little star, PS

 

Red asterisk, in Toronto.

Dear Reader,

You know, don't you?  Why I love the little star?  The asterisk?  And the PS, and the footnote?  I know it is extra work for you, dear reader, but, the page is a maze of thoughts, words, ideas, and it can run on simultaneous and parallel roads!  The text, the subtext, the many threads of narrative.  I am saying to you, with my asterisks and PS's:  see this, and feel this, too!  Hear this, but also look at that!  Simultaneously!  Kinda.  Sorta.  In as much as we can experience a page in its fullness and multiplicity.

bread

 

Dear Toast,

You are the best:  with cheese, you are dinner; with jam, you are dessert!  Of course, without butter, you aren't much; but you lead a double life under olive oil that is just as wonderful.

I begin today with bread, because I decided to begin my day that way, with bread.  If consequences were cosmos, I'd eat bread every day, at all meals, and I would have a room full of flowers!* 

I am all fired up on bread and words, because I am reading a lovely little book, a memoir that ignites my passion for the messy life we lead:  Cary Grant's Suit.

Yes, I did say no more OWMW (ow-mao), but, this guy!  I tell you, he's worth the transgression.  But, I am not here today, to tell you to eat bread with all its charms, or to read old white men, with all their charms, I am here today, to say to all and sundry, that I feel very sad when I think of all the Things I Have Done in the Name of Self Loathing.  

But, yes, this is all in the past; except, it isn't it, is it?  I don't know that you could have convinced me that my actions were motivated by self-hatred.  Because, you see, people that are terrible (like me) deserve all their punishment, and they don't ever get enough, and so they give it to themselves.  Yes, this reasoning and sentence are head-ache inducing, certainly, but that is all part of the verdict, sentence, punishment.  Which means, probably that my current self-loathing is extra clever and totally invisible to me, just like the old kludgy stuff was.  Which means, that I will ask you, I will beg you not to do as I have done, but that I also understand, accept, and love you anyway, even if you can't stop doing the things you do to hate yourself.

*  Or pink martinis!

more flowers

 

new blue

 

Woman with Bangs, 1902, Pablo Picasso.

Dear Camera,

Ooo!  This is the kind of thing I love to find and send to you!  The instant camera is marvelous, beloved, and holy; for proof, just check out Patti Smith's Polaroids..  I expect you already have your own camera, so get snapping and clicking in blue; it's easier than waiting around to die.

lasthenia californica, nemophila

 

 

to do/done/diy

 

Minoan Snake Goddess

Dear Darlings,

You have heard already, of the stacks of lists, notebooks, scrap paper of to do's that are scattered like stars over all horizontal surfaces here at the Dodo.  It might seem like things are humming along on schedule from your side of the digital interface, but, from my viewpoint, it sometimes feels like despair.  

Let me be plain; I want to send you some messages about fairy eggs, Anthony Gormley, Edna Lewis, honeycomb mould, Renilde de Peuter, and Julie A. Hersh.  The delays in getting these great things to you are varied like the bunting:  Attention issues, insecurity, muddleheadedness, etc.  If you just can't stand the wait, you can sniff out some of these topics, a DIY blog post, if you will.  If you won't, have patience, and also, let's talk about Julie A. Hersh, and how she came to me, as everything does,

circuitously:

Several quarters ago, I watched, in the course of my duties as Dodo writer, a documentary on book shops in NYC.  I don't really recommend the film, it's presentable, but not great.  If you are a doc film zealot (six modes!), then, okay, knock yourself out.  For the rest of you, know that in my search for something of deeper substance in this film, I watched some of the bonus/extra junk, and a Sci Fi 'zine was mentioned: 

Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet:

When I say that this magazine is good, and you should get it, I mean that it comes only quarterly, it's on nice, plain paper, it is crammed with interesting voices, and you can get it in a special 'chocolate bar' package.  Yes, they get you! and me, and they ship it to you with a large, enjoyable chocolate bar!  In number 45, from last year, there was a delightful tale titled 

Snakes and God, by Julie A. Hersh:

The hitches in getting this information to you have been the aforementioned mental issues, including the additional fact that I kept on misspelling her name, and thought also that she was Jane, not Julie.  Once I overcame these banal difficulties, I still had the biggie: it's not digitally available.  So, we come again to the DIY portion of today:  Search out Julie A. Hersh and her writing, and read some of it, it is really good, and curious, and filled with thin membranes, and it fluctuates in a satisfyingly pluralistic way between point of view, category, mood, & place.

X-GCC

 

Dear Bakeists,

As you can see from my faux military blog post naming convention, I am working on a not so top Secret Project.  My mission is to re-create the Goat Cheese Shortbread cookie that I get from the lovely Buttercup Bakery.

I won't bother you with the details of the first attempt, but I will tell you where I am at, and, then, if you are called, you can try to make some yourself.  The GCC at Buttercup is made with goat cheese and pecans.  I am leaving those out for now, because I want to work at getting it right from the ground up.  The cookie at Buttercup also has a ring of coarse sugar adhered to it.  This I do include, because it isn't a very sweet cookie, and the crunchy crisp ring of sugar seems key.

All shortbread is made with floury stuff (wheat, rice, cornstarch, sometimes potato four), sugar, and butter.  It's really your Ur cookie.  The ratios of these three things are variable, and that is where one gets into X-GCC point one, point two, point etc.  Here is what I did for this attempt:

1/2 cup butter (salted is fine, but add less salt if you use salted butter)

3.5 ounces of goat cheese

1/3 cup powdered sugar 

1 teaspoon vanilla

some salt

1 cup of pastry flour

(you will also need: egg yolk, granulated sugar)

Get all that dairy out of the fridge earlier, so you can mix it more easily.  Beat the butter and cheese together, but don't go for fluffy.  Add the sugar, the salt, the vanilla; beat, but not to fluffy- just get it combined.  Add the flour.  Make a baton of it, as for refrigerator slicing cookies, and chill it for a while.  2 hours to 2 days.  Beat an egg yolk up, brush it onto the log, press granulated sugar into the egg wash, slice it about 1/2 inch thick, bake it about 12 to 15 minutes (or longer) in a 375 oven.  

That is it.  To get in on the experimenting, vary the amounts of any ingredient, and add or swap some out.  Brown, date, or maple sugar, less goat cheese, more goat cheese, almond flour, no vanilla, you know what to do!