One of the basic functions of culture: to lay out a predictable world in which the individual is firmly oriented. - LaRay M Barna.
A westerner I know, appreciates the eastern culture of parents arranging marriage for kids and the respect elders get. She has a 1D disapproval for the higher divorce rates.
house owner should welcome visitor - international student.
Social time: heartbeat of a culture. When the authors found that language wasnt lending itself to pose questions like they wanted to in surveys, they looked at definite durations of certain activities for comaprision.
The analog time in the house clock with no numbers, subject to approximation is behind the precise one in the car.
Net Galley Challenge
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Guidelines A Cross Cultural Reading/Writing Text.
Guidelines, A Cross Cultural Reading/Writing Text.
Stumbling blocks in Intercultural communication
In some cultures, also, it is polite to refuse the first or second offer of refreshment. - LaRay M Barna
We had a story in our nondetail in which an elder sister takes her brother along for a birthday party only if he promises to behave. He is supposed to refuse offer for any food atleast three times before accepting. The mischievous kid says no three times to the first offer, so he can enjoy the food.
In high school, my sister and I were at a dinner reception. They had egg curry being served. We were asked to eat. Being the elder sister I answered that we were not hungry. I felt highbrow refusing. My sister would have liked to eat. Now I remember to leave the onus of accepting/refusing a food offer to whoever is with me. Sometimes, even after I have made my mind that I will not find myself having anything to do with cake at birthday party after having had the first serving, I will say 'no' to taking cake for the road. I will say 'maybe my husband will like that'. After all these internal dramas, as soon as we get home, we finished up the cake in few seconds. A vanilla banana, strawberry cake. Its USP was its softness of the cake layers as well as the filling. The cake was mistakenly made girly with pink lettering and pink flowers. Not a hit with parents, but with all the little girls who attended the party, who also happened to be the majority. All the girls were asking was if they could have a flower. Must be the first time that a cake was trumped at the birthday party by kids. Well, a little boy too asked for a flower for his sister. I have seen at yet another birthday party where a kid asked for a balloon for his younger sister.Kids can be distracted with the auxiliaries on the cake but adults have their focus on it. I managed to have a serving of the cake and didnt go for more, although I was reminded of the baby shower cake which I had enjoyed then except for the minor unequally thawed filling the cake. I had seconds with that one. This cake was better and cost half less. The baker of the cake that cost half more is no longer in business.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
I chose this book Leaning into the wood over Eudora welty's short story collection. I wanted to listen to new voices. The pieces are very short and hook you with their lack of fabrication and the directedness of their life choices for place to associate with.
*******
This time at the library, imagine my horror when I found my sacred shelves of poetry and non-fiction littered with trashy books. Somebody got an idea to compress the books from different sections into one. It must be that the funding has dwindled and so the new books can now do with less shelf space.
**************
Winter song by Mary Kathryn Stillwell.
Planting trees - Twyla Hansen
*******
This time at the library, imagine my horror when I found my sacred shelves of poetry and non-fiction littered with trashy books. Somebody got an idea to compress the books from different sections into one. It must be that the funding has dwindled and so the new books can now do with less shelf space.
**************
Winter song by Mary Kathryn Stillwell.
Planting trees - Twyla Hansen
Response to Sally Tisdale's 'Letting Myself Go'
It doesnt matter that whole human epochs have celebrated big men and women, because the breif period in which I live does not;.....
The author is looking to the society for the kind of person she has to be to be accepted. When you are on the block, you could be accepted or not. In a society like America, not 'fitting in' has never stopped people from self assertion.
In trying always to lose weight, we've lost hope of simply being seen for ourselves.
Can our fat self and thin self reconcile? How do we know that the fat version is our true self. Does body have the lesson of 'balance' inbuilt?
For ages humans believed that the body helped create the personality..... The modern culture of dieting is based on the idea that the personality creates the body.
What unsettles the author is how the world thinks now. If one accepts the general thoughts from ages, one should feel more at ease with current day norms.
Now, I try to imagine a world where we eat only food we need, and it seems inhuman.
What animal on this planet eats for pleasure other than satisfying hunger? Why are we shying away from accepting that our indulgences can have consequences?
