WFMU's Beware of the Blog

I Was a Viking Once

I was a Viking once.  I led a ship, and I was a woman. I know it sounds crazy, because we don't hold Vikings to be suffragettes in the common sense of the word, but this was just one of the many positions of authority I supposedly held in my previous lives.  The Viking ID made the most sense to me.  I am still a major fan of Scandi Design and who doesn't love a well tailored, padded leather tunic?  I never pick up my iron spearhead without one.  But the underlying proof of my Viking past is my attachment to the sea.  Sort of like a mythical Irish silkie,  made land locked by her lover stealing her magical seal skin, I am just not myself when I get too far away from water.  In my imaginary life I live in a lighthouse, surrounded by lapping currents and crying birds.  And of course a huge Newfoundland dog, to aid in sea rescue.  A few weekends ago I lived that imaginary life, alas without the Newfie, for a mere 24 hours and it was truly magical.
     The Saugerties Lighthouse, in Saugerties NY, is one of several lighthouses on the east coast that were once made redundant, and then got a second chance as a bed and breakfast.  Built on the Hudson River in 1869, it was inhabited by a lighthouse keeper and family until 1954. That changed when the Coast Guard installed an automated light, no longer requiring a keeper, and the house fell into disrepair.  It has since been taken over by a conservancy group and fitted with two guest bedrooms.  Restored as it might have looked in the early 20th century, with a working Victrola and coal burning stove for heat, the lighthouse is indeed a century away from New York City, located only one hundred miles up the Hudson.  To add to the thrill of disengaging from modern life, you hike out about 15 minutes along a densely covered peninsula, to reach the lighthouse, and this must be done avoiding high tide, as the path is then covered in a foot of water.  You thought your last tour at Glastonbury was muddy...

After we spent our restful night at the lighthouse, under the newly installed watchful solar beam, and showered in collected rainwater held in a cistern, we ate a wonderful breakfast prepared by the innkeeper Patrick, and headed out for the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. A little chance and the calling of a handsome graphic made us screech to a halt at Lucky Chocolates.  Some of the best chocolates this side of Paris, I do declare (and remember I was a Viking and have traveled the high seas, so I should know).  Gorgeously handmade and exotically flavored, I loved the Earl Grey best, but don't stop there, try every flavor if you can.  A few doors down from Lucky Chocolates on route 212, is a shop entirely devoted to English food, if you are in dire need of Yorkshire tea, which it so happens I was.  Order has been restored to my universe, once again I am drinking my favorite tea, and all it took was a trip to a lighthouse on the Hudson to make it all work.
      The Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary is located 8 miles west of Woodstock.  It is a nonprofit organization that provides a home for animals who have escaped from slaughterhouses, rescued from abusive situations, or in some cases just had no where else to go, once a farm closed shop.  Their mission is education about the horrors of industrialized farming methods, but their goodwill ambassadors are such charming farm yard friends that they will have you re-thinking your last hamburger and start you on a quest to find ways to incorporate more lentils into your diet, or at least that was the effect it had on me. 
     I can't honestly imagine living in the early 19th century, where a broken bone would have most likely led to amputation, but I can yearn for a lighthouse of my own, and still dream about my idol Ida Lewis, and wonder why, at the very least,  she doesn't have a rest stop named after her.  In the meantime, regular trips to Saugerties will tide me over.

Crocheting for Crustaceans

I took the ferry across the Hudson river last week, and left from under the watchful smirk of the newly restored clock tower at Hoboken's Erie Lackawanna train terminal.  It's a truly gorgeous old school terminal, with a beautiful waiting room, often full of sunshine and aimless people sitting on one-hundred year old benches.  I carefully mention my use of mass transit since we are mere hours away from Earth Day, and every advertiser  ('dude, they use horses to pull their beer trucks') including the US government ('we...ummm...think we should...ummm...perhaps think about reducing greenhouse gases') is working hard to milk the moment for personal gain.  I actually adore taking the ferry, except I don't usually need to go where it stops.  But this day I was en route to the World Financial Center to see a truly heroic task of many hands working to restore years of ecological damage with quickly repeated swoops of a crochet needle.
     Coral reefs across the world are dying off at rates faster than rain forests. You can put an end to this madness by crocheting your own.  Or that is what twin sisters Christine and Margaret Wertheim are promoting...sort of.  Simultaneously scientists and crafters, these two women have encouraged people in various communities to contribute crocheted pieces of an ever growing coral reef simulacrum, to dramatize the beauty and oddness that we would irrevocably lose if coral reefs continue to die out due to overfishing, pollution and maritime mucking about.  The group-hug quality of humans, from knitting and crochet circles around the globe, contributing their personalized efforts to this ecological alert is a wonderful reminder that we CAN actually find something to do with all that crazy leftover yarn we keep stuffing back into our closets (or for all the non-knitters of the world that the individual can affect change for the good).
        I am just a tad overloaded with the "oh, look at me, I am so green" commercialism of Earth Day this year.  If a major chain retailer really wants to stop contributing plastic bags to landfill, why don't they give away a canvas bag with their name on it, instead of selling it?  Helle Jorgensen, one of the contributors to the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef project gives a great tutorial on how to make your own yarn from plastic grocery bags and then suggests making your own tote bags, or underwater sea creatures, or hats, or you name it.
     While at the World Financial Center please take advantage of sitting under a palm tree.  A Californian friend tells me LA is no longer planting these akward beasts, as they are not native and are difficult to maintain.  On a more tragic aside, the under the stairs "nook" which WFC assigns as a gallery space is quite abject.  It spells out rather clearly where these financial titans see art in their commercial haze.  I don't know how to change this view of "non-commercial" activity, but I do know that if we continue, as a society, to let profit be our guiding light there will be no change that will ever contribute to, restore, or enhance civilizations to come, be they underwater or on dry land.  Unfortunately that sentence seems a little long to put on a tote bag.  But here's a few things you can do, that won't make a multi-national any money:

