Ew.
They were . . . not well liked, let us say, by their fellow Chicago musicians.
I have some fond memories of listening to Gish while extremely high, ca. 1994, but, to the extent that "grunge" ever meant anything, they were not grunge. Also, subsequent massive sucking. But, hey, didn't they, or rather their drummer, kick off the mid 1990s wave of musician heroin overdose deaths? So that's something.
I like many The Smashing Pumpkins songs, and I'm not ashamed to admit it.
For no particular reason, I never got into Smashing Pumpkins. Years later, Silversun Pickups started playing, their name taken from my neighborhood liquor store, their most eager promoter my friendly neighborhood record store clerk, and I had to check them out. And I liked them.
Now Smashing Pumpkins sounds like a rip-off.
Somewhere in my bloggy memory there was a post (Tim Burke's?) about the falacy of something more recent being read backwards into historical consciousness. Silversun Pickups are a band about this fallacy. They are the post-pre-pumpkins.
I like many Smashing Pumpkins songs, too (though I don't believe I own a full album). But I don't understand displacing Alice in Chains from the grunge pantheon in favor of them.
?
Do you often italicize the names of bands?
They were . . . not well liked, let us say, by their fellow Chicago musicians.
Don't musicians hate one another as a matter of course?
If we were going for conventional grouping, I would think Soundgarden would come before Alice in Chains, but this was just the bands that this one guy happened to be listening to. And Ygle was all, "Hey you, don't watch that. Watch this!"
But, hey, didn't they, or rather their drummer, kick off the mid 1990s wave of musician heroin overdose deaths? So that's something.
The drummer actually survived. I think they had a touring musician who OD'd at the same time and died. I remember the bassist for Hole OD'd around that time, as well as Blind Melon's lead singer.
I do neither drugs, kids, nor musicians.
re: 11
Yeah. Viewing it from afar, I always associated it with Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Pearl Jam and Nirvana, I suppose. Not Smashing Pumpkins.
Shorter Neb
I have eccentric ideas concerning front-page posts.
Further to 16, and obviously all the true Scottish antecedents thereof.
My question is partly motivated by mere music snobbery. Nonetheless, I wonder--was there really a "grunge" movement/scene/whatever? I certainly remember a lot of people in HS listening to Nirvana and Pearl Jam and so on but that's not a scene. I remember a lot of foolery in fashion magazines about flannel and flowered dresses but that's not a scene either. I only listened to unpopular music played by weirdos at the time so I'm not really sure what cohesiveness the larger world of music had. Like, were there grunge "clubs"? Were there particular record stores where people into grunge music tended to hang out? Were there club nights? Were there publications, fannish or other?
9: Do you often italicize the names of bands?
No. I had just been writing a long email with titles of books and I got a bit carried away with my HTML formatting when I shifted over. In case you were really curious.
21: In case you were really curious.
You are right to be suspicious, I think it was actually a subtle form of proposition.
I thought it was something like that, and I really was. Frankly, I find everything about you utterly fascinating.
Don't think you can distract me with your comma splices, JP.
I really am totally fucking hopeless on stuff like that.
I really am totally fucking hopeless on stuff like that.
A friend's critique of something I wrote recently included a comment about how I must want to marry commas, since I appear to love them so much that I liberally sprinkle them everywhere in my writing without much adherence to convention. I just think they're pretty, you know?
I think they're pretty too, that's why I abuse them.
27, 28: Could one of you repeat your comment in a Peter Lorre accent?
28: That's OK, JP. You just don't know the cultural context as to why that's morally repulsive.
If only the commas would stand up for themselves. I wasn't born a grammar monster, you know.
Grunge might be more interesting if it spread out of the Northwest, in the ways showgaze and twee were int'l musical movements. So far, everybody seems to equate grunge with subpop. and why do i have to be the one to do the research at AMG?
As far as "gets it exactly right" goes: 5, 16, 33.
Almost all Seattle or NW?
Some interesting bands, but probably not an interesting style or genre.
11: Ok, agreed. Soundgarden is indeed more important than Alice in Chains. But Alice in Chains, for some curious reason, got a TON of airplay in my hometown so I sometimes think of them before other grunge bands.
so I sometimes think of them before other grunge bands.
I'm afraid that correct thinking about grunge bands is not optional.
showgaze
Like "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair" done really slow and with a lot of distortion?
Surely it's not controversial that Smashing Pumpkins > Alice in Chains on any reasonable metric.
Surely it's not controversial that Smashing Pumpkins > Alice in Chains on any reasonable metric.
Except for the metric of: who is more grunge, Smashing Pumpkins or Alice in Chains.
Before it broke big in 1991, grunge was just one more sub-genre of punk rock, derived from later Black Flag or weirder hardcore like Flipper, with under and overlays of Sabbath. Folks who listened to it might have found Mudhoney or the Melvins or what have you the most exciting thing going, but in MSP I didn't know anyone who identified as grunge in a subcultural sense. It brought in a lot of people who listened to punk and hardcore, without necessarily identifying as punk. I suspect it was a bit different in the PNW, and certainly Seattle and Subpop gave the scene coherence. It was and still is, however, hard to tell what made a group grunge versus not-grunge though. The wikipedia page lists Babes in Toyland among the non-Seattle Grunge bands, probably because of the Courtney Love Connection, despite the fact that they were more punk in sound. It doesn't list Soul Asylum, which fit more neatly into Grunge's sonic parameters.
