Hellebores. The first of many posts about hellebores. Dahlias are great but not quite as great as hellebores.

 

These are all new transplants with their very first flowers. I think I moved them from near their mother plants 2 years ago, or maybe just last year. The big surprise is that they have that inner ruffle, which I've never seen in my hellebores. I have a lot to learn about these random double blooms.

 

Last week I went to a plant sale at the American Horticulture Society in Alexandria, VA, and I met one of the authors of this book. So I had to buy it. Hellebores, also called Lenten roses, may be the perfect plant: they require virtually no care and very little sun, they survive very cold winters (the picture below shows my blooms under the last significant snow we had in late March), they produce many seedlings that can be easily moved, and (drumroll) deer won't eat them. Deer do, however, stomp on them so they still have to be protected a bit.

Bullfrogs. Lots and lots of bullfrogs.

 

I took this video last weekend when the bullfrogs  (I think they're bullfrogs) in the pond next door were having a spring orgy. Turn up the sound to hear them singing. Since they are said to be a bio-indicator species, I guess the pond is in good shape, despite all the poison some of my neighbors apply to their lawns and that runs into this pond. I'm not one to nag neighbors about the harmful things they do in their yards, but my family sure has to listen to me complain about it.

This is the pond in February or March, with a couple of ducks on the left standing on the thin ice.

Noooooooooo!

 

I've always had a late-night guy to watch on TV. For some years now Stephen has been my favorite. This is a sad day for me because it looks like Stephen is going the way of all the other late-night white dudes (with the exception of late-night Steve Allen, who only very old people will remember). Stephen's going to the land of interviewing starlets. Noooooo!

 

On the up-side, I'm very happy for Dave, who finally gets to retire. He's certainly made me laugh over the past 30-odd years.  

True Detective.

 

I want one of those Lone Star beer can men. He's made about five so far.

 

I like both Rust Cohles. The older one and the younger one. The HBO show True Detective is addictive and just weird enough to have pulled me in. And not quite as violent as other series on TV. Disturbing, but not terribly violent.

In Sunday's fifth episode the screenwriter Nic Pizzolatto has Rust spout string theory. At least that's what a couple of other viewers have suggested on Slate.com -- see below. And this! Well this is just hilarious.

Calabi–Yau manifold (3D projection). From Wikipedia.
 



A 2D slice of the 6D Calabi-Yau quintic manifold. From Wikipedia.

 

 

From the Slate article:

I did think Rust’s speechifying this episode—especially as compared to the early episodes—was starting to feel a little far out and pretentious in a nonsensical way. Membrane theory, schmembrane theory.

Haglund: Membrane theory (or M-theory) is presumably an example of the “legitimate scientific and philosophical thought” that Pizzolatto is very fond of. (Update, 4:55 p.m.: In the comments, Dan Schiller notes that Cohle is probably saying “M-brane,” rather than membrane. Brane is short for membrane; both terms are connected with string theory.) Pizzolatto has defended Cohle’s speechifying from charges that it’s just dorm-room bullshit. Me, I love listening to McConaughey talk...

The love of books knows no bounds.

From the Harrison Memorial Library, Carmel, CA.

 

 

 

Tip o' the hat to the Beastie Boys.

Early Days of the Internet.

From some guy at The Daily Beast

America Online was a magical part of the Internet. ...
 
Here’s how it worked. You went to your “computer room.” The den, the basement, wherever your family’s single PC—a big, clunky desktop—happened to be parked, ...You turned it on. You clicked on the triangular America Online icon.
And then you entered your screen name.
 
What unfolded next is a thing of the past—an ancient ritual...
 
You waited for the modem to connect. It dialed. It screeched. It sent out waves of anticipatory static. It probably got a busy signal. Finally, after a couple of thwarted attempts, a chipper male voice announced that you had arrived. “Welcome,” it said. “You’ve got mail.”
 
 And with that, you were free to explore the web’s pleasantest walled garden,...—at least until someone else needed to use the phone line.

Illustration by Henry Darger.

I quilt. Occasionally.

 

My good friend Shannon and I have been making quilts together for, I don't remember how long. (We met in 1991 so sometime between then and 2003.) Here are the most recent paired quilts we made and swapped as Christmas presents to each other. As always, we started with the same fabrics, and the same basic pattern and idea, but then we did our own special design and surprised each other. (Top quilt made by me, now living with Shannon. Bottom quilt made my Shannon, now living with me.)

Downward facing kitty (Clarence) above. He LOVES this quilt.

 

 

They were great fun to make, and now she and I will start working on another quilting project. TBD.

Sunset tonight, from my front steps.

We're supposed to get 4 to 9 inches of snow starting early tomorrow morning so I don't know what all that "red sky at night sailor's delight" business is about. If I were a sailor I don't think I'd be heading out on the Chesapeake Bay tomorrow morning.