I felt no joy in being thin - it was just work, something I had to do.... I hated the very idea of maintenance.. but at the same time the author 'used to be attracted to the sharp angles of the chronic dieter' and 'dreamed of having a boy's body, smooth, hipless,lean'. Maintaining weight takes effort. If it were easy would the talk on how fat people are viewed in the society be different? I cannot imagine how much more accusatory the glances would be.
By letting go of dieting, I free up mental and emotional room. By letting myself go, I go places.
On the contrary, having an unhealthy relationship with food will limit movement in no time.
I felt truly reduced then, reduced to being just a body and nothing more. Yet we want to revel in our bodies, not all too perfect. Its our idea of beauty and perfectness that needs fixing.
The author is looking to the society for the kind of person she has to be to be accepted. When you are on the block, you could be accepted or not. In a society like America, not 'fitting in' has never stopped people from self assertion.
In trying always to lose weight, we've lost hope of simply being seen for ourselves.
Can our fat self and thin self reconcile? How do we know that the fat version is our true self. Does body have the lesson of 'balance' inbuilt?
For ages humans believed that the body helped create the personality..... The modern culture of dieting is based on the idea that the personality creates the body.
What unsettles the author is how the world thinks now. If one accepts the general thoughts from ages, one should feel more at ease with current day norms.
Now, I try to imagine a world where we eat only food we need, and it seems inhuman.
What animal on this planet eats for pleasure other than satisfying hunger? Why are we shying away from accepting that our indulgences can have consequences?
I felt no joy in being thin - it was just work, something I had to do.... I hated the very idea of maintenance.. but at the same time the author 'used to be attracted to the sharp angles of the chronic dieter' and 'dreamed of having a boy's body, smooth, hipless,lean'. Maintaining weight takes effort. If it were easy would the talk on how fat people are viewed in the society be different? I cannot imagine how much more accusatory the glances would be.
By letting go of dieting, I free up mental and emotional room. By letting myself go, I go places.
On the contrary, having an unhealthy relationship with food will limit movement in no time.
I felt truly reduced then, reduced to being just a body and nothing more. Yet we want to revel in our bodies, not all too perfect. Its our idea of beauty and perfectness that needs fixing.
Books say that
women follow their mothers in birthing
the mother had seen the baby's lung spring
into action even if to stop after a day
the daughter had fears of what might happen
of wanting a girl and not having enough
to know even if it was a girl or a boy
She is still a mother cause she cared
about the baby.
"Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist." Michael Levine
the mother had seen the baby's lung spring
into action even if to stop after a day
the daughter had fears of what might happen
of wanting a girl and not having enough
to know even if it was a girl or a boy
She is still a mother cause she cared
about the baby.
"Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist." Michael Levine
Saturday, October 22, 2011
After reading 'Letting myself go' by Sally Tisdale Scoot over skinny, I wished she had a different viewpoint about losing weight.
A shorter version of that article.
Sympathetic pregnancies
Couvade
The man who could not stop overeating
response to fat like him essay
In the Fat lady essay, countertransference, process and content in therapy,not to keep news of a parent's illness from kids, sympathy fast, 'pounds flowed off in rivulets'.
Dagwood sandwich
I couldnt go on reading Big game hunters and Big time. For some reason I thought the latter was by a woman even after reading the line about the author's difficulty with women.
In 'Fatland' Stephen Kuusisto says that 'no one who visits that country ever forgets it' and that he 'was only a tourist in the world of fat'. A reflection on how a body's existence is transitory in the fat land. With his newly attained fat by choice, people start noticing him. This popularity contrasts the oblivion faced by Natalie Kusz in 'on Being Invisible'. Being the designer of fat, he has the same cockiness as Stephen Shaw in Fat guys kick ass.
In 'Hunger', from Anne Lamott's therapist..'If I(AL) was feeling very other, sad and....'
The other sounds less like unknown more like the avoided.
Queen of the gym
***************
Force field of fat in This is why I am fat
Fat acceptance movement
A shorter version of that article.
Sympathetic pregnancies
Couvade
The man who could not stop overeating
response to fat like him essay
In the Fat lady essay, countertransference, process and content in therapy,not to keep news of a parent's illness from kids, sympathy fast, 'pounds flowed off in rivulets'.
Dagwood sandwich
I couldnt go on reading Big game hunters and Big time. For some reason I thought the latter was by a woman even after reading the line about the author's difficulty with women.
In 'Fatland' Stephen Kuusisto says that 'no one who visits that country ever forgets it' and that he 'was only a tourist in the world of fat'. A reflection on how a body's existence is transitory in the fat land. With his newly attained fat by choice, people start noticing him. This popularity contrasts the oblivion faced by Natalie Kusz in 'on Being Invisible'. Being the designer of fat, he has the same cockiness as Stephen Shaw in Fat guys kick ass.
In 'Hunger', from Anne Lamott's therapist..'If I(AL) was feeling very other, sad and....'
The other sounds less like unknown more like the avoided.
Queen of the gym
***************
Force field of fat in This is why I am fat
Fat acceptance movement
Jungle activity
Reading Fires by Rick Bass in The Big Sky reader, the initial description of the hare activity takes me back to the sunday mornings we watched Mowgli, especially the water sounds, the birds, hops of the animals.
Friday, October 21, 2011
In Sparrow, I couldnt connect to the poems initially. Towards the later half, the subjects of people and birds became more relatable.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Perri Klass with her 'different narratives' in Becoming a Doctor, recognises a patient not just as a victim of a disease but as a person in a family, a carrier og gene pool and all the other threads of stories that a person carries in him/her.
Lauren Slater
Lauren Slater
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Immersion
Running Away to Home: Our Family's Journey to Croatia in Search of Who We Are, Where We Came From, and What Really Matters
With a search specific for her ancestors, the author shows the reader, the history of the region. While that is something a writing maestro might appreciate, it is in this generalization that the story of the search lost its appeal. I am also biased from a reading of The foremost good fortune by Susan Conley, where we see a country through the struggles the author goes through in adjusting to a different culture. It could be the rural, low profile culture of Croatia which didnt lend itself to any major revelation.
The Foremost Good Fortune: A Memoir by Susan Conley
Monday, October 17, 2011
Reading TriQuarterly99, Spring/Summer 1997 issue, Kanai Mieko's short story 'When treading on soft earth' I cant help but wonder that I have never read this much description in fiction.
Another Mieko short story - The Rose Tango
Another Mieko short story - The Rose Tango
Sunday, October 16, 2011
I remember reading of Operating instructions by Anne Lamott and picked it up when I found it at used books sale in the library.
Lamott talks about a Sam with one arm. I wonder if this is that wonderful kid, embracing the tennis racquet all out.
Sandtray therapy
lomilomi massage
Bouvier puppy
odie dall
plastic Beatrix Potter bath book
Lamott talks about a Sam with one arm. I wonder if this is that wonderful kid, embracing the tennis racquet all out.
Sandtray therapy
lomilomi massage
Bouvier puppy
odie dall
plastic Beatrix Potter bath book
Stories
Why we love them as kids?
Watching The Ballad of Josie, I am reminded of a story similar to How much land does a man need but in an Arabic setting.
We know of the world through them.
In Words, not swords the author introduces us to yeki bud yeki nabud. The jacket art with clad women on the shore reminds me of a colony of shorebirds.
Watching The Ballad of Josie, I am reminded of a story similar to How much land does a man need but in an Arabic setting.
We know of the world through them.
In Words, not swords the author introduces us to yeki bud yeki nabud. The jacket art with clad women on the shore reminds me of a colony of shorebirds.
The Forbidden stitch
Sujata Bhatt Muliebrity
Autumn Gardening is a great story which fills survivors with a sense of purpose. It is interesting to see how the sentences work too, with the physical actuations of the character punctuated by the happenings in the emotional landscape.
Compare Khalil's lines in To rise above with Blake's Chminey Sweeper. I came across this Blake poem in Morning,Noon and Night by Arnold Weinstein
picture bride
Autumn Gardening is a great story which fills survivors with a sense of purpose. It is interesting to see how the sentences work too, with the physical actuations of the character punctuated by the happenings in the emotional landscape.