But next you'll tell me that wikipedia doesn't have any special authority here. Elitists.
Actually, on the shoegaze front, the guy I knew who was most into Soundgarden -- before everyone was -- was also the biggest booster of Teenage Fanclub, back when they just sounded pretty standard to the rest of us.
Surely it's not controversial that Smashing Pumpkins > Alice in Chains on any reasonable metric.
Is degree-of-love-by-alienated-frat-boys who-need-workout-music a "reasonable metric"? If so, Alice in Chains wins that one.
10: Don't musicians hate one another as a matter of course?
Silver Lake bands all love each other.
re: 41
But Teenage Fanclub weren't remotely 'shoegazing'. Byrds/Big Star classicists with bits of punk/rock overlaid, yes, shoegazing no.
As far as shoegaze goes, I finally sat down and listened to Loveless the other day, and holy crap I was an idiot when I was younger. I could have been listening to that instead of the top 40 shit I was actually listening to.
I find comma splices strangely aesthetically pleasing. I noticed recently that Rebecca West uses them liberally to good effect.
My Bloody Valentine are also aesthetically pleasing.
But Teenage Fanclub weren't remotely 'shoegazing'. Byrds/Big Star classicists with bits of punk/rock overlaid, yes, shoegazing no.
Seriously, with heavy emphasis on the Big Star part.
Now I think I will play some Spaceman 3.
I listened to Loveless once, when it came out, and it made me physically nauseous. I immediately returned it to the record store.
Now I think I will play some Spaceman 3.
Though I was a casual fan before, I've gotten more and more into them as my taste has gotten dronier. I love their live album, Dreamweapon.
50: I wonder what you'd make of it now. I've been on a bit of a shoegaze kick, so I listened to Lush's Split again too. I've always loved "Undertow", but the rest of the album left me completely cold when I first heard it; now, while I still think "Undertow" is the best track, the others have grown on me.
47: You're right. I had foolishly muddled Teenaged Fanclub with My Bloodly Valentine in that instant (Scotland, Ireland, whatever). My friend was also an MBV appreciator for what it's worth, but much bigger on the Alex Chilton and TF front. Both MBV and TF are bands that I've come to appreciate much more these days than when they were making records.
I still can't listen to Spacemen 3 though. It starts off well and then, god the droning
52: Good question, I don't know. Something about the mix set me on edge -- the guitar sound was like fingernails on a chalkboard.
re: 53
Both bands are still making records. TF's biggest hits in the UK actually came a few years after 'Bandwagonesque'.*
* I vaguely know two of the people from TF -- friends of friends. They are really nice people.
The end of the other thread is like the beginning of Citizen Kane, except in this case the mystery will never be resolved.
i was to post a great comment answering to Cecily i think who taught me a lesson of internet usage, thanks a lot, like a lot, and many more times
and explaining there some other feelings it evoked the lesson of it etc, but i won't repeat it here
well, good luck with the study of the mysterious noble abusers and the end of abuse which i really wish to be abolished and got caled for that a typical abuser, such a mystery! all around
but, yeah, carmpon or whatever, just a bit sorry i wasted my time when it was just another race to a 1000 comments thread, cynical as usually
at least i hope BvJ conflict got resolved or something
So, as tierce de lollardie was saying, I'm thinking of the lone and level sands just stiff with with huge men on even larger unicycles. Shelley can suck a bag of dicks.
Noble abusers
This made me think about self-abuse (the original topic of that thread) which got me to, appropriate to this thread,
Well it's really no excuse / and aren't you seeking self abuse. / Are you really seeking savation (I've tried to explain). / Moutains have been moved and theories have been proved / All within the duration (All you do is complain). / So when your show is over and all is said and done. / I think it fair of me to say that you're not the only one. . .
The relationship between the lyrics in 62 and the experience of reading long contentious threads left as an exercise for the reader. . .
Read, if 66 is in response to my 62 please know that wasn't intended to be argumentive.
I was just amused that the (mildly teasing) lyrics of a song that was one of my favorite songs 19 years ago felt apt to reading through an argument that had "more heat than light."
no, N, that was other response
that lyrics i liked, sure i'm not the only one to think about issues and try to see like solutions, people all try and argue, and hopefully meaningfully, not thinking about beating the dead horse etc, cybnics of course are bored to death with the arguments
i think sometimes perhaps certain feminists, antiracists, progressivists are perhaps just claiming to be that just b/c it's you know considered cool or fashionable or something, but in their inner self they are as racist or patriarchal as ever
wow, i like my invented cybnics so be it
thank god, some pause, it's hard to be a bot i understand ToS so well
Perhaps you could just call everybody Nazis and be done with it, then?
I think sometimes perhaps certain people do a lot of projecting.
well, i have to have some rest, but see you tomorrow
i'd love to continue to disagree with you until of course banned ot deleted
Well, this thread has inspired a viscerally abrasive, NoiseFX drenched shoegaze mix, which sprinkles in some menacing ambient textures and ends with an "O.D. Catastrophe": Here.
1. Bardo Pond, "Tommy Gun Angel"
2. My Bloody Valentine, "You Made Me Realise"
3. A Place to Bury the Dead, "Ocean"
4. Indian Jewelry, "Overdrive"
5. Warlocks, "Come Save Us"
6. Slowdive, "Golden Hair"
7. Deerhunter, "Hazel St."
8. Brian Jonestown Massacre, "Monster"
9. White Rainbow, "Mystic Prism"
10. Spacemen 3, "O.D. Catastrophe"
(This is the first time I use Megaupload, so let me know if there are any problems.)