1.  Grow raspberries in your yard.  This will be year 3 for our berry fence.  We started out with just a few runners from a friends patch, and it has grown into a hardy spring and fall fruiting blast of deliciousness that happily grows along, and obscures, a rusty chain link fence.  I sunk a soaker hose and put it on a timer, so it gets the water directly to the roots, instead of wasting it on the leaves.  Raspberries worked out better for us than strawberries, because the nasty urban squirrel nibbles all our strawberries but can't seem to get at the dangling raspberries.

2. Keep a herd of worms in a plastic tub and do your own composting of food scraps.  Our yard is only 12 feet wide, and partly shady, so we couldn't exactly make a compost pile without it being the centerpiece of the yard.  A delivery of worms later, and we are on our way to creating rich soil from worm castings, and reducing our weekly garbage.  Even the city of San Francisco composts. They charge residents to haul away non-organic trash but pick up food waste for free, composting it, then selling the black gold results to golf courses and garden shops.  This has also significantly reduced their contribution to local landfills.

Doris Duke, just your local wacky rich babe

A beautiful heiress with 5 houses is not the usual  neighbor.  And for the locals who grew up in her Hillsborough, NJ nabe, the reclusive Doris Duke was not exactly a household word, or at least while she was alive.  But once the televised summation of her will hit the airwaves, everyone had a story to tell about the kooky rich babe who built multi-story access ramps for her many dogs to let themselves in and out of the rambling mansion.  Doris Duke spent a certain amount of down time in rural NJ, when she wasn't jetting to her homes in Hawaii, Newport RI, sunny California and elsewhere.  But unfortunately right now some of what is left of her NJ presence is quietly being ushered out, to ready her estate for its next big thing.
     In 1925 when she was only 12 years old, Doris Duke inherited $80 million of a family fortune, the other half mostly going to her father's foundation and namesake, Duke University.  Born in NYC she continued into her teenage years in a townhouse that is now home to the fine arts department of NYU.  In between several unsuccessful marriages and the 'accidental' death of a date, whom she pinned to a tree with a car in Newport, Doris Duke fell head over heels in love with horticulture and all of its leafy greatness.  She designed many greenhouses on her Hillsborough property, recreating gardens she had seen in Europe and Asia.  Duke  opened these gardens to the public in 1964. These greenhouse display gardens are still open to the public, free of charge right now, but only until the 25th of May.  After that they will be closed indefinitely while the Duke Farm steers a new path into the future.  Housed in Victorian styled glass mansions, these gardens are meticulous in attention to age old detail, and lush in growing splendor.  Even the desert scape is designed to make you feel a bit thirsty around the edges.
     When I first visited the greenhouses, in the mid 90's, her aging Irish butler, Bernard, had inherited a chunk of Doris's estate after she died, and was still living on the property.  As a result, the grounds were kept under mission-impossible style surveillance.  Visitors parked in a small lot by the front gate and were driven to our destination in a unmarked van, blindfolded.  Naaah, but it sounded good... Today the massive grounds are open to walking, bike tours and family events.

Besides her 2,700 acre NJ refuge, Doris kept herself busy with jazz piano, gospel choirs, high fashion and amassing a huge Asian and Islamic art collection, most of it housed at Shangri-la, in Hawaii.  But some did end up in NJ, and a small Thai village is in half-erected storage on what used to be the indoor tennis court, right next to the pool.  Unfortunately most of the furniture was sold off to add funds to her charitable foundations, so the house isn't quite a replica of her time, but a strange tour all the same.  Photos prompt  a bit of what life was like under Doris, but it is best to get the guides who are willing to share some of the gossip.   When I toured Rough Point, Duke's Newport home, our tasteful confessor filled us in on the camels sleeping in the sun room during hurricanes and stories of the Saudi prince that she got them from, as a gift with the purchase of his private jet.  And if all of this house touring just isn't enough, HBO just showed an imaginary what-if-this-was-how-it-was-movie called Bernard and Doris starring Susan Sarandon and Ray Fiennes as the out of the closet butler,  and confidant .
     Doris Duke surfed with Duke Kahanamoku, adopted a 35 year old Hare Krishna woman she met at a dance class - only to 'regret' it later, and stole into the Newport Jazz Festival to invite jazz greats to jam at her ocean side mansion.  It's not nearly as impressive as having a NJ rest stop named after you, but Doris did have access to better fashion designers than Molly Pitcher.

all my worlds are melting together in a chocolately mess: how do we measure artistic success?

