CSA Soup

CSA Soup

Dang.

Carrot kale chicken kohlrabi celeriac leeks shallots potatoes. Served over crusty bread and pungent Manchester goat cheese...

Dang.

Pete's Greens CSA is so much fun --even when Lauren gets to cook.

Cold, Dangerous Day in the Woods

This afternoon we braved the deer hunters to walk the dog in the woods, a light snow coming down, and found treasure: a child's hair band on a tractor road, and two winter gloves, one in the leaves, one of them in the dust at the side of the road .

All of them Norahs's

From Hope to Anger, with a Great Depression in the Middle

Audio analysis of "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime," heard this morning on public radio:

"The first thing that's surprising is that it doesn't start in a major key like most Broadway songs," (pianist and composer Rob Kapilow) says. "Appropriate to the Depression, it's in a minor key."

With lines like "Once I built a railroad, made it run / Made it race against time," the music jumps an octave, with all the energy and syncopation that made America's railroads. It even comes to rest, momentarily, in a major key. The music, like the words, reminisces about prosperous times.

"But then, heartbreakingly," Kapilow says, "under the word 'time' we change to minor, to set up the second half of the verse. Now it has lost all its energy; it's wistful. Now it's done — the good days in America, pre-Depression."

All of that, Kapilow says, provides a wonderful set-up for the perfect punch line: the song's title....

Rob Kapilow's analysis, sitting at the piano, is fascinating. LISTEN.

Fight the H8

Nationwide protest against CA's Prop 8, this Saturday, 1:30PM eastern and simultaneously in other time zones. Vermont info here.

Free Associative (the Worst Kind of) Navel-Gazing Status Report #1

I want especially to be him, the guy in the lower right corner, if I wasn't already.

Snowing here. When will I build the nesting boxes for the (not yet with us) hens?

Too much to do: accordion, fiction, non-fiction, paintings, t-shirts, greeting cards, dancing, laundry, work-work, gratis work, sweeping, mitigation of 5-year-old who uses the phrase "shit-head", toilet cleaning, mess-mitigation, clothes shopping, children-advocating, car-fixing, 8-year-old-plumbers-butt-mitigation (is all of parenthood reduced to mitigation?), garage-emptying-before-the-snow-REALLY-comes-so-cars-can-park-ization, i-zation-zation, picking up before the (yes) lame-ass cleaning lady comes, staying on top of the broken washer (not literally staying on top), garden that needs tilling, hair that needs cutting, teeth that need cleaning, cat that needs chastising, puppy that needs training, (figurative) noose that needs loosening, furnace that needs replacing, oil tank that probably does too, childhood tuition that needs bartering for (if it's going to happen), dudes that need accounting for, internal penance to be paid, for referring to a guy at the gym as "Cthulu" (see earlier posts), image that needs upholding, exercise that needs to happen more than once a week, CSA that needs utilizing, calm that needs to be restored, republicans that need to be ousted (oh wait), friends' semi-hallucinogenic epiphanies to be understood, dinner to be served, litany to be produced, free-association to be shared. Note to self: learn to stop worrying and love this bomb.

Post-Election Overseas Mumble

Dialog with a friend in Athens, Greece (who voted absentee in New Mexico):

S: "The whole thing amazing and strange from this distance, but yesterday, all day, moving around Athens, it was so tempting just to stop people and say, Look what we did! Look what we did! And since we're not over there...now that it's day 2, have the pundits started ripping the whole thing down already?"

To which I mumbled:

No, the pundits (those hindus) are not tearing things down yet, but I am, sorta.

Well, actually, it's a thrilling time. But I do wonder at the hint of racism in all the self-satisfied white commentators and bloggers celebrating the election of an african-american as president. Also, I'm reeling from lack of sleep and the post-election comedown. And it's also sad to know that, despite all this liberal hope, California has seen fit to amend its constitution to define marriage as man-woman. I don't get it.

To be sure, Obama's election is very significant. But it doesn't eliminate racism (americans will compartmentalize to preserve their own craven impulses). And, for me, it's only tangentially about race anyway. More, it's about inspiration and intelligence and compassion and lack-of-simplemindedness, and lack of bully-behavior, and, well, fill in the blanks. It's very exciting. But we saw Uncle Bill (Bragg) in NH 10 days ago, and he reminded us of his wholehearted support for Tony Blair, pre-election, and of the "realities" and disappointments that came after he became PM (especially after 9/11). I feel that Jan 2009 is when the real work begins, real work including personal-sacrifice-for-greater-good. And I don't always have faith that Americans know this is part of the bargain, or a requirement of the times. It's all Short Attention Span Theater here. But this is part of why I voted Obama: if anyone can inspire us to band together and get some shit done for once, it's Obama. Because, fuck, it's not all on him. It's all on us.

At any rate, I keep returning to the youtube video of people at Broadway and Pine, waving flags and dancing and singing to the cheesiest of Journey songs--not with cynicism or irony, but with almost-pure delight. Sigh.

I spent election night up a dead-end dirt road I call "hillbilly holler," with some friends and a stranger who turned out to be the dour-man-in-black guy at the gym I have privately named Cthulu. It's not quite the same.

New Mexico and I thank you for voting.

Obama Street Party, Broadway, Seattle

I used to live a couple of blocks from here. The band Journey has NEVER sounded so good.

Vote Notes

Lauren's cousin Jared (so I get to claim him too) gets the voting prize this year: He's living in NYC, but registered in his home town of Hollis, New Hampshire, 200+ miles away. After months of frustration trying to get an absentee ballot sent to him in New York, he gave up. But last night he decided to hop a train at 3AM that would get him to Hollis just as the polls were opening. His vote was that important.

Runner-up goes to the brave (and mysteriously republican-in-his-heart) Brian Quinn, Lauren's brother, who announced today,

"I was McCain from the start but he and his VP choice have talked themselves out of my vote, there isn't anymore room for trigger happy politicians in the White House. This isn't the Wild West and I have to vote on my belief that this world will be a better place with Obama leading the United States and the triplets are my first concerns. We'll be in it with Russia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan,and Pakistan at the same time if McCain is in office. A great American and I have the utmost respect for him but there isn't anything that will change from Bush's administration if he gets in the office. I vote and think Republican, this choice is way too important to not vote my conscience though. Love to all and let's hope we can become a great nation again and gain back the respect of the world without the "shock and awe" bully methodology."

Third place goes to my other brother-in-law, Michael, who says,

"I'm living nervously here in WA. It feels like it used
to feel being a Red Sox fan . . . no matter how well
things are going, you find yourself waiting for Bucky
Dent or a ball to go through Bill Buckner's legs (I don't remember Bucky Dent going through Bill Buckner's legs...?-Lauren).

"I want it to feel 'safe' enough tonight per the
electoral vote distance that we can feel the love
going to bed tonight. I slept in my van on a slanted
street in 2004 after too many frustrated beers
watching Ohio come in. I'm hoping for my bed tonight."

It's a good family I joined.

Prop 8

California's Proposition 8, on the ballot this tuesday, would ban same-sex marriage.

I never understand the "threat" that same-sex marriage represents to these people. I mean, I have family members--intelligent, otherwise open-minded people I love--who oppose same-sex marriage. They could learn a little from Jerry Sanders, republican mayor of San Diego, seen here in September: