Art / Design

The Moth is a live storytelling series. Sometimes the stories are true, and sometimes they are factual. Always they are interesting.

Here’s a sample.

The Moth will be in Pittsburgh in August, and I’m so looking forward to it.
American Shorts @WYEP presents The Moth in Pittsburgh

Nerves of Steel: Stories of Moxie and Might

Hosted by

Jessi Klein

Featuring stories by
George Dawes Green (founder of The Moth)
among others

Stories begin at 7pm
at New Hazlett Theater
Allegheny Square E.
Pittsburgh, PA

Tickets: $20, $25, reserved seating

http://www.pittsburghlectures.org/interior.php?pageID=238

If you can’t attend the event, they also have a podcast.

Recently, my niece Rachel found this white ceramic cat at my parents’ house. She carried it downstairs by herself.

The cat had been a Christmas gift for me years ago and was a prized possession. This was during a period when I was nicknamed “Pussycat Doggie Girl,” thanks to my habit of crawling around houses on hands and knees, either mewing or barking depending on whether I felt more like a cat or dog at the time.

I think that’s my father’s handwriting. He’d also have been more likely to include the date.

Sometime to shake things up I would be a horse instead, but somehow “Horsey Girl” didn’t stick as a nickname.

Thirty-some years later, my niece has taken up this animal-impersonation habit, completely on her own and much to the amusement of everyone. Here she is, a momma cat carrying her kitten.

She’s also been playing with the ceramic cat. She’ll put it and her stuffed kitty in a laundry basket and then crawl in with them, three cats in a nest together.

As adorable as that sounds, my parents decided I should take the ceramic cat to my own home — one tiny step toward clearing out clutter from their place. For now it’s in my living room. My live cats have taken little notice of it, until tonight when I took these photos to share on the blog.

I always thought of the ceramic cat as larger than life-size. It’s only now, seeing my real housecats next to it, that I see it’s been just about life-size all along.

Meow.

Here’s how I knew I need to go on a clothing diet: Yesterday I read about Six Items or Less in the New York Times, and, while I felt inspired by the people who restricted their wardrobes to a bare minimum of items for a month, I felt more inspired to buy more clothes.

Specifically, I felt that I needed a pair of jeggings — an item of clothing I’d never heard of before, denim-ish leggings. Clearly the perfect thing to straddle the line between casual and hip. I also thought I would do well to get some more black tank tops, and a versatile black dress that could be accessorized to be dressy or day-to-day. I started searching online for an ideal pair of jeggings, ignoring the nagging thought that my closet is crammed to full to fit even a tiny pair of jeggings or leggings or even flip-flops; my two bureaus are overflowing with clothes; and I have yet more dresses and coats and stuff in the basement and garage.

Eventually I convinced myself that I would rather attempt a six item clothing diet with only clothes I already own. I consider this bit of shopping self-control a major win already.

The idea of a clothing diet is this: Choose 6 items of clothing and wear them, and only them, for a month. Underwear, socks, and pajamas don’t count; I’m also not counting workout gear, nor clothes for yardwork (still have a half a yard full of forsythia and regrown weeds to battle in the next few weeks). If you have several duplicate items, like white t-shirts or black tank tops, you can count that as a single item since it really just reduces your laundry efforts. Accessorize in any way you please.

I’d previously thought of trying something like The Uniform Project, in which a woman wore the same dress (actually multiple copies of a dress) every day for a year. But the focus there was on creativity, whereas I’m more interested in simplicity and focus.

I’ve thought often of adopting a uniform, like Steve Jobs and his black turtleneck/blue jeans, or like habits worn by the nuns at my grade school. How lovely it would be to not fuss each day about what to wear, I’d think. Over time I have in some ways simplified my wardrobe, color coordinating it so that it’s easy to mix and match. Even so, it still takes time and mental effort each day to choose an outfit. And I’ve hesitated from making a commitment and really sticking with a uniform of my own.

No more. Starting today I’m wearing these items for a month:

Long black skirt
Light-weight khaki pants
Brown knit capris
White t-shirt
Black tank top
Crinkle-dyed embellished top

The big decision was whether to include a jacket, for client meetings. In the heat of this summer I haven’t worn a jacket in weeks, so including one would feel like a waste of an item for this project. And over the next few weeks I don’t anticipate many meetings with new clients — we’re mid-project on several jobs. If a meeting does come up I may be able to squeak by with the embellished top and skirt, or black tank and a scarf.

One of the interesting points that the Six Items of Less participants made was how few people even noticed that they were wearing the same clothes over and over. In part this may show how clever folks are at accessorizing, but I think it’s also true that people on the whole don’t notice what others wear. Will anyone notice that I’m wearing the same clothes every day? I’ll let you know.