It's not often that I talk about The Bad Brains.  I suppose I could talk about the legendary, whacked out, ferocious uber-hard core band to whomever I choose.  Whether said conversationalist would really care, or appreciate the many threads that this timely band knotted the rock world up into, is the issue.  Apparently Andrew Wagner, new editor of American Craft magazine, cares.  Recently he spoke at a craft conference and opened his talk with a video viewing of the Bad Brains performing "Pay to Cum", drawing parallels between the punk rock world of yore and the DIY alt-craft world of today.  "Of course", you say, "the links are apparent."  BUT to an editor of a national magazine?  This is not the market-driven, editorial stance of a man burning with desire to climb a Conde Nast-style stairway to success.  Andrew Wagner would not be interested in that kind of a fuddy duddy staircase, as he was one of the founding fathers of DWELL magazine, a forward marching interior design mag that knows a thing or two about innovative stairs.   Wagner's commentary left many attendees feeling cut out of the craft loop.  I suppose artisans who have trained for years, studied at prestigious schools and labored through the assigned career tracks do no take well to untraditional upstarts trying to change the way the world is viewed.  My question is, where does this lead us?
     I am positively overtaken with glee at Wagner's cross-pollinating the world of craft with American Hardcore.  Too often, the standard of measurement used to assess the artistic worth, value, achievement, and place of something is in the dollars of the original idea.  That is to say, everything made today is compared to what has already been made in the said sub-division and therefore the limits of how to read this "thing" have already been established, and then mildly modernized.  So we rarely get to look at an heirloom potato through the lens of 16th century Venetian glass, or talk about quilts made by share croppers in the same breath as Sun Ra.  I suppose we can if we are in a French art film, but it is usually assumed you have smoked an awful large heap of ganja to seriously compare or contrast different mediums, methods and constructs, never mind, varied time periods and ideas.
     In last week's New Yorker, Adam Gopnik wrote a piece on magic  that I wouldn't have given a second glance at, except I truly enjoy Gopnik's writing.   On top of the colorful characters and hidden worlds he exposed, Gopnik described an analogy about the making of magic that  opened up the imaginary debate that was raging in my head about the art of how we evaluate.  "The better it is done the harder it is to see that anything has happened."  Eureka!  Often when we look at art, watch dance, or tune in to the Tour de France we see a hidden expertise that, when truly profound, makes the hours of repetition, study and exertion melt away.  When we listen to a band that picked up their instruments for the first time last week, or receive a hand made valentine from a child, we see the labor and oddity.  The space between their achievement and accepted excellence is noticeable and assumed to be a problem.  What if it wasn't?  Is the problem that rules haven't been met?
     So much of what is evaluated when we judge heavy metal guitar, painting, or knitting is technique, which is a result of rules of order that need to be met before the public feels safe being invited in to assess.  Is it because we all then know the rules and won't be taken off guard by some breach of security?  What if I don't like the rules or perhaps the boring dialog?  How then does this discussion grow to include more varied responses to the world?  How do we move beyond technique?  Or mere good looks?
     There is a "new" rock station on the New York City FM dial.  I can't even tell you it's name or where it is, because it isn't really new in the sense of offering you anything you haven't already heard.  But I did hear an ad that sounded more like a tutorial, about how today's new rock station is all about variety, and that's good.   But of course I didn't truly understand that phrase because the music they then played was rather just like the canon of rock that we all know and...know.  I was bemused by their idea of variety.  How do we make variety look like something you already know...isn't that what the modern marketplace is based on?
     I am reading a fascinating book right now, very overdue at my local library, called "The Discovery of France" by Graham Robb.  I started this book because of an interest in France, but kept on reading because it is a gorgeous weaving on how modernity shapes, splits apart, unites, and rids humans of simplicity, and individuality, in favor of progress. Robb spins truly intriguing tales of villages across France that had never looked much beyond their borders until the French Revolution ushered in a government that looked to tax and describe these varied peoples as one.   France's borders had coupled disparate groups, posing as a country, but the industrialization of the late nineteenth century started to lessen the unique groups and homogenize some of their standards of living.  Not just historical, it is a sociological tale of how humans from small idiosyncratic tribes grew into a systematic nation.  Talk about marketing.

Fast Cars, Large Supermarkets: Meringues and Old Supermarkets

I imagine for most of us, the first real experience we had with the modern world of chain stores was the local supermarket.  And depending on how isolated your  hometown was from the cosmopolitan world of multiple market offerings, when you discovered another market, very different from the one you grew up with, you were stunned, disappointed, perhaps awed, or maybe none of the above.  Were you one of those children who ate only white food?  Maybe the culture of the aisles of offerings was not something you can summon from your childhood.  I think because food is such a primal link, I can still 'see' the visual differences between the markets of my childhood, and can remember feeling disappointed when a chain would expire and another would take its' place.  Even in today's real estate marketplace, one of the largest physical aches a neighborhood can feel is the loss of a large grocery store that no retailer feels the need to scoop up, leaving an empty totem surrounded by prairie-like concrete expanse.
     I lament the loss of uniqueness in the marketplace.  It feels like today's modus operandi is to make all stores look alike.   This copycat method is so uninteresting to me.  It has a numbing effect, driving me to avoid this experience however I can.  One of the pleasures of a vacation is stumbling upon the local, wacky leftover store from days gone by and taking advantage of the unusual offerings, sort of like going shopping in a foreign country and buying food in an unintelligible tongue. 
     I had an online flirtation with Fresh Direct, the new virtual supermarket whose huge trucks might be clogging an intersection in your NY metropolitan neighborhood as you read this, and I am not won over.  As much as I lament the loss of the visually arresting supermarket moment, I am not ready for the search by sub-heading, postage stamp photo approach.  I want to spend less time in front of my computer, not more.  Not that I want that time to go out and shoot an elk for dinner, but I want to see the food, and perhaps be prompted by the sight of something I have never bought before.  That is the siren experience of your local green market, colors and smells command your attention, tightening their grip around your wallet as you try to eek past.
     As much as I am waxing on about  an old-time religious supermarket vision, we all know that supermarkets did some things awfully, and have irreparably affected our vision of this food forever and ever.    I enter supermarket exhibit #1:  Meringues.  I always thought they were colored cardboard puffs, until I made my own, rather unconventional ones.  Last week I supported the WFMU fund raising, phone-answering troops with some of these, and heard hurrahs all around. 

