Gang of Pirates

Happy Halloween!

Baby monster

Baby Z's latest fun trick

Dear Minnesota,

I know I've talked bad about you behind your back. That Mother's Day when it still wasn't spring? I was plain mean to you. I hated you--I admit it. And those bitter cold days when all I wanted to do was bury my head in my pillow and cry? I couldn't say enough terrible things about you.

So, I probably don't deserve any gifts from you. But, I sure am glad that Halloween is so perfect. It feels like fall, not winter today. I'm thrilled I don't have to dress my kids in their coats, hats, and gloves like that first Halloween we were here. And I keep hearing about that ghastly Halloween blizzard of '91. But, this day is the best of what fall has to offer. And even though all of the leaves are gone from most of my trees, that stubborn maple in the front has finally turned yellow and is just now dropping its leaves. It feels like maybe winter isn't quite about to turn the corner on me.

Anyway, thanks. I'll try to remember this day when the winter seems like it will never end.

Yes, I'm from Minnesota

But, she's not my representative. Ugh. I had to giggle when I heard how much money her opponent raised since her inflammatory statements.

I am really sick of the argument from Palin and others that people who don't support them aren't real Americans. Jon Stewart hit the nail on the head about this last night.

Coraline

By Neil Gaiman.

Creepy. Coraline discovers a mirror world just on the other side of a door in her flat that supposedly leads to nowhere. She finds her other mother and her other father. Perhaps the strangest detail about them: they have black button eyes. She has to save herself, rescue her true parents, and save the souls of three other children using her wits and summoning her bravery.

The black cat that can travel between the worlds is a marvelous and enigmatic character. "We -- we could be friends, you know," Coraline says to the cat, which replies back to her "We could be rare specimens of an exotic breed of African dancing elephants." Nevertheless, the cat stays with her, and even provides help, later on.

Creepy. And perfect for October. I wonder when I should encourage MJ to read it. Maybe next October.

In Defense of Food

By Michael Pollan. Because I'm lazy, I'm just going to basically copy my GoodReads review for this one.

The best part of this book is the way Pollan disuputes the basic premises of nutrional science--the whole idea that food can be simply reduced to its nutritional components, that the primary purpose of eating is to maintain health, and that the effects of nutrients can be scientifically measured. It made me realize how much nutrional science shapes what and how I think about food.

However, I found myself bogged down into too many details of antioxidents and amino acids and other nutritional explanations. And to me, it didn't deliver the profound punch of Omnivore's Dilemma. I liked this one so much better and decided to change my GoodReads rating from 4 to 5 stars. It started out as an article for the NYTimes Magazine, and reading that may have been enough for me. I listened to a podcast of a talk he gave in SLC and liked the summarized version a lot better.

The last section on some practical applications of his ideas has made me think a lot more about the kinds of ingredients in foods. I've looked at a lot of food labels to see what's in my food and I think it is a good idea to go to less processed foods. Maybe I will pull out the old bread maker and bake bread for us.

Melancholy

All the leaves have fallen off two of the trees in my yard. And another tree is just about totally done too. It happened so fast--we went from trees full of yellow leaves to piles of crunchy leaves on the ground in a matter of a few days. At least we still have some reds and other green left. When I stopped to think about it a couple of days ago, I realized that we have had leaves for only 5 months this year since spring was so late in coming.

A few years ago, we were talking about fall with a friend. And he said that while he loved fall, the threat of winter loomed over him and he couldn't fully enjoy it. I thought that was strange and somewhat silly. But, this is exactly how I feel this year. Summer rushed by. I didn't get sick of the long days of sunshine or the heat. I wasn't ready for the cooler weather. And yet, here it already is. Every time I see the leaves falling, I feel a little depressed.

The thing I like least about living here is the long winter and the bitter cold parts of winter. I made AJ promise that we would never even consider living somewhere colder than here.

Tastes of Fall

In the last week, we have eaten wild rice soup, tomato basil parmesan soup, and pumpkin curry soup. On Sunday, we ate Italian tortellini soup for dinner. I made gingersnaps with pumpkin dip for my book group last Tuesday. And we've already had a couple of apple crisps. I love the tastes of fall!

Ode to the New Yorker

It all began in the spring of 2004. I was helping some friends in a move. "Helping" by writing down what the professional moves put into packing boxes. They were packing the kitchen and each box took a fair amount of time, what with having to wrap all the dishes. I didn't bring any reading material with me, so my friend handed me a copy of the New Yorker. She had picked it up at a newsstand because the cover article was about Israeli settlers and the problems that have cropped up with these fierce Zionists. It was one of those dense 20-page-no-pictures New Yorker articles that goes on and on, but is engaging and fascinating and meaty. I didn't finish it before I had to leave, and had to get an online copy later. But, before I got to that article, I started by reading a profile of a young Illinois state representative who was running for senate. It was the first time I ever heard of Barack Obama. And after I heard him speak at the 2004 DNC convention, I was smitten. (wiping a tear from my eye now.)

I started subscribing to the New Yorker shortly afterwards, and have never let my subscription lapse. I have read a good portion of every New Yorker since then.