Reading and reflection are good ways of building empathy. For example, reading some recent threads has made me much better able to empathize with both Jes and Bitch. Sometimes it's just hard to stop yourself from asserting that you are permanently at odds with someone or calling them a fucking cunt.
Erratum on 78: "3. A Place to Bury the Dead" s/b "3. A Place to Bury Strangers"
||
Roommate: [Walks into kitchen, sees chocolate all over the place.] What are you making, bread?
Me: No, brownies.
Roommate: Uh, pot brownies?
Me: No, just brownies.
Roommate: [Disappointed.] Oh.
Me: They're really great, though. There's a pound of chocolate in them.
Roommate: [Disappointed.] Oh.
|>
81: That's hilarious, Bave. (Once when I was in college, my mother was baking me cookies and my oldest brother showed up at her house. He asked her what she was doing. "Making oudemia lace cookies." "YOU NEVER MADE ME LACED COOKIES!")
81: Ooh, I can play, too:
Roommate 1: You've been nicer to me.
Roommate 2: What?
Roommate 1: You've been nicer to me since we broke up.
Roommate 2: [pause] Yeah.
At the party I was at on Friday I and several others were disappointed that there were only pot brownies on offer. We just wanted brownies, not to get baked! This probably means that my social circle is composed of squares.
social circle is composed of squares
Circle gets the square!
Sometimes it's just hard to stop yourself from asserting that you are permanently at odds with someone or calling them a fucking cunt banning the whole blog.
87:Uh, at the point you want to ban the entire crew, it might be time to ban yourself. Example Emerson.
Maybe if we all sent apo pot brownies . . .
Apo the Banninator.
Goddamn, the brownie recipe B posted is amazing.
(That is to say, are you bringing them tomorrow?)
When apo gets like this he reminds me of Cornholio.
That was me, and I assume they'll be gone by then. Sigh. I'm out of practice at commenting, dudes.
When apo gets like this he reminds me of Cornholio.
Repulsive.
I don't think they'll exist by Tuesday. If you want to come over tomorrow night after 9ish I'll gladly give you one.
96: What's tomorrow?
A temporal construct comprising the 24-hour period starting at the next midnight after the present moment. But that's not important right now.
Will you two stop taunting the rest of us with all this talk of brownies?
104: Sweet. I'll be in contact and will later describe the brownie to the rest of you in great detail. It'll be like you were there.
What song is that, NickS?
The first song here (along with some context).
You know who really sucks, and should even be associated with leftism? Populists. Especially Minnesota populists like the Farmer-Labor Party.
Analytic philosophy has really accomplished some amazing things in the last fifty years or so. Really, you can't talk about analytic philosophy anymore. Its just good philosophy.
Economists are really great. You know what else is great? Relationships. Can you imagine how super-duper great it would be to be in a relationship with an economist?
But not those nasty economists that are interested in history, like Karl Polyani. You want to be in a relationship with an economist who approaches the subject in the most abstract, ahistorical way possible, like its a branch of analytic philosophy. An economist who tells you the mouse-orgasm-equivalent of ever single nice thing they do for you.
That's ridiculous. Economics isn't like a branch of analytic philosophy. It is like a branch of physics.
Economics pursued at a sufficiently abstract level is like staring into the mind of God.
Luckily, the mind of God can be easily modeled with a series of cisterns.
I just think women who stay at home and raise their kids are the real heroes.
I read this article once, about women in the colonial US who committed horrific crimes, and how they were seen by their communities. I can't remember the name of the author, or any of the women's names, though - can anyone recommend something to read about this topic?
93: I highly recommend buying the cookbook. Really.
Mussorgsky blows.
But at least he was modest.
Getting serious, I just bought a pint of blackberries and a pint of blueberries. What should I make? I've made clafoutis like eight times already this summer, and blackberry cobbler is pretty much my favorite food, if I had to name one, but I have neither the willpower not to gobble it nor the generosity to share it. What ought I do? Some kinda sorbet?
Also, I am having acai-flavored skyr and a Budweiser for a midnight snack. Top that, swipple motherfuckers.
My mom is making a blueberry pie as we speak. Or at least she's talking about it.
She has a recipe that involves whole blueberries in addition to the cooked blueberry goop. It sounds good.
I am having acai-flavored skyr and a Budweiser for a midnight snack.
Last week, I was sitting in my cube eating a bowl of instant grits and a (Kroger generic equivalent) Diet Mountain Dew and thought, "Has it really come to this?"
I do like pie, but for some reason I associate it with winter. (I make a fucking great bourbon caramel apple pie with dried cherries in it.) I could consider making a black and blue pie.
In conclusion, AWB should make a pie and gobble it. Why not?
Let me get this straight. You can't think of anything to make which wouldn't be incredibly delicious, so you need help making something sufficiently off-putting that it will not be eaten immediately.
I would eat a pint of blackberries straight up with no manner of fixing. We used most of a pint of blueberries making pancakes yesterday morning.
I love Bave enough, I think, to share pie with him. Maybe we will exchange pie and brownie tomorrow night. Perhaps I will pick up ice cream. Maybe we'll watch The American Astronaut. Hmm.
