Crisp diction

Cheers!
Originally uploaded by pwilnyc.

I've got the audiobook of Heat, by Bill Buford, right? I listen to audio books in the car, because we no longer have a stereo thingie in the house. Much of the time, when I am driving, I have the kids in the car with me.

Which means, ok, that sometimes my kids are listening to age-inappropriate material. I mean, I'm not listening to The Diary of Anais Nin or anything, mostly it's like City of Falling Angels (disappointing and boring) or young adult books, like Son of the Mob by Gordon Korman (excellent and funny).

So right now it's Heat. I hadn't expected the content to be a problem for the kids to overhear - it's about cooking, right? But I was wrong.

We're tooling along the highway, the kids are jabbering happily to each other. In the book, Buford is describing Joe Bastianich commenting unfavorably on a restaurant in a village at the base of the Apennines. All of a sudden the Big Man says, "Stop the tape!"

I stop the tape, and Big Man says, "That man on the radio just said 'Joe'!" (They have an Uncle Joe and aren't aware yet that it's a fairly common name.)

I say, "Well isn't that something!"

"Yes! chirps Mr. Three, "And also he said 'fuckers'!"

Wuh-oh, red alert - don't laugh, figure out how to nip this in the bud, we are on our way to mom's and really the last thing I need is them whipping out their favorite new word in front of Grandfather. He would pee himself laughing and I'd never hear the end of it.

Big Man repeats, "...FUCKersss..." really savoring the word. "That's a GOOD word!"

"No it's not," I say. "It's really not a word at all." Lie Number 3,590. When they learn to read they are gonna be pissed.

I pop the tape back in hoping to distract them and hoping Joe Bastianich watches his fucking language for ten more minutes.

The narrator intones, "This story continues on Cassette Two."

"Cassette Two..." both boys repeat, tasting the consonants... "Ca-ssette Two!"

A forest, and a road, and a place where you buy tires, and I don't know what that place is

| View | Add Favorite
Ohhhh, I bought a tub of sidewalk chalk and now the sidewalk chalk it's all up the walk!
[Uhhhh...]
Yo, ho, blow the man down!


| View | Add Favorite

Engineers in red shirts. Sorry it's so dark. There are more pictures from this episode on Flickr.

Bob's rum of love

Bob's rum of love
Originally uploaded by pwilnyc.

Cut up a whole pineapple and jam it into a big jar.

Split a vanilla bean and put it in too.

Also a piece of brown Mexican sugar (piloncillo) to the tune of about 2 Tablespoons.

Pour in as much rum (Wray and Nephew overproof is optimal, Myers dark is second choice, a mix is also good) as will fit.

Stick in the freezer for a couple weeks, or leave it at room temperature for half a day.

Strain through cheesecloth into a pitcher, garnish with lime.

Drink in moderation. Seriously. This stuff is so smooth that it will Mess You Up.

UPDATE: This picture has been getting a lot of conversation on Flickr.

• Q: "Doesn't the glass break?" A: No, the mixture doesn't freeze so there's no expansion.
• Q: "Is the pineapple edible?" A: Bob says the pineapple is wonderful when you start with a nice ripe fruit - he served it at the Church Council of Greater Seattle and apparently they were enraptured by the pineapple. When we did it the other day the pineapple was a little mushy, but Bob says it wasn't much of a pineapple to begin with.

In addition, Bob would like to disclose the fact that this recipe is adapted from one in the Coyote Cafe cookbook. He had one of the fanciest meals of his life there, in Santa Fe, accompanied by this drink, which they called a Brazilian Daiquiri.

I'm reading (listening to) Heat, the book by Bill Buford about his time in the kitchen at Mario Batali's Babbo. Maybe people shouldn't write about restaurants. As in Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain's funnier book about Les Halles, the kitchen staff come off as immature, griping, coked-up children who have somehow gotten ahold of sharp knives.

I loved Bill Buford as editor of Granta, but this book is half a biography of Batali, who kind of doesn't merit biographizing, and half an account of Buford's tutelage in food preparation. There's nothing really new here. And I tell you, it doesn't help that the guy who's reading it sounds like he should be narrating a documentary about Renaissance art. Every time he has to read a cussword it's like it's in verbal quotes.

Think big

I happened upon the Baltimore Clear Sky Clock today. My first reaction was the usual unalloyed delight I have in discovering people more geeky than myself... and this is really a super thing, cross-referencing moon phase and cloud cover to show at a glance the optimal times for astronomical observing.



A guy named Attilla Danko (could you make that name up?) wrote it, for the good of humanity and the glory of being cited on some obscure blog like mine.

There are links here to topo maps, to satellite images, and a cutie-pie service that emails you whenever viewing conditions are at their best.

There are also clocks for 2839 other locations, in case you needed an excuse to call your brother in Seattle at 4am. "Get up! Get up! Now is the moment for Comet Giacobini-Zinner!"

(Have you created your own personal astro-calendar yet? Once you choose which types of events - meteor streams, eclipses, whatnot - you wish to keep track of, you can "import events into Outlook, your PDA or other personal planner software - to be alarmed before an event takes place." I'm alarmed already, frankly.)

But my second reaction was - damn - Baltimore blows for stargazing.

something I never wondered

Came across this totally by surprise. I still miss working there.

If you don't check out A Softer World, you are missing it. If the lesbian dinosaur joke didn't convince you, this one should. Oh, ow, or this one.

This might help

Cooooool
Originally uploaded by pwilnyc.

Auntie Jane took this one too. I just heard that there are big blackouts up in her part of the suffocating Northeast - if you're up there in Boston sweating, Janie, this is for you!

Or you could just pretend you're in South Africa. Maybe those Rapture weirdos are right after all.

Mystery bug identity revealed!

It's a robber fly! Thanks, Anonymous commenter (Mary I'm pretty sure) and thanks to your Bob too.

Everything you ever wanted to know about robber flies is here.

Insects are so cool. Back when I worked in New York, we knew people who spent their lives studying ants or wasps. There were lots of jokes about the wasp guys, but for some reason nobody ever mocked the ant people.

Even I, who obliterates ants with a genocidal fury, have spent more time than I care to acknowledge watching their aimless progress across the kitchen floor and wondering just what the fuck? There's obviously a lot more going on there than meets the eye. I imagine it is in this spirit that our old friend Barrett Klein has been busy depriving wasps of sleep in recent years.

I try not to prod the kids too much, but I am always on the lookout for situations that encourage their curiosity and prompt them to develop their observation skills. I feel pretty strongly that I've only ever learned anything by looking.

Big Man looking at a skipper
Originally uploaded by pwilnyc.

Your Neighborhood Librarian thinks she's seen it all, but it turns out she can still be surprised by her colleagues

Your neighborhood librarian may be... a rock star!

(Not the one wearing a jock over his pants. That guy's not a librarian. I mean, please.)

I was early to see the Senators at the 8x10 last night and the opening band struck me as not amateurish or too self-involved, juvenile in a good way, and having really a lot of fun. I hate describing bands. "Good" or "Boring" are the two different words I use, and this band fell on the "Good" end of the spectrum.

Anyway, as I wander closer to the stage, I squint: that bass player sure looks like Our Current Token Male Librarian, which is who he turned out to be.

And why not?

What is this bug?

What is this bug?
Originally uploaded by pwilnyc.

About an inch long and he could fly too. Big bug. Ugly bug. And me without a bug book.

Hello Vader!

All I gots to say is...



Oo I hope this person comes to Baltimore for Otakon!