Chocolate Almond Pecan Meringues

Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.  Line 2 baking pans with parchment paper.  I now use a pan with a slight rim, or else be careful when pulling these from the oven, the parchment paper has a tendency to slide off...Bake the meringues for 2&1/2 - 3 hours without opening the oven.  Then turn off the oven, and leave them in there for at least 15 minutes.  Cool completely before removing from pan.  Meringues will turn out softer or firmer, depending on the humidity (it's nearly impossible to beat egg whites when it is drenching out).  Store them in an airtight tin lined with wax paper.

6 egg whites (separate them when they are fresh out of the fridge, then let them come to room temp before beating)
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
3 Tablespoons of super quality cocoa
1/3 cup of almond meal
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup chocolate chips
1/3 cup chopped pecans

1. Sift together : powdered sugar, cocoa, salt.  Add almond meal to bowl     and mix well.

2.Beat together the egg whites and vanilla at high speed until they form stiff peaks.  Fold in sugar-nut meal mixture followed by chocolate chips and pecans.

3. Drop by tablespoon onto prepared baking trays. Bake as above.

the big pink

Not to be outdone, by Ken and Kenny G's swanky dress-up outfits yesterday, Liz Berg and Trouble have pulled in the big gun(s) for this morning's Fundraising Marathon show...

BUY ME, or at Least Label Me: Why is Culture Sold to Us?

     In the halcyon days of 1638, when the first printing press was shipped to the US, the colonists imagined that the ability to communicate with many people simultaneously would do massive amounts of good for the new world.  I feel I shared that sense of limitless joy last week while reading the NY Times.  It was there on page one that I discovered something buried within me, needing to be labeled.  For years, I had been carving out my identity as an over-educated artist/DJ/black sheep of the family/potential Buddhist/educator/gluten-free/bohemian.  That all came crashing to the floor when I recognized myself, as an 'EcoMom'! 
     Not only was I apparently in denial, but alas, I was doing it on my own.  Thankfully, the printed word hipped me to the many groups I could be part of, that could offer me support in this rough transitional moment.  Of course, you can see my unbridled joy at this important discovery.  What was I doing swapping out vinegar mixed with water as a window cleaner,  when I could be in a chat group trading quips about my kitchen smelling like fish and chips, but with very clean windows?  According to the article over 9,000 women have committed themselves to an organization that encourages them to unplug appliances when not in use, and to cut back on the amount of waste they generate by using washable containers for their kids' lunches, instead of plastic bags. Great!  Except, why do we need to be working toward a merit badge and do this in a group?  What ever happened to the pioneer spirit?  I fear it is cloaked in we-are-all carrying-the-same-cloth-totebag consumerism
     I can't find fault with many of the wonderful ideas that crop up in the latest living room version of Tupperware parties.  I use low VOC paints in my house, but this newspaper reporting stinks of a marketing moment gone wild.  Lately, many articles I read in the paper of record that don't detail body counts in East Timor, relate a story that suggests the author knows at least 3 people who are  doing this miraculous new 'thing' and it needs to be chronicled as a trend.  I know we are all still talking about the cultural importance of roller blades, or 'in-line' skates as we now know them to be more impartially called...but what about the substitution of the marketplace for thinking, looking and feeling?  Why does 'all the news that is fit to print' not feel the need to discuss the addiction to marketing and shopping that seems to fuel our 21st society?  Articles in home design magazines chiding happy readers to go green suggest buying window cleaner made with vinegar, instead of making your own.  "Throw away your old wooden chairs" (add to the landfill) "and buy new ones made from recycled soda bottles!" 
     Woman are the targeted audiences in this green marketing revolution.  Artist Martha Rosler skewered the disconnect between domestic reality and world tensions in the 1960's and 70's in her Red Stripe Kitchen photo montage, above, and Semiotics of the Kitchen video work that are still very resonant today.

WFMU includes music made 100 years ago, still sounding as crackly as when it was first recorded, next to home grown DIY tuba toots, and computer generated hum.  I don't know exactly what we would call it, but we don't sell it as a marketing trend. When listening to free form, (gulp, no marketing advice taken), listener-supported, WFMU you never know if the next song is going to be recycled, reconstituted, mashed up, or environmentally sound...Pledge to this uncategorizable lifestyle, my dear free formers, and think of how much vinyl we are keeping out of the landfill with your heavily recycled dollars. 

war and peace

"You can not simultaneously prepare for war and peace."  Albert Einstein

Friday's NY Times had a stunning article on the effects of military tours of duty in Iraq on the families of the soldiers, and increased rates of horrible domestic abuse.