131 starts off sounding dirty, but then heads straight out of the gutter. It's like you're not really trying.
129: Hot fruit desserts are the only ones I gobble without a sense of self-preservation, being sort of a savory addict and generally sensitive to butter-flour-sugar-type things. I'm never happy with myself afterward, as I learned a few weeks ago in the Stone Fruit Cobbler Tragedy.
132: Pie and Brownie would be a great name for a porn magazine. I'm going to make so much money, guys.
I'm going to make so much money, guys.
Don't forget your friends...
132 is pretty much exactly what I thought when reading 131. I think this place is getting to me.
I agree with apo: a pint of blackberries, if they're really ripe, is too good to "do" anything with.
We planted a lemon tree today. Tomorrow I'm gonna either plant or pot the tangerine.
The problem with the berries is that they were very ripe and very on sale, and so I bought way too many to gob in the normal fashion, though they won't last long enough for me to gob them. Baked goods is my usual way of handing this, or sorbet.
It's almost impossible to buy a pint of really ripe blackberries, because when they're really ripe, it's very difficult to pick them without bruising them and getting the juice everwhere and then who would want to buy them? Almost every pint of blackberries I've ever bought has been decidedly "eh" when compared to the blackberries I pick at the bush near the caltrain station in Menlo Park.
Tomorrow I'm gonna either plant or pot the tangerine.
I'm sure everyone read this as "plant pot or the tangerine".
Update on the pie-making: mindful of the potential for staining, my mom just put on an apron, which is something she never does. I didn't even know she had an apron.
This has the potential to be the most gripping story ever related on unfogged.
Is the apron decorated?
I need to make a baked good tomorrow. Something that is somewhat plain - the sort that can be consumed for breakfast or dessert. Hm.
If you can get past the noxious introduction, this is pretty delicious.
AWB put a different recipe on the food wiki, of which you may or may not be a member.
151: Did you make it? Was it a success?
You people just inspired me to go eat a quarter pint of the blackberries I bought at the market yesterday. I proclaim them neither bruised nor decidedly "eh", but rather, quite excellent. I don't fancy myself a connoisseur, however, so be warned that my word may be worth jack shit.
I'm tempted to just make a sweet potato "pound" cake again ... god that was good. But I want to branch out, I really do.
Is the apron decorated?
No, plain white.
155: Clafoutis is really easy, quick, and delicious.
153: no, I made the one linked in 150. It was a success.
Which market did you go to, Otto?
Allow me to reiterate the goodness of RFTS's plum cake, the recipe for which is on the wiki.
I just made the plum cake. Ate the last slice this evening.
I don't think I would eat clafoutis for breakfast, but, hm. Perhaps I should not care about that part.
White seems an odd choice for an apron color, given that the purpose of an apron is to absorb any spills. It suggests a certain insouciance and guilelessness on the part of your mother; it's as if she doesn't care to hide the evidence of her cooking mishaps. "Look at me, world," she says. "I am a cook! And cooks sometimes spill!"
She sounds like a brave woman.
If you are alone in the kitchen, WHOOOOOOOO will know?
My t-shirt is splattered with tomato juice and seeds. What does that signify?
It suggests a certain insouciance and guilelessness on the part of your mother; it's as if she doesn't care to hide the evidence of her cooking mishaps. "Look at me, world," she says. "I am a cook! And cooks sometimes spill!"
Like I say, she usually doesn't wear an apron at all.
It means that you are standing in the path of some grave danger from which you can only extricate yourself by propositioning me.
The redness of the tomato juice suggests an open heart, and the seeds indicate that you are ready for personal growth.
165 and 166 seem pretty compatible, actually.
165 and 166 accord in all the essentials.
Otto, you're good at this. Have you considered a career switch?
I think, personally, that it means that I should have held my hands in the bowl, rather than over the bowl, and that since it was a Sunday and I was alone I decided to not bother to change.
Like I say, she usually doesn't wear an apron at all.
Are you trying to get people to make salacious comments about your mother? 'Cause that's a little odd.
Which market did you go to, Otto?
Ferry Plaza. The berries were from Glashoff Farms. There was one variety (I think "Triple Crown") that the friendly blackberry jerk indicated was closer to its peak, and so that is the one I bought.
Are you trying to get people to make salacious comments about your mother?
By no means.
Otto, you're good at this. Have you considered a career switch?
Perhaps I can share space with the graphoanalyst in my neighborhood.
172: I was wondering that very same thing.
Done cooking the blueberries. About to add the fresh ones.
I don't know why the live-blogging of your mom making pie is cracking me up so much, teo, but it is.
This is a complicated pie!
It'll be worth it.
Is this a vegan pie? Describe the crust, if you would be so kind!
I want more details, too. What else is your mom wearing? How does is her hair done? Is there a smudge of flour on her face? Are there any seasonings in the pie aside from sugar?
Just taste-tested the blueberries. Verdict: delicious.
Has anyone got a good zucchini bread recipe? My granny made a great one, but she hasn't been alive for the last sixteen years.
(This will be the sort of prose included in Pie and Brownie magazine, next to shots of pretty orifices. That way I'll get a broader audience. Come for the porn, stay for the descriptions of teo's mom making a pie.)
That's it for the pie-making for tonight. She'll finish it up tomorrow.