Recently, I have been trying to catch up on my New Yorker reading. We were out of town for several weeks in August. By the time we got back, there were three or four waiting for me. And I haven't really caught up since then. This past week, I was in the middle of several issues. I think it was because of where they were located around the house--one near my bed that I read before going to sleep, one in the kitchen that was easy to grab while eating breakfast and lunch, and one in the front room that I would read at random times. That's very different than my normal New Yorker reading pattern. So, I am very happy to report that I have put to rest the issues I was simultaneously reading.

This is how I usually read a New Yorker. I first look at the cover art. More on that later. Then, I browse the table of contents to see what I have to look foward to. I must read sequentially: I start with the first tidbit in Talk of the Town and go to the cartoon caption contest on the last page. When I first started getting it in the mail, I obsessively read it from cover to cover. I have gotten to the point where I can skip articles now after I have read at least the first little bit of them. I often skip the theater and music reviews at the end. And I rarely read the fiction or Shouts and Murmers, the humor page. AJ skips around. He'll glance at one article, start reading another, and he usually always starts with Shouts and Murmers. No, not me. I like being systematic in my New Yorker reading.

Ok, about the covers. Mostly they are interesting and tied to some current event. It was fun to see the New Yorker in the news a while back with the infamous Barack-and-Michelle-as-terrorists-and-flag-burners cover. (I thought the tumult was way overblown about that, by the way. ) The anniversary issue always has a man in a top hat with a monocle, the classic New Yorker image, and this year's--in the middle of primary season-- had a double image of Barack and Hillary. I have been saving covers that I really like for a while now, and a few years back, AJ took a few of them to make me a collage of covers. It's hanging in our office now. And I still need to frame a cover I put up top from November 2006 of a man sitting on a mountain of books reading. I want to hang it in my reading corner.

When I think back on my New Yorker reading, there are so many great articles that spring to mind: the inner working of UPS, the wonders and craziness of Dubai, a portrait of short cooks in Las Vegas, the series on climate change by Elizabeth Kolbert, the coverage of Iraq including the abominable US treatment of Iraqi's who assisted us (i.e., translators and the like), the immigration holding center in Texas where families are detained, the Pluto-as-planet? controversy. I could go on and on. The writers are top notch--some of my favorites, in addition to Kolbert, are Malcolm Gladwell, Jeffrey Toobin, and Atul Gawande. I love the New Yorker because the content is not really about current events, although there is some of that of course. It's just interesting and engaging topics that I would probably never learn about it other ways. The people profiled spring to life from their pages.

I have been getting emails and seeing the magazine advertisements about the New Yorker festival which just happened in NYC. Events are scattered around the city, with talks, panels, and readings. Oooh. I dream about going someday.

I always tend to gush when I meet a fellow New Yorker reader. I immediately feel like we're kindred spirits and I tend to talk non-stop about the New Yorker until I realize what I'm doing and get embarrassed. I have daydreamed about crosstabbing the New Yorker subscriptions with the church's MLS data base to get a list of Mormon New Yorker readers in my area because wouldn't we all want to get together for dinner? And couldn't we all be great friends?

As a final indicator of my New Yorker geekiness: Every time I see the complete New Yorker on portable hard drive (including every page of every issue from February 1923), I get excited. I covet. My practical self says I wouldn't do much of anything with it. But that doesn't make the hunger for it dissipate at all. Even if I just browsed the cover art, wouldn't it be worth it? Wouldn't it????

Well, the politics issue hit my mail box this week. I think I'm going to go snuggle up in my bed and crack the cover.

Reading this Week

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
We read this one for book group this month. I wasn't too excited to read it--a few years back I read it when AJ's mom told me how much she liked it, and after I finished, I wondered what all the fuss was about. I reread it in the few days right before book group and it was good to reread. I thought it was a great portrait of a time and place (Brooklyn, Williamsburg, right before WWI) and it was honest in its portrayal of the grinding reality of poverty. The preface to the edition I read, written by Anna Quindlen, talked about how it was both honest and true. True--meaning that it speaks to issues much larger than the book itself. I didn't see those as much. Maybe because I sped through it? Or maybe because they didn't resonate with me? Not sure, but most people I know love this book. I thought it was good. And a fine choice, but I didn't love it.

The City of Ember by Jeanne Deprau
One of the girls in my primary class has talked a lot about this book, so I decided to pick it up. It's a children's book--in fact, I wondered if MJ could handle it. Maybe in a few months. The story is about a city that is underground--stores are diminished, light bulbs are running out, and the massive generator is failing. Like most children's literature, the two heros of the book are children who have little adult supervision or intervention. They happen upon the secret to leave the city and embark on the journey out, with the intention to find a way to help rescue the rest of the city residents. The plot stretched credulity at time, the characters were not nuanced, the writing was so-so, but I can see how a kid would really like this book.

I'm ready to turn back to some good non-fiction. I just got Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food from the library. I think that will be next.

Kiki Strike: The Empress's Tomb

By Kirsten Miller. This is the second Kiki Strike book. It was fun, but not as good as the first. I didn't think the story hung together as well and didn't captivate me like Shadow City. Miller introduces a male character into the circle of friends of the Irregulars that I thought didn't really meld into the story. The strengths of the first book--the detective manual aspects and the snide comments about society's under-expectations girls--were not as strong here.

Words I'm Sick of in this Campaign

Maverick
Main Street
Elite
Politics as usual