What have U done 4 me lately? cool links

It's post-New Year.  Grey days abound and  young hearts turn to contemplation of the wonders that St. Valentine's Day can bring.  But at WFMU the signs of affection between a listener and his or her radio flow freely 365.  We beg and plead for your monetary consideration during our annual fundraising baccaunal (starting Feb 24!),  but YOU - kind listener - you tend our creative fires all the long year, in any way you can.  In October, Listener Dale was kind enough to share a found scientific drawing, explaining the body parts of a lamb with 4-H panache.

     In November my life was permanently altered, thanks to Listener Lou, as I now know more than any average Swiss person about how to make cheese.  Lou had hipped me to an artisanal cheese fest happening in Morris County NJ at Valley Shepherd Creamery I noticed that they offered cheese making classes, and before you could say "Julia Child likes butter" I had signed up.   An eight hour class taught by a supremely chatty and in the know cheesemaker, with a little cheese-aging cave time of 60 plus days, produced my very own fab hard cheese from a mix of sheep and cow milk raised locally in Morris County.  Eran, our cheese guide, shared secrets and lessons he has learned in his years of sheep rearing and cheese making.  Not the least of which is that real estate seems to be on the top of any cheese makers lists of unique ingredients.  Valley Shepard wants to make more cheese, but that would require more sheep and that would mean more land for these lovelies to graze contentedly.  You see what I mean.

     Listener Charles from Manhattan asked me if I was a Francophile.  In some parts of the bush those could be fighting words, but for me that sentence is music to my ears.  He passed along a link to a wonderful French web site that invites visiting musicians to participate in a small music video of spontaneous co-creation.  Sometimes it is shot on the move, sometimes it is shot abroad, but it is always enchanting and so very nouveau vague in spirit.

In The Bleak Midwinter: Movies to Itch By

In the deepest darkest winter, viruses and disease are bound to find temporary accomodations at your house and mine.  We encourage these weary travelers as best we can by stumbling around sick and refusing to stay in bed, even when the tissue box attached to our sinus cavity obscures our vision.  But there are microbes that defy socialization and sniffling over the office water cooler:  Chicken Pox.  The common Poxis Uponus rears its ugly head even in the direction of adult males of the species who should have been there and done that when they were in short britches.  Alas, DVD rental to the rescue.
Once the intensive "remain in bed until at least one part of your body doesn't hurt" stage is over, patient is free to roam to the couch and find a way to make bearable the next 10 days of waiting for the euphoric scabbing-over.  In our house, this includes lots of hallucinogenic drugs in televised format.

It is always best to start with a walk down memory lane.  "H.R. Pufnstuf" is not a gateway drug, it is it's own final destination freak out.  Aside from the lovely Puppet land country roads of a back lot in Hollywood, one watches H.R. for the character depth.  A giant, southern accented, roly-poly, cloth covered mayor saves our scampy human friend Jimmy from the big bad witch, and all sorts of adventure follows as she pursues Jimmy and his magic flute.  If you were raised by leftist librarians, like my husband was, or are new to the world of TV, like my 7 year old is, H.R. will either make it plain to you why Hard Core Punk was inevitable for a generation of wild childs nursed on said Saturday morning TV, or offer you the golden key to incredible silliness and laughter.  Either way I say "go there, go".  Apparently, HR of the Bad Brains agrees with me.

Just Keep Adding: Diary of a Pumpkin Stone Soup

      
     I finally finished reading the wonderful Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, and am slightly dedicated to the idea of trying to eat seasonally and locally. The slightly part was due to the fact that here it was January and I hadn't put up any vegetables or fruits from a massive summer of gardening like Barbara and her family had done, and I was unfortunately living in Hudson County, NJ, where the only locally grown crop is new housing construction and graft.
     But high on the idea that I could at least eat seasonally, I spied a 5 Lb. pumpkin that has been sitting on my kitchen window ledge since late August.  It was just starting to show signs of fatigue as I sliced it open and began the long journey towards a delicious soup (whereas DJ Icepack was convinced I had promised pumpkin pie for dinner...).  I bake my pumpkins with apple juice or cider, cinnamon, and honey to give a little sweet flavor,  but that does add to the prep time.  Cook a larger pumpkin and the extra can be packed up into smaller servings and frozen, to make the next soup or pie a lot faster.
     I found a gorgeous looking recipe in The Greens Cookbook for Basque pumpkin and white bean soup, so I quick soaked some beans (cover dry beans in water and bring to a boil, shut off and soak for at least an hour), and popped the pumpkin in the oven to cook.  We wanted to roast the pumpkin seeds to eat later, so instead of making a soup stock from the seeds and stringy bits of the pumpkin (!!!-and not the band...), as Deborah Madison asked us to do, I shortcut to a box of vegetable stock.  So at this point I am making far too many dishes for a girl with no dishwasher, as the pumpkin is cooking in the oven, beans are simmering on the stove and stock is gurgling in the back.
     Once the pumpkin is tender I add the required one pound to the stock  and half an hour later, the beans.  I taste this 3 hour DJ mix and I am horrified that the pumpkin tastes so very untasty.  Not one to give up, I retire this soup for the night and hope that tomorrow it will be flavor-flav and dinner will go on.  But just in case, I grab a 2Lb. bag of roasted pumpkin from the freezer, for a potential pumpkin emergency the following day.
     Day 2: AAACK!  no way is this soup edible, seasonal or not. I quickly mash up the defrosted 2 Lbs of Pumpkin and throw it in.  The magical blender stick makes a delightful puree of the previously forsaken orange-ish mash, I sautee some mustard greens, cook a cup of red quinoa and add all of this with a few cranks of dried red pepper and NOW we are talking soup.  Grab some chunky bread and a chunky red.
     Motto of this story:  Don't let a dull meal beat you down.  Show that pot who is boss, and never leave home without your magical blender stick. 