Does one cook the initial batch of blueberries in order to ensure adequate thickening, or rather, to prevent runniness? Is there citrus involved? Is your mom wearing heels?
Put some zucchini in some bread. Ta-da!
Is this a vegan pie?
It is not.
Describe the crust, if you would be so kind!
Store-bought.
to ensure adequate thickening, or rather, to prevent runniness
Nosflow is working on his I-never-thought-it-would-happen-to-me letter to the editor of Pie and Brownie magazine.
192.2: I am afraid I cannot approve of "complicated" pie-making that does not involve a home-made crust. Perhaps strides have been made in the realm of store-bought crusts, but given how delicate and responsive a perfect hand-crafted butter crust is, I am highly suspicious.
No offense to your mother, of course. I just felt I needed to say it.
Does one cook the initial batch of blueberries in order to ensure adequate thickening, or rather, to prevent runniness?
Yes, more or less. In most blueberry pies all the blueberries are cooked. This recipe differs in adding fresh blueberries to the cooked ones.
Is there citrus involved?
No.
Is your mom wearing heels?
No.
I used to rely for goopiness on cornstarch, or another additive, when making a berry pie, but after reading some articles by Michael Pollan, I decided that I should cut processed corn products out of my diet as much as possible. Fortunately, I had recently heard of folk method of thickening filling, and, though I was aware of the risks involved, decided to try it out.
I am afraid I cannot approve of "complicated" pie-making that does not involve a home-made crust.
It's not actually very complicated. Nosflow just doesn't seem to know much about blueberry pies.
In most blueberry pies all the blueberries are cooked.
Not in my experience, but I guess you're the worldly one here.
I would not think to cook any of the blueberries before baking. Am I insane?
Am I insane?
Yes, but perhaps not for this reason.
This pie, incidentally, was partly inspired by Pollan's article in today's Times Magazine on how nobody cooks anymore.
I didn't think much of that article.
Though it was the inspiration for 162.
I hasten to add that I know nothing of blueberry pies beyond what I learned from my mom this evening. She seemed to consider cooking the berries to be the standard technique.
folk method of thickening filling
Tell us! P&B magazine requires just such information!
It did seem to be the sort of thing Pollan might have written in, say, 2001, followed by a decision on his part to learn more about the topic and write something far more in-depth later on.
Guy Fieri-bashing is always welcome, of course.
I'll admit I am no fan of goopiness, actually. When it runs out all over the place, I'm happy.
My mom has actually not read the article yet (although she may have started, as I saw the magazine open to a page from it on the kitchen counter as she was cooking). She was just working from the general theme.
I would be happy to contribute a column or two once you're up and running.
You can just insert "so to speak"s at will there.
When it runs out all over the place, I'm happy.
I can see the pictorial now.
Guy Fieri
I feel like I've hated him so thoroughly here and elsewhere already that I'm doomed to a karmic slap for it, like that time that blogger bitched about Michael Chiarello and then he showed up on her blog apologizing for not being a better TV show host and being all gracious and shit.
211: So can I. This magazine is going to be so fucking good you could eat it with ice cream.
I did not like that article at all!
And when it comes to blueberry pies, my general experience has been with a pre-cooked filling, but I'm sure there are all sorts out there.
My hippie friend got me to use arrowrwroot instead of cornstarch. It makes buckwheat pancakes even more buckwheaty.
"Guy Fieri" literally means "Guy to become".
The one that gets to me lately is actually on the Travel Channel: Man v. Food. That's what we've reduced ourselves to? Competing against food? It sounds so fall-of-Rome decadent and comically wussy at the same time.
217: Sometimes, I'm happy to not have cable.
Cue a million comments on the model of "no cable? I ain't even got a teevee!".
Should someone who has made 18 comments to this thread alone really claim to be "dalurking1"?
It's an old email address, ned. I would change it, but I'm lazy.
And are you saying I talk too much?
Speaking of fall-of-Rome decadent...
I just took a look at the pie recipe. It does involve cornstarch as well as cooking the berries. The regular blueberry pie recipe in the same cookbook (Fannie Farmer) does not involve cooking or cornstarch, but does involve lemon juice.
"arrowrwroot" is how dogs pronounce "cornstarch".
www.pieandbrownie.com appears to be available, Bear.
I'm going to bed. I'll provide updates on the pie tomorrow.
Has anyone got a good zucchini bread recipe? My granny made a great one, but she hasn't been alive for the last sixteen years.
I have my grandmother's recipe around here somewhere. I'll find it and pass it along - I haven't made it in a long time but I remember it as tasty.
"Guy Fieri" literally means "Guy to become".
"Guy to Be Made" and "Guy to Be Done" are worthy of mention, too, I think.
As far as non-corn thickening goes, how about agar? I bought a shissel at the Thai grocery thinking I would make vegetarian jello, but haven't cracked it.
||
I have to say, it feels kinda cool to have Roger Ebert quote me on his blog.
|>
It did seem to be the sort of thing Pollan might have written in, say, 2001,
Wasn't that back when he was writing about plants and desires?
223: The way that's written, I thought it was a Modern Love.
Michael Pollan is a junkie and a sellout.
I love arrowroot as a pie and cobbler thickening agent. Goopy is terrible, but I have to admit that I like something in there, because an empty pie shell husk on my plate surrounded by a pond of completely fluid filling makes me sad.