Two unrelated items. Or maybe they're not unrelated.

With Mad Men off the air for a few more months, I have no must-see TV these days. Or maybe it's called "appointment TV." But HBO started a new series on Sunday called True Detective, and after Doug previewed a bit of it and deemed it "not too violent" I decided to try it out. (I don't do violent on TV or in movies any more, which is why I don't see a lot of movies or watch a lot of TV.) One of the characters in True Detective has this monologue that really grabbed me by the throat. Here it is. I fear he's right. Screenwriter is Nic Pizzolatto.

"I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in human evolution. We became too self aware, nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself. We are creatures that should not exist, by natural law. We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self, a secretion of sensory experience and feeling, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody's nobody. I think the honorable thing for our species to do is deny our programming, stop reproducing, walk hand in hand into extinction, one last midnight, brothers and sisters opting out of a raw deal." Rustin Cohle (played by Matthew McConaughey) in True Detective

And this YouTube video is also wise. Quirky but wise.

Patti Smith: A parody. A loving parody.

 

I just finished reading Just Kids by Patti Smith. I loved it, which I wasn't expecting. I've never been a fan or a non-fan of hers. The only thoughts I've had about her for the past 45 years or so involved the one song of hers I know well, Because the Night, that she wrote with Bruce Springsteen, and a brief encounter Doug and a friend had with her many years ago. They were in a coffee shop/sandwich shop in Georgetown in the early(?) 70s and she was there too. Our friend feels he stared her down. Maybe yes, maybe no. For some odd reason, that meaningless little anecdote has always stayed in my brain.

I think my admiration for this memoir is related to my age -- Patti is 3 months older than me -- and also because my very first New York City experiences were in the late 60s and early 70s, exactly the years she covers in the book. I spent many weekends in the city and those brief trips made a permanent mark on me. Even back then, when the city wasn't at its peak -- higher crime rate, near bankruptcy, frequent strikes by sanitation workers, I fell in love with the place. I liked (and still do) the hustle, the attitude, the grit, the eccentricity of the people and architecture, the sense of optimism.

Another person who liked the book posted this parody on Goodreads.com. I thought it was hilarious, right on the mark, and I hope Patti reads it too because I think it will make her laugh.

"I was crossing Tompkins Square Park when I ran into a young man wearing a gabardine vest. He smiled at me and called me "Sister." It was a young George Carlin. Robert hated him because he frequently had flakes of rye bread in his beard, but I loved how he could make me laugh with his impressions of Mick Jagger. On this morning, though, we wept together at the news that Paul McCartney would have to sell his house in Cannes. It was a sort of paradise for us, even though we'd never been. George gave me a feather to put in my hair, and I took it home and pressed it between two pieces of crepe de chine, where it left a ghostly impression. Robert insisted on using it in a construction, and finally I relented, though I knew I'd never get it back. It was a sacrifice to art, the sort of thing Rimbaud would've done."

Full review here.

More about that New York City trip.

The day we arrived it was snowy and brisk, but not exactly blustery.

 

Downtown Brooklyn, which means sort of in the northwest part of the borough.

The young couple at a Mexican place near their apartment.

A block from their apartment, which is in, sort of, central Brooklyn, on the northeast corner of Prospect Park.

Sean and Doug in downtown Brooklyn.

 

 

 

Shots of their apartment, featuring Robert, left, and James.

A legal smile.

Mark Wootten, left, and Tom McCoy purchase marijuana products at the LoDo Wellness Center. Colorado residents can now buy marijuana like alcohol, but purchases are limited to an ounce at a time.

From here.

All my life I've been saying "nope, it won't happen in my lifetime." But there they are! My g-g-g-generation! Look at those geezer smiles.

New York's High Line in mid-December.

Above: Doug (left) and Rebecca walking south on the High Line. We started at the north end and walked down to Sean's office at West 22nd.

 

 

Can Pope Francis get any better?

"I invite even non-believers to desire peace. (Join us) with your desire, a desire that widens the heart. Let us all unite, either with prayer or with desire, but everyone, for peace," he said, drawing sustained applause from the crowd.
Source

 

Merry Christmas Eve, y'all.

 

I'm very happy with my book tree.

This was very good. Onion, bacon, and apple tart. Or quiche.

 

I got this recipe from another blogger, Zazzy at zazamataz.com. Below is her recipe re-created in my shorthand style. For a more thoughtful and nuanced recipe see her site.

 

Make or buy a single pie crust

 

Cook bacon strips (I used about 8 for the tart shown here)

Remove bacon from pan

Saute a lot of chopped onions in the bacon fat

 

Add salt, pepper, and

1 peeled green apple cut into smallish pieces

 

After the onions and apple are nicely cooked, crumble the bacon on top, stir it up, and cool it off a bit

 

Add onions to pie crust

Whisk together 4 eggs and 1/2 cup milk (or cream)

Pour it over the onion mixture

Sprinkle with shredded cheese

Bake in preheated (375 degree) oven for 40 minutes

 

It was especially good the next day.