Soundtrack, played over and over, while stumbling down this pumpkin strewn road: Bearded Ladies, various artists compilation of gothy-folky ladies on B Music, put together by Jane Weaver.

Girl with Leaves: Lucian Freud at the MOMA

This past week, instead of ruminating on my New Year's resolution options, (to be more patient), I thought about modern conventions I was thankful for.  Day after day, the same lightening bolt hit me: modern plumbing. Not the Bisazza tile-lined sleek modern bathrooms of design porn, just the wonderful ease of a working toilet and hot shower. I don't know why this seemed to trump open heart surgery or Google, but it seemed like a huge quality of life issue I needed to be thankful for, and happy that the days of my gramma's out house are long gone.
     Monday, resolution in head, I ran to the Museum of Modern Art to catch the raved about Seurat show before it closed.  While everyone I know found it to be jaw droppingly beautiful, instead I fell in love with an unlikely contender; Lucian Freud's etchings.  Not a huge fan of Freud's prickly paintings, or etchings in general, I wasn't supposed to love this show.  
     The exhibit includes early paintings, perhaps as a reference point to the starkness the etchings conjure, that are fantastically odd.  Very cold and other worldly, especially when compared to his thickly painted, more contemporary work, Girl with Leaves, is fabulous.  The icy black and white etchings, enlivened by Freud's scratches and sputters, talk more about post World War II malaise than many realist painters of his era.  Francis Bacon is my fave Brit painter of this mid 20th century period.  I adore the way he works the canvas vs. reality conflict  into a fever through color and composition.  Freud is not going into any of those dark corners here, but the space between the etching lines whispers more than his tubes of paint usually can.
 

DJ Trouble's top 10 and then...

-I'M NOT THERE by Todd Haynes  Breathtakingly beautiful, his provocative film about what music is, what it does to the people who make it, listen to it and love it, left me floating on a cloud.  Truly a subject that Todd Haynes holds close to his heart, his musings about music have been slowly leaking out in his previous films; SUPERSTAR: the Karen Carpenter story and Velvet Goldmine.  I am not a massive Dylan fan, but his music sounds perfect as it tumbles out of alien mouths, telling us the story of being human in America.  The CD soundtrack is also a great compilation of interesting characters, some that didn't make it into the movie.

-Meg Baird, DEAR COMPANION
The  first solo effort by Espers band member Meg Baird is a collection of traditional based and more contemporary covers, gorgeously sung and played.  I still haven't been able to get this cd off my heavy roatation mix.

-SECOS & MOLHADOS
A band of profoundly skinny and campy Brazilians making the most tuneful,wacked out, dirgey pop tunes to come out of post Tropicalia Brazil.  Massive stars in their homeland, Scott Williams was the man who
introduced their hard to find 70's sounds to most of us at the station, but then I found a budget re-issue at my local record shop.  Strange indeed...

-FANS of WFMU who live far and wide, and communicate their affections, and their stories about where they are grooving to our free-form vibe.

-MARISSA NADLER live on This is the Modern World.  Marissa and Miles  win the "most gracious" award for continuing to play beautifully through a fire alarm and noisy visit by the JC Fire Department.

who is brooklyn?

You don't need me to point out that if you stay inside your apartment for a week, in this greater metropolitan area, when you emerge you might not recognize your nabe.  Depending on the real estate vibe your block has, the sound of tear downs and rebuilds could be your daily, not-so-ambient, soundtrack.  Bottomless private pockets eradicate historical landmarks in our towns and cities in the name of  economic growth, taking away major memories like Asbury Park and Coney Island along with the incidental but gorgeous drugstore from the 1960's that had continually illuminated your corner with a blinking glow.  (This is my I am fed-up with over development
rant, don't worry it's almost over)  And unfortunately corporate concerns frequently don't include public day to day activities:  food shops, schools, gas stations and neighborhood niceties like home-made mozzarella or brick-oven baked bread.
     Downtown Brooklyn has lately been embattled in a private vs. public real estate war, that creates a new use of "public" government as the ruler of all it surveys.  Local groups such as Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn have created a community presence providing information and lobbying power to offer an alternative voice to that of corporate concerns.    
     Samara Smith responded to this battle, compiling two years of documentary sound recording, interviews, and research to create Anyplace, Brooklyn, an audio walking tour that critically examines this struggle, while providing guided observations on the visually changing downtown landscape.  Every Saturday in November, you can get a more personalized lowdown on the eminent domain and re-organizing of city streets around Fulton Mall.  Anyplace, Brooklyn asks that you bring a cd player or downloads on an MP3 player.  Noon-2pm; free and open to the public.