Want to join me on the diet? We can be our own support group, ready with a calming word when the compulsion to buy just this one awesome pair of pants feels too much to bear. We can do it!

Last week in the CSA share that my mom and I split, we had the option to try two kinds of wild greens: purslane and lamb’s quarters. We took a bag of each, and Mom kept the purslane to try while I took the lamb’s quarters.

Lamb’s quarters (that link includes lots of photos) are a relative of spinach. They tasted a little like spinach to me, but also like wild leaves, although not unpleasantly so. The leaves themselves are smallish — at least mine were — and a bit more tedious than spinach to pick off the stems and wash.

Mixed with warm lentils and red wine vinaigrette, topped with feta, the lamb’s quarters were delicious. Here’s the recipe, provided by the Northwest PA Growers’ Co-op and attributed to “Facts on Edible Wild Greens in Maine,” Mahmoud El-Begearmi, Extension specialist, nutrition and food safety, University of Maine Cooperative Extension; Bulletin #4060.

4 cups water
1-1/4 cups dried lentils
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon dried whole oregano
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 small clove garlic, minced
3/4 cup (3 ounces) crumbled feta cheese
3 cups lamb’s-quarters, well washed

Combine 4 cups water and lentils in a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to low, and cook 30 minutes or until tender. Drain and set aside.

Combine 2 tablespoons water, olive oil, vinegar, oregano, salt, pepper and garlic in medium bowl. Stir well. Add lentils, cheese and lamb’s-quarters; toss well. Serve warm or at room temperature. Makes four 1-cup servings.

For this, I used a French feta cheese, Valbreso Feta, and I need for you to know that it is the most exquisite feta cheese I’ve ever tasted. Salty and just barely tart, and somehow also wonderfully sweet, like the goats had eaten only cherries their whole lives.

PLCB User’s Group reports that Herbsaint is now available in Pennsylvania liquor stores.

Herbsaint was developed as a substitute for absinthe when the latter was banned in the U.S.

The Herbsaint now available is a replica of the original recipe, and it’s getting fine reviews from the cocktail cognoscenti. I look forward to making a Sazerac with it.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

I spent most of my waking time online, so you might think I’m always up-to-date with the memes (recurring themes and in-jokes) currently circulating the Internet. I’m not; far from it. In fact, the more time I spend online, the more memes I learn about that I’ve not known about although they’ve been around for years.

Take the list in this paragraph from a story in this week’s NYT Magazine, “When Funny Goes Viral,” by Rob Walker:
If one function of ROFL in the online ecosystem is to bring people together around something funny, it also draws lines. The memes of the moment change constantly; new variations are added to its language and older material is recombined to shift or add to its meaning. A MemeFactory presentation I caught at New York University was adizzying blur: Boxxy, David After Dentist, Star Wars Kid, “Downfall,” Advice Dog, “Imma chargin mah lazer!” Crasher Squirrel, “This is Sparta!” multiple Japanese cartoon clips, a new Chat Roulette prank, Weegee and so on. Your reaction to that list — incomprehensible? kind of played out? — says something about your relationship to “Internet culture.”

Of those memes, I knew with confidence only three (and that only means I could define them and point to one example — I don’t know every variation on them or memes that have evolved from them), recognized one more (”Downfall”) after reading more about it in the article, and could take a stab guessing two or three others.

(Walker’s article provides a nice introduction to Internet culture, at least for a mainstream audience. And for anyone who, like me, thinks they know what’s what on the web, it’s either a reassuring confirmation, a wake-up call, or a useful filler-in for any gaps in knowledge. Also useful is danah boyd’s blog post about 4chan, “‘for the lolz’: 4chan is hacking the attention economy,” which can catch you up on where many Internet memes come from and how chaos can be a seed of culture.)

Does it matter that I don’t recognize or get the majority of memes? I feel like it does. I used to feel uncomfortable not knowing the source of most pop culture television references, but that no longer bothers me. I watch relatively little television, and over time I’ve gotten to feel OK knowing that most references go over my head because I’m not putting time and attention into being current. Similarly, it should be clear to me that to stay current with every new meme that comes up, I’d need to spend most of my day watching YouTube videos, reading Boing Boing, and surfing forums, which I wouldn’t actually enjoy. So why do I feel a little like a failure each time I discover that a meme has been around for a year without my encountering it?

Are you in tune with Internet culture? Do you care?