If Teo's mother's recipe is the similar one I use, most of the blueberries aren't ever cooked. You start with a baked pie shell, boil a quarter of the blueberries into a thick, sticky sauce with cornstarch and sugar (and lemon, and maybe some other stuff), and then pour the boiling sauce over the remaining raw blueberries to coat and bind them, and pile them into the baked crust. You end up with a pile of fresh blueberries, barely sweetened by the sauce, and bound together firmly enough that you can eat it with a fork without blueberries getting loose and rolling all over the place.
If you had a problem with cornstarch (and really, I think you can accept that we should be eating less processed corn without sweating a cornstarch thickened pie filling) I'm sure arrowroot or plain flour would work too.
Hey, congratulations, wrongshore!
Since this is a musicy thread:
This song (NSFW) is stuck in my head. Perhaps if I pass on the earworm it'll go away.
let's try my deducing abilities; WS is MB, it's strange to realize that you people exist and the movies result from your existence
the next plot could be U/d is a drug and how various people fight it
I would be very surprised if Wrongshore were Michael Bay.
This is a fabulous zucchini bread. I make no claims for it's resemblance to the zucchini bread of anyone's grandmother, however.
Wrongshore is Michael Pollan? I can see that.
A wikipedia search for MB turned up this totally awesome possibility.
but 108 is great, thanks for the post
and the abusers of course some of them are just sick people needing help that i also tried kinda say
sorry, truce
my article is just accepted, wow, that took really long
okay, if you don't want truce
how repulsive
231:Congrats wrongshore
It's astonishing the degree to whichhow Ebert responds to his commenters.
Thanks. I can't wait to know what MB is. But read's right: the definitive blog-driven movie has yet to be made. (Julie & Julia?)
(Julie & Julia?)
(Looks abominable.)
I didn't realize this until the movie started being advertised, but Julie grew up in Austin, and I currently know a number of people (several parents of her schoolmates) who knew her back when she was a teenager. Most of them didn't like her very much.
252: It will be a romantic comedy in the vein of You've got mail.
Alternatively, a whodunnit in which a blog is the only contact point between a far-flung informal group of patriots devoted to exposing the truth about some conspiracy or other. Like the fact that the POTUS is actually a Kenyan Muslim, for example.
But read's right: the definitive blog-driven movie has yet to be made. (Julie & Julia?)
I sincerely hope this is not the definitive blog-driven movie (although, really, why should I care?), because the blog is so incredibly irritating, and it's extra annoying that the movie is being made the way it is in light of the fact that Julia Child is on the record as finding the blog puerile and annoying.
Paisan!
buh?
Julia Child is on the record as finding the blog puerile and annoying.
This claim is useless without links.
Julia Child is on the record as finding the blog puerile and annoying.
I did not know that. I didn't realize JC was aware of the blog before she shuffled off to that kitchen in the sky.
From the preview, the bits with Meryl Streep as Julia Child look charming, and the bits with Amy Adams as a charmingly incompetent New York ingenue look unwatchable. I figure I'll see it with the in-laws.
Reading the New Yorker profile of Nora Ephron, I was surprised to realize that You've Got Mail was a standout abomination in a field that included the excellent Silkwood and the very funny When Harry Met Sally.
Even Adams' narration in the preview is awful.
I feel like I saw something more extended on the subject, but what I can find right now is this.
I even rather like Amy Adams, but barf.
I'm afraid I cannot even evince concord with Wrongshore's assessment of the Streep segments of the preview.
It's a shame they didn't cast Dan Akroyd in the role of Julia.
The blog-driven romantic comedy has already been made.
Belatedly, I have to say, it feels kinda cool to have Roger Ebert quote me on his blog.
It's is cool, and I feel he does it in an unusually classy fashion.
The definitive blog driven movie. (My opinion my not surprise you.)
Julia Child's comments on the blog can be found in Julie Powell's book. Why do I know this? Because, dear people, I read that horrible, self-pitying travesty of a book. And what do I hate most about it? IT DOESN'T EVEN TALK ABOUT FOOD!
(Why did I read it? I was stuck on a 13 hour flight and I like to get grumpy when I travel, that's why.)
Normally travelling itself is enough to make me grumpy. I don't need any grump-enhancing adjuncts.
There's a difference between being annoyed by being uncomfortable and being actively outraged at something on the page. I find that the latter covers up the former remarkably well.
I was stuck on a 13 hour flight
Were you travelling to a foreign place? Do tell!
...I currently know a number of people (several parents of her schoolmates) who knew her back when she was a teenager. Most of them didn't like her very much.
I presume the above is supposed to be damning, but:
(i) I shudder to imagine my high school classmates' parents' opinions of me.
(ii) Who cares what a bunch of old people think?*
* Half joking.
I just Searched Inside on amazon to try to find where in the book Ms. Child's opinions are reported, and I didn't find them, but I did encounter some really awful writing.
Were you travelling to a foreign place? Do tell!
Nope, just circling California.
277: I am pretty sure it is in the intro, or thereabouts. I don't think I threw away the book (by which I mean, donated to the library), so I'll take a look later.
Searched Inside on amazon
This is some idiosyncratic capitalization.
(i) I shudder to imagine my high school classmates' parents' opinions of me.
Doesn't mean they're wrong.
Seriously though, I don't think of that as damning, just a data point. But actually, they knew her into her young adulthood, and I find this particular group's proffered reasons for dislike, and their people-judgment skills in general, basically sound.