Compare Khalil's lines in To rise above with Blake's Chminey Sweeper. I came across this Blake poem in Morning,Noon and Night by Arnold Weinstein
picture bride
Carol Bly
I came across Carol Bly's 'My Dear Republican Mother' essay in 'From Daughters to Mothers book.
Reading it I felt thatthis is the kind of work, editors are talking of when they talk about work with layers in it. While she is writing about the mother she knew for the first 12 years of her life, its also about the times then, the presence or lack of psychological attitudes. At the language level, she translates the behavior of people then into the terms of psychology that we use now to recognise them.
Reading it I felt thatthis is the kind of work, editors are talking of when they talk about work with layers in it. While she is writing about the mother she knew for the first 12 years of her life, its also about the times then, the presence or lack of psychological attitudes. At the language level, she translates the behavior of people then into the terms of psychology that we use now to recognise them.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Gloria Gervitz
Milagro in from From Shejarit.
Totems fusing together
on poetry
Tarahumara
Chicha
pinole
peyote
Baldachin
Sudarium
Monstrance
Crepitation
Bambina - girl
Bambino -little boy
Milagro in from From Shejarit.
Totems fusing together
on poetry
Tarahumara
Chicha
pinole
peyote
Baldachin
Sudarium
Monstrance
Crepitation
Bambina - girl
Bambino -little boy
The tricks pictures play
When I saw a thumbnail of this picture, I recognised the figure of a man and when itwent with the words..'In this novel an assimilated Australian Jew chooses a vicious, and symbolic, husband.' then I corrected myself of the main character and a close look reveals the larger figure of a woman.
Friday, October 14, 2011
I am looking for the saddest thing, which once found
will never be lost again, because it will follow me
- Seductive sadness winks at me
In I called, called to the lashing waves, the end ties with the beginning.
Oscar Hahn's poem 'Places are neither here no there' on wishing hard. In 'The center of the bedroom', 'something' that takes a form but has been present even before identified as something - 'the sad snow this year's dirty snow'.
will never be lost again, because it will follow me
- Seductive sadness winks at me
In I called, called to the lashing waves, the end ties with the beginning.
Oscar Hahn's poem 'Places are neither here no there' on wishing hard. In 'The center of the bedroom', 'something' that takes a form but has been present even before identified as something - 'the sad snow this year's dirty snow'.
Antidote against medicine
As the water boils with bitter pink tonic
on a kerosene wick stove
dad cuts the apple
so the sweet apple
can leave a good taste
I direct a pill into my
mouth followed by a waterfall
A friend says its easier
for the pill to go down
after you store some water
in the mouth
on a kerosene wick stove
dad cuts the apple
so the sweet apple
can leave a good taste
I direct a pill into my
mouth followed by a waterfall
A friend says its easier
for the pill to go down
after you store some water
in the mouth
Dissolved
A Mom puts a
disk shaped tablet
in a spoon of milk
the bitter medicine
is now
ready to be evaded
by an unwilling baby
oscillating the mouth
from side to side
Leapboard:
Lihn began to break it up with a spoon
Because I wrote by Enrique Lihn
Archilocus
disk shaped tablet
in a spoon of milk
the bitter medicine
is now
ready to be evaded
by an unwilling baby
oscillating the mouth
from side to side
Leapboard:
Lihn began to break it up with a spoon
Because I wrote by Enrique Lihn
Archilocus
Handy kerchief
A Handkerchief dropped
from a window onto
the seat can
hold your place
A handkerchief can
be knotted to hold
apples that you
didnt plan on buying
until your eyes fell
on them or tomatoes
that zing up your
curry
on a day other than
sunday when you are
out without a grocery bag.
Leapboard:
My whole sea is white scarves/kerchiefs
Handkerchiefs of air are slowly being spun
Jaime Sabines, With Nerves trailing poem
from a window onto
the seat can
hold your place
A handkerchief can
be knotted to hold
apples that you
didnt plan on buying
until your eyes fell
on them or tomatoes
that zing up your
curry
on a day other than
sunday when you are
out without a grocery bag.