 

I made my own crust using this recipe. And I par-baked the crust, as suggested by Zazzy, something I've never done before and never really knew about, although I might have guessed what it was.

 

When Doug asked what we were having for dinner and I said onion tart I don't think he knew exactly what to expect. After dinner I asked if calling it a bacon-onion quiche would have given him a better picture of what he was going to eat, and he said yes. "Tart" conjures up sweet; quiche conjures up salty. This is definitely salty, with just a hint of that sweet apple. I think you could leave out the apple and/or the bacon and it would still be good. You could even possibly leave out the cheese, or use a lot less.

 

[Bottom picture is evidence that I lack impulse control.]

What freezing rain sounds like.

 

The noise is mostly, but not totally, coming from the rain/ice hitting the canvas overhang on the front porch. Some of the noise is coming from the rain hitting the frozen ground, sidewalk, and steps. We get worse weather but this variety, typical of December, is pretty nasty for anyone in a car.

Seven hours after this video was taken it's still raining but the temperatures are supposed to creep up above freezing overnight so I hope there will be just wet roads by the time we have to be on them in the morning.

Cookie money.

For 2 weeks I've been doing something that really makes very little sense. Inspired by a friend who recently became a paid freelance copy-editor for an SEO company, I applied too and was hired. Three weeks ago I barely knew what SEO meant. Today I know a little about it but there's still a whole lot I don't know.

I don't know if I'm working for a white hat or a black hat SEO outfit, or for a shade of gray in between. Their website says they are white hat, but that doesn't totally reassure me. I feel quite sure that I'm not personally doing anything illegal but I don't know what the rest of the company is doing. And I'm not sure what legal even means when it comes to SEO.

I know that I'm making about $1 or $2 an hour, when you count all the time I spend checking my email. I earned $11 my first week, $13 last week.  I think of it as my cookie-buying money. I love to copy-edit and proofread. It's extremely satisfying and after decades of doing it, it comes pretty easily to me. But wow is there a lot of crap being written for godknowswhere on the Internet. Blogs and newsletters I guess. But whose blogs? A major chain book store is one client, a recognizable blue-enveloped coupon company is another. Somebody's blogging about coupons? Apparently. Where?

Writers are instructed to never mention the company in the articles. Instead they must use certain keywords -- an example would be cool deals on eReaders -- which should be worked into the copy three or four times. Writers make $5 a story so a writer who can pump out four an hour could make $20 an hour. Most of the stories are quite awful. Competently written, but lacking much in the way of news or consumer advice or useful information. Could you string together 600 words about how to use coupons online to get discounts on hotels in Delhi?

All of this feels a little dishonest and I hope it's not. It's just advertising, right? Advertising 101 these days. Like Mad Men but with the Internet. 21st century would-be Don Drapers and Peggy Olsons sitting in their PJs in front of laptops clacking out blather about baked beans....or the Lumia 2520 tablet by Nokia.

I don't know how long I'll do this. Although it's fun editing, it's not fun keeping my eye on my computer screen from about 2 PM until sometimes 10 PM or later, waiting for the writers to finish the stories I've been assigned to edit. This is seriously eating into my reading time, and I probably won't tolerate that for long. I don't let it interfere with dinner though, which means about 2 hours of inattention on my part while the stories pile up waiting for me to get to them. The workload varies wildly. On some days there's nothing to do, and on others there are so many stories to be written and edited that the supervisor of the writing/editing team peppers all of us with short little emails throughout the evening saying "There's a lot more to do tonight gang so let's speed up a little so everyone can sign out soon!" They like using the word "gang" in emails. An attempt to make us feel like we're all part of one big happy family I guess. A family working for about a quarter of the minimum wage.

Dare me to?

 

Above picture was sent to me tonight by Book Buddy and all-around good friend Stephanie. She knew I'd love it. And I do.I will put my tree on the sun room. Very excited! Being vaguely pagan, heathen, or at least a-religious I'm not much of a Christmas person, but I do worship books so what could be more perfect?

Something that makes sense.

 

"Oslo — The Norwegian military said Tuesday it plans to put its troops on a vegetarian diet once a week in a bid to fight a new kind of enemy -- climate change." Full story here.


I say hooray for the depressed Norwegians. They really, really get it about what individual people can do to have even a prayer of halting this runaway train we call global warming/climate change. I fully believe that human actions -- not evil intent, just normal human progress -- is the major cause of [probably] harmful climate change. I'm part of the problem -- you don't see me giving up my car, or moving out of my too-big house, or even (yet) giving up beef. So when I see a large group of people who DO make meaningful changes I'm impressed. The Norwegians have hit upon a really simple way to make a difference. And improve their health at the same time. 