280: nosflow is a free spirit.
What I really wanted to know, after reading the book, was how she's still married. She spent most of the time bemoaning the fact that she hadn't slept around because she'd gotten married young; saying that she hadn't had hot sex, like, ever, because she'd gotten married young; and, when her husband did express desire for her, she rejected him because she was too tired from cooking. I know sex isn't the only thing in a relationship, but my god, I would have been pissed to read that.
The basic gist is she was extremely self-centered and pleased with herself.
Pages 221 to 222 contain some meditations on sex to which I was unfortunately made victim.
286: Then you know what I'm talking about. I was left with the overwhelming feeling that she didn't really know how to enjoy anything sensual.
Which, in someone supposedly writing about food AND Julia Child, is a major fault.
278: I have a strict policy of not donating crap books. If I can get some money for them I'll sell or trade, but that's because I'm a whore. Donating crap books to the library or Goodwill just increases the crap/not crap ratio, which has frankly gotten entirely out of hand since that asshole Gutenberg.
The proper repository for crap books is the dumpster. Crap is bad, and we shouldn't let our liberal fetish for free and open exchange of ideas blind us to that fact. Say no to crap!
Pie update, as promised: the pie is done, and it looks delicious.
289: Except, despite it being a crap book, it was really very popular for awhile. It goes to the library along with all my other popular novels (bad fantasy and romance) so that people may buy it for a quarter apiece at the library book sale. Having worked a few of them, I've noticed that crap sells. Might just be my area, though.
You are so wrong, togolosh. I WANT to read crap, and I rely on the public library to provide me with it. Since I've already read most of the crap in my local branch, I now need either to trek to the central library or to order my crap, and that's too high a bar. Please keep the crap circulating!
The proper repository for crap books is the dumpster
Oh, but I hate the idea of throwing a book away. Just yesterday my cat puked all over a big hardback book and I spent a stupidly long time trying to blot it up before bowing to the inevitable and (with solemn dignity) putting it in the recycling.
(The book, not the cat.)
The basic gist is she was extremely self-centered and pleased with herself.
I was left with the overwhelming feeling that she didn't really know how to enjoy anything sensual.
No wonder she started a blog.
(Granted, I would rather read a straightforward genre romance than self-indulgent memoirist crap like Julie and Julia.)
290: Something I meant to ask when you were previously momblogging. After your mom cooked some of the blueberries, and then added the uncooked ones, was this then baked in the pie shell? Or was this the kind of pie where she just poured the filling into a finished crust and it was done?
My roommate volunteers for a Books For Prisons thing. She occasionally brings home rejects. We have a copy of L. Ron Hubbard's History of Man and volume 5 of Shirley Maclaine's autobiography: books NO ONE will read.
Well look here, she has another book coming out in a couple months. And given the title, Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession, and this line from the product description:
Her marriage challenged by an insane, irresistible love affair, Julie decides to leave town and immerse herself in a new obsession: butchery.
It sounds like Paren's doubts about the quality of her marriage were appropriate.
I can't believe they didn't use the title "Cleavage", though its immediate connotations are admittedly more mineralogical than gastronomical.
Just read the first few pages over at amazon. God, that's awful writing.
At least other examples of the "I did some dumb thing for a year let me tell about it" genre are interesting to hear about. In the interviews she did when the book came out Powell even seemed hard-pressed to say what the point was.
291: Popular crap is the most pernicious kind.
After your mom cooked some of the blueberries, and then added the uncooked ones, was this then baked in the pie shell? Or was this the kind of pie where she just poured the filling into a finished crust and it was done?
The latter. The recipe says to pour the filling into the crust just before serving, but she apparently did it this morning before I got up even though we're not going to eat it until this evening. Curious.
The proper ending to 293, rather than the parenthetical, was: "On the bright side, the book is fine." Sorry, I can't sit idly by as people waste opportunities for Borscht Belt humor.
272: Huh. I didn't loathe the book; thought it was a reasonably amusing way to spend an hour and a half. I may have missed what was particularly awful about it.
But don't you read the most awful stuff?
I do, generally with great pleasure. This just didn't strike me as particularly off-putting even to the more discriminating. She sounded nuts, but anyone doing something weird enough to be worth writing about for a year is likely to be. And she really did seem to enjoy the food, mostly.
I thought the book was fine.
It sounds like Paren's doubts about the quality of her marriage were appropriate.
This is ridiculous. Lots of people's marriages break up, and hypothesizing that someone who says that, having married young, they feel they may have missed out on something and that sometimes they're too tired to have sex--both pretty common--that they have a terrible sex life, have insulted their partner, and are destined for divorce seems silly.
Plus anyway, the hypothesis was that her husband was pissed, not that she would leave him.
I came across some woman's blog of trying to live as a 50's housewife for a year, then a 60's housewife, etc. She seemed really into the fashion part, which is what I thought it was about, like, hey, aren't I cool and Betty-Page-ish. There were lots of photos of her outfits and stuff. But it turns out she was also forcing herself to act like a 50's housewife, even sexually, and apparently was nearly driving herself to suicide in the project, so she sped up and decided to do 100 days instead of a year. I just kept thinking, what's at stake here? You're about to kill yourself over your commitment to a blog--a blog that, I might add, seemed to have no media attention or even a very big commentariat?