Leapboard:
My whole sea is white scarves/kerchiefs
Handkerchiefs of air are slowly being spun
Jaime Sabines, With Nerves trailing poem
My first rainbow cloud
Driving west in the evening
a cloud has two colors of a
rainbow
May be its the sun light
But the sun is on the left
When I rushed home to take a picture
it was no longer there
In the morning I woke
up thinking its rain
it must be the sprinklers
a cloud has two colors of a
rainbow
May be its the sun light
But the sun is on the left
When I rushed home to take a picture
it was no longer there
In the morning I woke
up thinking its rain
it must be the sprinklers
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Not so complex Bell jar
He lives in a bell jar called Art
or Pleasure or Science
The Tunnel
In the days of childhood
cream colored cotton candy
was sold in a bell jar
or Pleasure or Science
The Tunnel
In the days of childhood
cream colored cotton candy
was sold in a bell jar
As I enter
through the gate
for lunch
a yellow butterfly
wades
through the air
of afternoon
courtesy:
"It will be", they said, " a sad,sad time
in which butterflies will be gathered" from The Calabash tree
Amen to butterflies
for lunch
a yellow butterfly
wades
through the air
of afternoon
courtesy:
"It will be", they said, " a sad,sad time
in which butterflies will be gathered" from The Calabash tree
Amen to butterflies
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
The Foremost Good Fortune
The Foremost Good Fortune by Susan Conley
The foremost good fortune
Laowai
pole position
Anish Kapoor in China.
I am reading running away to home where author Jennifer Wilson with her family goes to her Croatian ancestral village to find her roots. I picked this 'The Foremost Good Fortune' book by Susan so I could compare.
Language is a big impediment in the new country in communicating yourself. Both families get care packages from grandparents back home for the displaced grandkids.
Puer tea
The author dines at local restaurants and involves herself in activities - sweater party, bag purchasing, that get her to interact more with the adopted country. From the people she meets everyday - a maid at house, a chaffeur, gym trainer, yoga teacher she learns much about the Chinese culture. As a family, she travels to different places and learns about the regions.
By making us see how her kids process her having cancer, she shows us a filigree of emotions around the cancer victims and family.
The author is not clueless in China as her husband has been there before and can speak the language. The children assimilate faster into the new culture with their father making it fun for them to learn the language. In distress when a child has to dissuade the maid from catching a pigeon outside their window, he says 'bu yao'.. not wanted.
The author compares her cancer to all situations she cant get a handle on.
Running Away to Home: Our Family's Journey to Croatia in Search of Who We Are, Where We Came From, and What Really Matters
Monday, October 10, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
1996 Fall
Hayden's Ferry Review Tenth anniversary has Laura Lee washburn's poem 'The story of Snow white and Rose Red'.
..
The sisters had no use for other stories..
From Valencia street poem,
..The street is a ribbon
on a gift you've never opened...
Turandot in George Looney's Libretto for an opera about gold and lust. His 'Under the sad weight of the moon' is a labrynth with a horse, moon at the dead ends. I was reminded of 'red chair in a beige room' by Carol smith only for the similarity of repetitive treatment of fixed subjects.
A chapter 11 from Valerie Miner's Range of light novel
D and C
In 'Paper Boy' by Cathrine Ryan Hyde(author of Pay It forward), I guessed part of the story.
..
The sisters had no use for other stories..
From Valencia street poem,
..The street is a ribbon
on a gift you've never opened...
Turandot in George Looney's Libretto for an opera about gold and lust. His 'Under the sad weight of the moon' is a labrynth with a horse, moon at the dead ends. I was reminded of 'red chair in a beige room' by Carol smith only for the similarity of repetitive treatment of fixed subjects.
A chapter 11 from Valerie Miner's Range of light novel
D and C
In 'Paper Boy' by Cathrine Ryan Hyde(author of Pay It forward), I guessed part of the story.
Reading Winter 2010 issue of The Missouri review, I came across Brian Brodeur's poems and his How a poem happens blog. His poem 'On Suffering' is gut wrenching.
Nancy Cunard
Samuel Beckett's - Whoroscope
I had read about Slum tourism a while ago. So when an Adam Krause story began with Slum Tours, I was very taken to read it even though it was fiction.
Maria Hummel's poem and her work on the myth of changeling
Nancy Cunard
Samuel Beckett's - Whoroscope
I had read about Slum tourism a while ago. So when an Adam Krause story began with Slum Tours, I was very taken to read it even though it was fiction.