Happy birthday, Atomic Age. Photo of the Trinity Gadget via If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There’d Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats: The Future is Now #27

Dear writerly types:

The next time you find yourself putting the distant bark of a dog into a story, ask yourself why, and whether it’s really the best choice:

Novelists can’t resist including a dog barking in the distance. I’ve seen it happen across the spectrum—Jackie Collins, William Faulkner, and Chuck Palahniuk: “There was no more rain, just an eerie stillness, a deathly silence. Somewhere a dog barked mournfully.” (American Star) “She did not answer for a time. The fireflies drifted; somewhere a dog barked, mellow sad, faraway.” (Light in August) “This is such a fine neighborhood. I jump the fence to the next backyard and land on my head in somebody’s rose bush. Somewhere a dog’s barking.” (Choke)

from “Somewhere a Dog Barked” by Rosecrans Baldwin in Slate

  Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

  Letters from a Stoic

Dead Souls: A Novel

  American Rust: A Novel

New options to Mad Men Yourself. Related: I would enjoy a Martini right about now.

“Introducing Cat! The new compact, selfish dog.”

David Mitchell’ Soapbox: David Mitchell ponders the origins of the word Camelopard

I have a personal rule never to buy first generation technology: I am happier every time when I wait until the bugs and kinks have been worked out. Let the early adopters take the glory of being the first to have a fancy new gadget, since they are willing to pay more and to suffer through the early manufacturing defects and expected problems with, for example, antenna interference when you hold the device in the most obvious and comfortable way.

But there are times when I’m sorely tempted to break my rule. Times like when I watch this amazing film:

“Apple of My Eye” – an iPhone 4 film – UPDATE: Behind the scenes footage included from Michael Koerbel on Vimeo.

(via Mike Industries)

A beautiful sight

Today I continued chopping down forsythia and then hauled a bunch away. It was a great day for it, as long as you didn’t mind the strong sun, high heat, and humidity. There was a fairly consistent breeze, which helped.

Somehow I failed to apply sunscreen — I didn’t even think of it, which is entirely out of character. I wore 3/4 length sleeves, specifically so that the sun wouldn’t burn my shoulders, and yet somehow I didn’t think to apply sunscreen to the rest of my arms, nor to the not-insignificant space between my wide-necked collar and my hairline.

For some this wouldn’t be a big deal. For me, with my Irish/Polish ancestry and general allergy to sunlight, it’s a massive error. My neck is currently flamingo pink and only getting brighter. One summer, I went canoeing for a day without sunscreen and ended up with 2nd degree burns. This can’t possibly be that bad, but it’s certainly that stupid.

Anyway, at least I accomplished a lot. Three or so more forsythia chopped — one being the big one on the corner — plus some inroads into the very large forsythia on the far side of the driveway. And almost all the branches hauled away!

If you aren’t familiar with forsythia, the photo at the top of this post might be alarming. Surely I can’t have intended to cut away all the leaves and branches! But indeed I did, because forsythia likes nothing better than to grow back from scratch. Within a few weeks, those bare stalks will all have new growth, and by this time next summer those will be fully fleshed out shrubs. Plus, the pretty yellow flowers in the spring grow only on new growth, so the more I cut them back, the prettier they are the next year. It’s a weird little (not little) plant.

Cut shrubs on the left, uncut on the right -- much left to do

The mother of all forsythia, on the far side of the driveway

I’ll tackle that one last.

Black raspberries!

My reward for working in the yard: black raspberries growing in a corner of the yard. More will be coming ripe in the next few days. Now that I can get to them, I’ll be able to eat them before the birds do for once.

Sure, that looks safe, no problem

My brother-in-law lent me his truck for the afternoon, and I was able to cram all the forsythia I’ve cut so far into the truckbed. I did have to tie it down with a tarp, and I confess I was not entirely sure that everything wouldn’t go flying when I started driving this up Route 8 to my parents’ land. I spotted a classic Mustang following me for a few miles — out for a showing at Cruisapalooza no doubt, or maybe just for a sunny summer jaunt — and I noted how far back he stayed, wisely keeping a wary out for flying tarps and springing bungees.

But the bungee cords held firm and nothing escaped. I tossed the branches in a field of goldenrod — let the forsythia battle a new plant this year! — and drove back home to guzzle water and shower off all the sweat and bits of twig and bugs.

It's glamorous work

It’ll take all week to regain the energy to go back for the next round, and from the looks of it I have three or four more two-day bouts yet to go. Next time I’ll remember the sunscreen of course, and if I can load the branches directly into the truck instead of staging them in a pile I’ll save some effort.

This hasn’t made me any more inclined to spend time landscaping or gardening my tiny plot of earth. But I do feel some accomplishment every time I look at where those bushes were and are no more. Small victories are still victories.