's Master and Margarita. Don't get me wrong, I loved that book, but I felt like I needed to have lived in Soviet Russia to really have understood it, as if an entire layer of meaning were withheld from me.

For the longest time I put off reading The Time Traveler's Wife, dismissing it as Chick Lit. After a few recommendations from both fellow chick-lit-loathers and border-line-but-intelligent-chick-lit-readers, I finally picked it up this weekend. Well, I was up until 1:00 a.m. Saturday night reading so, if this is chick lit, give me more! Actually, it's not chick lit at all, unless one relegates anything with a love story to the domain of the feminine (i.e. the cinematic theory: no explosions = chick flick). I can't stand those "my butt's big" books or those "all men suck, let's quilt until we find that one gentle man" books, and this is definitely not that. Plus, the author lives in Chicago, and I always love reading about places I know intimately.

Pass-over, aka Baby wants carbs

Well, thank God that's over. How anyone could think Atkins is a good idea is beyond me, since going without the joy of leavened wheat for 8 days is bloody torment. I swear next year we are eating kidniot (rice, beans, corn -- all those Sephardic staples the silly potato-eating Ashkenazim decided were verbotten during Pesach since they were too clueless to know how to treat them), especially if I'm still breast feeding. I ate way too much meat this past week -- I typically have poultry twice a week tops and mammal once a month or less. I can't wait to have tofu at lunch and the yummy cannellini bean salad at Soprafina tomorrow. I'm already planning my attack.