Maria Hummel's poem and her work on the myth of changeling
Monday, October 3, 2011
Importance of fluid intake
Yesterday I read this Pregnancy journal from week 23. I was fascinated to learn of the amount of amniotic fluid in the uterus, the time in which it is replaced everyday after few weeks, the 55 pound pressure that is involved during contractions. And who thunk that breastfeeding is a ~500calorie effort.
I should read the first part and know more stuff.
I should read the first part and know more stuff.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
The book of (Even more) Awesome
Authors website
Worst sleep ever?
when I was trying to increase my pile of experiences, I spent the night at a company. I wasnt scared. Its tough sleeping on a desk when there are mosquitoes.
Once my roomate locked me out by latching from inside. I had to spend the night at computing center and wait for it to be 6 in the moring when it was ok to loiter.
Authors website
Worst sleep ever?
when I was trying to increase my pile of experiences, I spent the night at a company. I wasnt scared. Its tough sleeping on a desk when there are mosquitoes.
Once my roomate locked me out by latching from inside. I had to spend the night at computing center and wait for it to be 6 in the moring when it was ok to loiter.
One to many
Has your expression ever been misunderstood? If you are like Keats muse, then a blush or sigh of yours has a very little chance of being understood.
Anthologized in She walks in beauty
Anthologized in She walks in beauty
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Book list
Today I wanted to get rid of a post-it which had names of 3 books. You keep compiling these books that you like from reviews and lose track of them. I had the first title wrong. I wrote down the article title instead of the book.
Fire season : Field notes from a wilderness outlook. I wanted to read this book to know more about Gila.
Far from shore - birdwatching
Man with a Pan
I realised that I read Man with a Pan.
Fire season : Field notes from a wilderness outlook. I wanted to read this book to know more about Gila.
Far from shore - birdwatching
Man with a Pan
I realised that I read Man with a Pan.
The Life of a Deli
My Korean Deli
I remember this book from a review either from NPR or NYTimes. In the beginning while the search is on for a deli, I had doubts if I would finish the book.But once he donned the 'deli owner' role, I was hooked to the book.
It must have been from where he starts to include his WASP history. Another moment was when a peek ino the refrigerator of the otherwise incommercible prospective store changed his mind.
The chapters traverse his dual lives of an editor at Paris Review and a deli owner maintaining a continuity. What it takes to keep a tobacco license, what happens to a deli in the times of power cut? These are the things we learn of and all the mayhem that surrounds these situations.
I remember this book from a review either from NPR or NYTimes. In the beginning while the search is on for a deli, I had doubts if I would finish the book.But once he donned the 'deli owner' role, I was hooked to the book.
It must have been from where he starts to include his WASP history. Another moment was when a peek ino the refrigerator of the otherwise incommercible prospective store changed his mind.
The chapters traverse his dual lives of an editor at Paris Review and a deli owner maintaining a continuity. What it takes to keep a tobacco license, what happens to a deli in the times of power cut? These are the things we learn of and all the mayhem that surrounds these situations.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Imaginary Logic
Imaginary logic
The poet being a professor, it not a surprisr that one kind of subjects - fiction, criticism, rhetoric, poetry workshop class in 'The Ante' make a frequent appearance.
..On each pencil the teeth of every child
who ever held it had gnawed deep tracks...in 'The Elementary Principles of Rhetoric'
The poet is at his best with the endings like
..they dont get it - the kind of people
who epxect real smoke from a toy tractor.. in 'Feelings, by ashley Higgins'
'Winning' is a childhood sack race poem.
'The Previous Tenants' poem with its detective angle reminded me of Ted Kooser's 'Abandoned farmhouse'.
Freshet
Infralapsarian
Monday, September 26, 2011
The apple trees at Olema
Olema
I have learnt in geography class, that we cannot use sand dunes in a desert for locating ourselves. In 'Variations on a passage in Edward Abbey', Hass begins
A dune begins with an obstacle.
.... Its thus a dune is formed
Now I know the scientific how-to followed by the dunes and the inevitable movement to another location preventing them from serving as landmarks.