Here's a good article about the connection between beef and climate change. I'm not giving up a nice juicy steak now and then, but, inspired by the Norsemen, I hope to cut back a lot. Fair warning husband and son!

More about my book list.

 

I would like to make my book list even more perfect by having each author listed only once. Right now, nine of the 93 books I've listed are by just two authors:  Willa Cather (top, five novels) and Edith Wharton (four novels). George Orwell accounts for three titles, and the following authors each have two novels on the list:

John Updike

John Galsworthy

James Baldwin

James Joyce

James Salter

Jack Kerouac

Carson McCullers

Aldous Huxley

F. Scott Fitzgerald

 

If my math is right, and it often isn't, I think that means I have to remember 18 other books I've read in order to make every name appear just once on the list. Oh joy! I can now spend more hours checking lists of books and the dates published to make updates to my list.

 

20th Century books I've read.

A Century of Books

1900:  Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
1901: 
1902:  The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
1903:
1904:
1905:  The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
1906:  The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
1907:
1908:
1909:  Strait is the Gate by Andre Gide
1910: 
1911:  Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
1912:  Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
1913:  O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
1914:  Dubliners by James Joyce
1915:  The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford 
1916:  A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
1917:  Summer by Edith Wharton
1918:  My Antonia by Willa Cather
1919:  My Man Jeeves by P.D. Wodehouse
1920:  Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
1921:  To Let by John Galsworthy
1922:  Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
1923:  The Fox by D. H. Lawrence
1924:  Billy Budd by Herman Melville
1925:  The Professor’s House by Willa Cather
1926:  The Silver Spoon by John Galsworthy
1927:  Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
1928:  Point Counterpoint by Aldous Huxley
1929:  A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
1930:  The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
1931:  Babylon Revisited and Other Stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald
1932:  Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
1933:  Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
1934:  And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov
1935:  A Clergyman’s Wife by George Orwell
1936:  Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell
1937:  The Citadel by A. J. Cronin
1938:  Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
1939:  The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
1940:  The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
1941:   What Makes Sammy Run by Budd Schulberg
1942:  The Stranger by Albert Camus
1943:   The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
1944:  The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
1945:  The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald
1946:  All the King's Men by William Penn Warren
1947:  Aurora Dawn by Herman Wouk
1948:  The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh
1949:  1984 by George Orwell
1950:  The Town and the City by Jack Kerouac
1951:  The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
1952:  East of Eden by John Steinbeck
1953:  Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
1954:  Lord of the Flies by William Golding
1955:  After Dark, My Sweet by Jim Thompson
1956:  Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz
1957:  On the Road by Jack Kerouac
1958:  Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
1959:  A Separate Peace by John Knowles
1960:  Rabbit, Run by John Updike
1961:  Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
1962:  We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
1963:  The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
1964:  Herzog by Saul Bellow
1965:  The British Museum is Falling Down by David Lodge
1966:  Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
1967:  Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin
1968:  A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley
1969:  I Know Why the Caged Bird Sing by Maya Angelou
1970:  A Fairly Honourable Defeat by Iris Murdoch
1971:  Black Sun by Edward Abbey
1972:  Surfacing by Margaret Atwood
1973:  Nickel Mountain by John Gardner
1974:  Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert N. Pirsig
1975:  Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
1976:  Ordinary People by Judith Guest
1977:  Death of an Expert Witness by P.D. James
1978:  The Sweet Dove Died by Barbara Pym
1979:  Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
1980:  The Second Coming by Walker Percy
1981:  Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith
1982:  Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant by Anne Tyler
1983:  Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
1984:  White Noise by Don DeLillo
1985:  Continental Drift by Russell Banks
1986:  The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
1987:  Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
1988:  Dalva by Jim Harrison
1989:  The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
1990:  Immortality by Milan Kundera
1991:  The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan
1992:  The Secret History by Donna Tartt
1993:  Montana, 1948 by Larry Watson
1994:  Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
1995:  The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle
1996:  We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates
1997:  Midwives by Chris Bohjalian
1998:  Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
1999:  Plainsong by Kent Haruf


To be read, so I can fill in the blanks.
1901:  MY BRILLIANT CAREER by MILES FRANKLIN
1903: THE CALL OF THE WILD by JACK LONDON
1904: THE GOLDEN BOWL by HENRY JAMES
1907:  THROUGH THE EYE OF THE NEEDLE by WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS
1908:  THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY by G.K. CHESTERTON
1910:  HOWARDS END by E.M. FORSTER
1919:  MY MAN JEEVES by P.D. WODEHOUSE Read 2014

It took me a long time, and I mean a long time, to complete this list. I get obsessed at times.