Good reads that give a glimpse into our greater urban metropolis in long days gone by:
Low Life by Luc Sante
Five Finger Discount by Helene Stapinski

The Waterfront Museum and Showboat Barge, in Red Hook, offers this reading list on Brooklyn.

no sheeeeep till brooklyn

Sheep have it bad.  One the one side we have the infamous Minor Threat analogy that to be like sheep in the modern world is the lowest of the low.  To follow blindly and accept anyone/any trend as leader seems to be the unfortunate choice of so many overstimulated American consumers (because we have now devolved into consumers, a definate downgrade from de Tocqueville's citizens).  On the other side of the pasture fence, is the peaceful little bundle of soon to be wool, that only asks for a green patch, and yearly sheering to blithely carry on its' eco-cycle of no-kill production of goods.  Well, yes, occasionally there is the one too many rams that need to be shipped off to start their own commune or perhaps eaten.  Of course the natural solution would be to let the wolves thin the flock, but unfortunately they don't kill by gender, and then all those handsome llamas and master sheep dogs would be out of work and that could get very ugly on a Saturday night  in downtown small townville.

ANYWAY, there I was  killing time while in line at my semi-local, overpriced, out to crush the little guy organic supermart and a lefty publication caught my eye, suggesting vegan options to WOOL!  Wool, the perfect no-kill winter weather protector?  Wool, the happiest product of the sweetest little rambouillet and hebridean? 

The article cited industrial sheep farming in Australia, as the destructive culprit, suggesting sheering leads to some animaIs freezing to death, and being unfairly treated. While I am not a vegan, I  do surely know that Industrial farming can lead to no good end.  What about all the small-time farmers who raise sheep as members of the family, naming them and grieving emotionally and financially if one should pass on before its time?   To take this encouragement of  avoiding wool to a practical application; If no one wore wool, then wouldn't sheep die out, in that no one would raise a farm animal that  wasn't  bringing in money?  I can't really continue this train of thought, it's too horrifying to think of a world without sheeeeeep...

For those who worship sheep and all they stand for, the holiest of weekends is fast approaching:  the annual Sheep and Wool Festival held at the Rhinebeck, NY fair grounds, October 20, 21.  Hundreds of vendors and small farmers from near and far haul their prized animals in to show folk how good the pastoral life can be. In past visits I've met some wonderful longtime farmers and just starting out, second career folks who are working hard to find a way to make a living off the land in an wholistic and individual way.  Quick, make that reservation for your Zipcar to carry you away to the land of sheep dog trials, home spun yarns, alpacas, maple candies and fabulous lamb stew.

we'll always have the meadowlands, or will we?

A name can be a very strong signifier of a quality of place.  Travel outside these paved flatlands and whisper New Jersey to strangers and watch the nodding heads announce the onset of mental images floating to the top of their musky brew of stories, true and false, of the people who choose to brave the stereotypes and call this place home.  I am one of those people and this is my story.  Well actually I am not B&R (born and raised)  which I need to come clean with immediately, because depending on which side of  Hudson County  you live, this is truly, truly significant info. Any interaction I had with Hoboken authorities, when I lived there in the nineties, would start out with a birthplace question.  Today, in Jersey City, when anyone in our house calls 'Downtown' the city employee on the other side of the phone frequently sums up their response with, " Well, you weren't born here where you?"

But what if I could shift your perception of New Jersey in a short afternoon?  What if it involved no magical powers and no transferring of large sums of cash?  I had just such an alteration this weekend that I would encourage to everyone.  I took a boat ride on the Hackensack River through the innards of the Meadowlands marshes and it was gorgeous!...and weird...but gorgeous.   It is truly surreal to be quietly floating within miles of NYC, surrounded by placid water and waving marshes, while in the distance the NJ Turnpike whooshes by, leaving nearby snowy egrets unfazed and uninterested. 

The Meadowlands was once a  21,000-acre glacial lake, home to great woolly mammoths, much later followed by Lenape Native Americans and eventually Dutch settlers.  The area seriously tanked, post World War II, when industrial debris initiated the process of filling in/destroying the salt marshes. The building of highways I-95 and I-80, along with mountains of illegal dumping gave the Meadowlands the stench inducing image made concrete in Woody Allen's Broadway Danny Rose, and countless NYPD tales of high profile bodies gone missing.  Today the water is significantly cleaner than it was in the 1970's, in part due to grass roots organizations like Hackensack Riverkeeper, and their legal efforts to make polluters accountable for the destruction.   Unfortunately many of the toxic chemicals have not been permanently eradicated, merely temporarily plowed over until money can be found to do more lasting and costly clean-ups.  But don't tell that to the nearly 300 bird species that have been seen enjoying the floating views of NYC, framed by fiddler crabs, marsh grasses, and long forgotten industrial sites.  You can rent canoes and kayaks from April to October through Hackensack Riverkeeper, or spring for a boat tour of the marshes with captains Bill or Hugh.  The crowd is not exactly Loisaida on a Saturday night, but you could always book an entire pontoon boat with a group of fifteen friends, pack your Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches, sunscreen, and a Pabst Blue Ribbon, and feel the open natural space, Great Blue Herons and abandoned moth ball factory vibe.

Further reading:
The Meadowlands by Robert Sullivan:  information and character filled read on the Walden Pond of northern NJ

He plays bass like a guitar

On occasion, I find myself aloft in the middle of mainstream music land, feeling like a tourist in my own backyard. Having so very little experience on this side of the performance coin, I observe with wide eyes and come away changed. This past weekend I had the good fortune to see ZZ Top at the Beacon Theatre, back stage passes and all. I would love to share with you some observations:

- They kick butt. Wow. Long grey beards and all.