Another how-to, what a body can expect when submitted to the medical examiner is followed up with a reality of the relegated funeral business.
The eucalyptus casts a feathered shadow
in 'Concerning the afterlife, the Indians of central California had only the dimmest notions'.
sokkaram by a lawyer
In songs to survive the summer, the poet calls the dog days, unvaried by accident and in Not going to New York: A letter, the letter rhymes by accident.
Paschal lamb poem
Tall windows poem
duck blind poem with an ending in motion
A story about the body poem
Ceanothus
Puerto Escondido
Cuernavaca
Kathe Kollwitz
Ponge
Athabascan
Mimulus
Olema
I have learnt in geography class, that we cannot use sand dunes in a desert for locating ourselves. In 'Variations on a passage in Edward Abbey', Hass begins
A dune begins with an obstacle.
.... Its thus a dune is formed
Now I know the scientific how-to followed by the dunes and the inevitable movement to another location preventing them from serving as landmarks.
Another how-to, what a body can expect when submitted to the medical examiner is followed up with a reality of the relegated funeral business.
The eucalyptus casts a feathered shadow
in 'Concerning the afterlife, the Indians of central California had only the dimmest notions'.
sokkaram by a lawyer
In songs to survive the summer, the poet calls the dog days, unvaried by accident and in Not going to New York: A letter, the letter rhymes by accident.
Paschal lamb poem
Tall windows poem
duck blind poem with an ending in motion
A story about the body poem
Ceanothus
Puerto Escondido
Cuernavaca
Kathe Kollwitz
Ponge
Athabascan
Mimulus
Thursday, September 22, 2011
French food and literature
Balzac's Omelette
Omelette as a work of art reminds me of this Omelette woman painting. Looking at the old lady seated and cooking, it also reminds me of my grandmother and her kitchen. In their days, the stove occupied very little space. In a generation, the cooking space has changed so much. Imagine how different the culinary scene would have been in the times of Balzac. We are talking about 1800s. Balzac was a French Novelist and a playwright.
the author takes us two centuries into the past into the streets of Paris as well as into the books of Balzac, to take a look at the elite parties as well as meagre broth households. She takes us to a time when cheese was poor man's food and Paris saw the rise of restaurants. Lunch wasnt always an important meal(pg 58).Having Russian service from 'blood, Bones and Butter' fresh in my mind, it was insightful to contrast the French service. the author mentions that the art of decorating flowers on dining tables came from Russia.This is the strongest part of the book where the readers are grabbed in easily.
The author shows with all the examples of sketches of characters in Balzac's books, how Balzac was the first to use food in his novels as a window to a character, their class in society. The author also contrasts Balzac's style with writers like Zola, Proust and others to show how the rest treated food differently in their books. The first chapter is about Balzac's relation with food. He went great lengths to find the food he had his mind upon. While most chapters held me in curiosity, 'The misers and the food worshippers' read like a boring compilation of characters and their relationship with food.
There are really some lines about how to make 'Balzac's omelette'.
The last but one line about Proust on 'a fish whose body with its numberless vertebrae, its blue and pink veins, had been constructed by nature, but according to an architectural plan, like a polychrome cathedral of the deep' is a look at how different the world seems to a person who sees with a sense of hunger.
While Adam could have 15 dozen oysters, Balzac too could have over 100 oysters and more after finishig a novel, working at it day and night.
Balzac used restaurants to move his plots forward(pg 66).
French vs Russian service
Laclos
Pantagruelism
Olivet Cheeses
Airport novels
brace of partridge
Comice Pears
embonpoint
Craquelin
Vouvray
regrttiers - traders who buy leftovers.
Trotter
white pudding
Black pudding
Lucien Rubempre
Oysters from Ostend
totted up -sum up
Hundred days
pate from Strasbourg
hams from Mayence
Gray patridge
Blanquette
Fricandeau
a la Pluche
a la Barigoule
a la Robert
Brandade
Jabot
cutlets a la Soubise
Chicken a la Marengo
Machicolation
Poussin's landscape on Sevres ware
collation -light meal permitted on fast days
balzac never saw a great chef at work, there is a notable absence of great culinary artists in his novels(pg 87).
fashion for decorating tables with flowers came from Russia(pg 89).
serviette - napkin
au sucre
Marron glaces
orgeat
Jugged hare
sea pie
specious - having a false look of truth
Grisette
Mother sauce - I heard of it first from Robert Irvine on Restaurant Impossible
making of soy sauce
Foods named after people
Lake Leman
Garret room
Peignoir
Collops
Omelette as a work of art reminds me of this Omelette woman painting. Looking at the old lady seated and cooking, it also reminds me of my grandmother and her kitchen. In their days, the stove occupied very little space. In a generation, the cooking space has changed so much. Imagine how different the culinary scene would have been in the times of Balzac. We are talking about 1800s. Balzac was a French Novelist and a playwright.
the author takes us two centuries into the past into the streets of Paris as well as into the books of Balzac, to take a look at the elite parties as well as meagre broth households. She takes us to a time when cheese was poor man's food and Paris saw the rise of restaurants. Lunch wasnt always an important meal(pg 58).Having Russian service from 'blood, Bones and Butter' fresh in my mind, it was insightful to contrast the French service. the author mentions that the art of decorating flowers on dining tables came from Russia.This is the strongest part of the book where the readers are grabbed in easily.
The author shows with all the examples of sketches of characters in Balzac's books, how Balzac was the first to use food in his novels as a window to a character, their class in society. The author also contrasts Balzac's style with writers like Zola, Proust and others to show how the rest treated food differently in their books. The first chapter is about Balzac's relation with food. He went great lengths to find the food he had his mind upon. While most chapters held me in curiosity, 'The misers and the food worshippers' read like a boring compilation of characters and their relationship with food.
There are really some lines about how to make 'Balzac's omelette'.
The last but one line about Proust on 'a fish whose body with its numberless vertebrae, its blue and pink veins, had been constructed by nature, but according to an architectural plan, like a polychrome cathedral of the deep' is a look at how different the world seems to a person who sees with a sense of hunger.
While Adam could have 15 dozen oysters, Balzac too could have over 100 oysters and more after finishig a novel, working at it day and night.
Balzac used restaurants to move his plots forward(pg 66).
French vs Russian service
Laclos
Pantagruelism
Olivet Cheeses
Airport novels
brace of partridge
Comice Pears
embonpoint
Craquelin
Vouvray
regrttiers - traders who buy leftovers.
Trotter
white pudding
Black pudding
Lucien Rubempre
Oysters from Ostend
totted up -sum up
Hundred days
pate from Strasbourg
hams from Mayence
Gray patridge
Blanquette
Fricandeau
a la Pluche
a la Barigoule
a la Robert
Brandade
Jabot
cutlets a la Soubise
Chicken a la Marengo
Machicolation
Poussin's landscape on Sevres ware
collation -light meal permitted on fast days
balzac never saw a great chef at work, there is a notable absence of great culinary artists in his novels(pg 87).
fashion for decorating tables with flowers came from Russia(pg 89).
serviette - napkin
au sucre
Marron glaces
orgeat
Jugged hare
sea pie
specious - having a false look of truth
Grisette
Mother sauce - I heard of it first from Robert Irvine on Restaurant Impossible
making of soy sauce
Foods named after people
Lake Leman
Garret room
Peignoir
Collops
Twentieth century Latin american poetry
percale in Sweet Land
Duenna
Halberd
Jarabe
Viaticum
Malinche
Sylph
This Vicente Huidobro poem gets electric from 'plants glances like trees'.
The Disappearance of Luisa Porto
That young black girl fulo
Looking for poetry
poem
love is so short. I like the ending too of this Neruda poem.
The Emptiness of man and 'the man from up-country talking' by Joao, both deal with the universal 'man' and are themes easy to grasp.
percale in Sweet Land
Duenna
Halberd
Jarabe
Viaticum
Malinche
Sylph
This Vicente Huidobro poem gets electric from 'plants glances like trees'.
The Disappearance of Luisa Porto
That young black girl fulo
Looking for poetry
poem
love is so short. I like the ending too of this Neruda poem.
The Emptiness of man and 'the man from up-country talking' by Joao, both deal with the universal 'man' and are themes easy to grasp.
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