- The digital, Light Brite looking, backdrop thing is sooooo not working. Except when I tried to take a picture of the HEARTS dancing across the screen and they morphed into a giant vintage car.

-The audience men wear their hair long so they can shake like girls. Or, so we thought until we discovered that she actually was a she, and not a he. If you are a man, and shaking your seriously long curly hair while wearing a black concert t-shirt, it adds metal street cred if you are a South American tourist.

-The macho audience, mostly dressed in thinly veiled versions of the most obvious rock stereotypes, doesn't seem to mind campy, white fur covered guitars and strangely choreographed dance.

But all of this was not as mind boggling as the serious mental pat down we were given before we were allowed to enter the bowels of the Beacon for the back stage meet and greet. I realize our handler was just doing his job, but it was an adult version of not being picked for the cool dodge ball team. After he ejected some un-attentive guitar dealer VIP idiots, we were advised to rescind our outstretched hand if in fact no one chose to shake it, do not ask to have any part of our body autographed, and basically don't speak unless spoken to. If the band wanted to see us after the initial viewing, our handler would tap us on the shoulder and we would retire to the inner circle, which was a few feet away from the outer circle, neatly ringing the glowing coke machine. This all seemed so divorced from the music of ZZ Top, and that made it all the freakier I suppose. I felt badly for the band, having to do this dog and pony show after every concert.  But every girl's crazy about a sharp dressed man...

Salad Days and Salad Ways

     Ahhhh, the early days of summer and a dj's mind turns to thoughts of...Salade Nicoise.  I just came back from a week at the beach, renting a lovely little shack with the tiniest kitchen, where merely boiling water felt like making entrees for ten.  To overcome the need to cook daily I did most of my cooking the first day and nibbled off that for nearly the rest of the tour.  Many versions of fresh salads followed, relying heavily on the farmers market and dried/canned accesories.  Loads of fresh lettuces are cluttering up the aisles right now, along with young squash and cukes.  Use 'em or lose them. 
     My secret ingredient, which is not for purists, is french lentils. De puy lentils boil up quickly with a bay leaf or two for flavor. Drain them and while warm coat with olive oil, coarse sea salt, and fresh herbs and they are ready for any salad making jobs you might present them. Eat them like this or you can add lemon or tarragon vinegar to the mix.
     As a seasonal dessert accompaniment chez moi, we are starting a Fourth of July/14th of July tradition of  red, white and blue, berry shortcake.  I am lucky that our patriotic colors overlap with our friends the French, where my heart truly lies.  O' for the good old days when their government punished les traiteurs, with a visit to the guillotine, instead of a patriotic commuting of prison sentence.

Salade Nicoise: The basics,  serves 6

Lettuce, any style or color
One pound of green beans, stemmed, steamed, then cooled
Tomatoes 3-4, quartered, or a dozen or more cherry tomatoes
Red potatoes, small and evenly sized, 8-10.  quarter, boil and cool
6-8 hard boiled eggs, cut into 8 piece
1/2 cup Nicoise olives
3 Tbl capers
Minced parsley
1 can chunk tuna, packed in oil
Freshly opened, small can of anchovies

In Julia's kitchen, not mine

Ridiculous, I know, but I pride myself on my ability to avoid cooking meat.  While I am not exactly a vegetarian, I greatly prefer the vegetable family to the meat family; besides the ethics, mainly for its performance on the dinner plate.  I can whip vegetables into a Chez Panisse-inspired taste frenzy, whereas red meat no matter how delicately prepared always seems stringy and dry.  Alas my new found fascination with the godmother of television chefdom, Julia Child, is in direct conflict with my vow to avoid meat.  Solution: my assistant chef and all around husband of the hour will tackle all meatious-beastious dishes.  In the summer, that consists of grilling in our urban backyard, much smaller than most suburban garage footprints.  Only once did we have to whisk all visitors into the house to avoid the ten-foot flames.  No fire fighters were summoned, we save that for the car explosions out front. 
Alas, in the dead of March we are forced to follow Julia Child down the french path for non-natives.  Trying to use up the organic, free range stew meat we bought last fall from Bobolink Dairy, Beef Bourguignon (beef in red wine sauce) became the night's meal.  Note to the lovely reader:  my assistant chef Andy is not by any means a skilled chef.  He reported this recipe translated easily to the lay man's ability and he learned a few new stylees in the process.  For vegetable accompaniment I cooked the super amazing warm red cabbage salad from The Greens Cookbook by Deborah Madison, and sauteed some mushrooms in butter, with shallots, per Julia's suggestion.  Naturally the deceased 6 foot 2" diva did not dine with us, but we (including 6 year old DJ Icepack) were all truly amazed at the tasty flava flav half a bottle of wine can give to meat cooked for two hours with carrots and tomatoes.

this is our last song, thank you very much, goodnight

And as the shortest month comes to a close, reminding us that the shortest month is indeed, coming to a close, so does the picture of the day february project.  All photos guaranteed shot in the loveliest  and smallest month.  I hope you enjoyed it, except of course for the haters, who did what they do best...

blues for zone VIII

frozen warnings

international socialists

my baby loves lovin'

i am titleless