307: For what it is worth, I don't disagree in the least with you about the general situation you lay out; she just seemed incredibly dissatisfied, and the points seemed to be repeated often enough that I perhaps read more weight into them than you did.
(Plus, when I bag on the book, it should be remembered that I was *already* grumpy.)
I came across some woman's blog of trying to live as a 50's housewife for a year, then a 60's housewife, etc.
Did she have a partner that was playing the husband role?
307: And for my part, I suppose I am reminded of the risks of commenting on the personal lives of authors whose books you haven't read. Memoirists with movie deals are people too.
310: IIRC, he was begging her to stop because it was making her so upset. I don't know how much he played along, willingly or unwillingly.
what's at stake
blogging as a drug, addiction
why Julia Child or other book it should be i don't get
so if the future movie's plot would be 'the blog as a drug', a lot of variations and how people get off of it, it could go like O's got a girlfriend, who said that blog or me, F's died maybe, some other people just disappear, J'd chase B, but many people stay and suffer addiction with occasional lively meetups with liveblogging, to not forget a wedding
another J would be writing a book for example etc
someone (me) will visit a shaman and get my memory erased
/kidding, or maybe will get some potion to influence people at distance
it needs some dramatic event to build around the plot, but dramatic events are better be fictional
it's like a ready script imho, the names are better be changed maybe, but the screenwriter (god/creator) knows better of course
not like a romantic comedy something, that would be a repetition of some other movie already out there
What source was she using for sexual behavior in the 50s? I'm sure—sure!—that even in straitlaced suburbs there was substantial variation, behind closed doors.
someone (me) will visit a shaman and get my memory erased
Eternal Sunshine of the Blogless Mind?
308: I think it would be a really interesting experiment, just to cross that line from theory to praxis. Especially in terms of the ideas (which are feminist, so it makes sense to do the housewife experiment specifically) that personal lives are both underwritten and richer than we generally realize. And that personal experience of a thing gives you insight into it that you wouldn't get without it.
307: I haven't read the book, so don't know how it actually goes down, but from parenth up thread I envisioned it as basically the author communicating relationship dissatisfaction to her husband via publishing it in a novel (don't know if the same thoughts were published first on her blog). That and/or just using it as a tool to up the theatricality of her blog/memoir.
I find that a pretty problematic way to communicate and/or get attention and notice, but again I don't know if that's actually what happened.
314: yeah. I think the whole notion that nobody got off before 1965 or so is one of the more risible aspects of popular culture.
314, 318: Of course. As anyone surely knows, assuming that the standards of deportment described in handbooks, magazines, and novels are somehow perfectly indicative of real human behavior is mind-bogglingly stupid. This does not prevent people from attempting to perform the advice therein. Can you imagine if someone 50 years from now took all the advice in Cosmo to find out what women's lives were really like in 2000? Hopefully the first time she tries to nibble a donut off someone's cock it will become apparent that "advice for women" is a sexist joke about how dumb women looking for advice are.
(That said, I am willing to believe that women 50 years ago spent more time doing their hair and wore more complex undergarments than I do.)
319: a donut off someone's cock
So men of the future will spend a lot of time playing pranks on rival fraternities?
307: That wasn't my sense of the novel at all, but hey.
320:inspired e to some nostalgic research
I remember my mom's girdle, but by the time I could do wider research, the women were wearing pantyhose.
Does Mad Men show girdles? I remember some from movies, I think, like Notorious Betty Page
308: I can completely understand why someone would do something like that, even allowing oneself to be driven almost crazy. Part of it is not letting yourself be defeated by something you know lots of people have done, and part of it is treating the emotional toll as part of the challenge. Of course, I'm a nut, so YMMV.
"Grandma's Zucchini Bread"*
3 eggs
1 - 1 1/2 cups sugar (depending on how sweet you like it)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 tsp. almond extract
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
2 cups grated zucchini
Beat eggs well. Add sugar and beat again. Add oil and extract, beat well.
Whisk the flour with the dry ingredients and spices. Add to wet mixture.
Stir in the grated zucchini
Pour into buttered bread pan and bake approximately 1 hour at 350°.
* My grandmother was an Ohio housewife who grew up in the Florida Keys. Born c. 1920. I have no idea how this correlates with anyone else's grandma.**
**Also, based on the past history of my family's recipes, this probably came off a box.
Romance of Girdles ...it may be a pro-girdle site, and biased. And not enough pictures of fully dressed women, to show the girdle effect. But it's a big site.
No, it is not turning me on or anything. Just off on some of the implications of 316 and 318, misunderstandings between generations, inhibitions (especially confused with liberation) within generations.
Were the 50s prudish? How did all those boomers happen? It is always more complicated.
Homeward Bound has some really interesting stuff about the sex lives of white middle-class people in the 50s.
Thank you parenthetical. I think the zucchini I'm dealing with is a 4 cupper. Maybe I'll make 2 loaves.
I think the zucchini I'm dealing with is a 4 cupper. Maybe I'll make 2 loaves.
You forgot to put quotation marks around that sexy excerpt from Homeward Bound.
I went to a girl, you know, a professional, and asked for the delicacy in 319. But the girl wasn't there, but there was this Jewish girl -- Rachel, or Rebecca -- and they didn't have any donuts, but she had a bagel. And she did it up right, schmear, lox, a little cucumber, some onion. It looked so good, I ate it myself!
I actually have a zucchini brownie recipe around here somewhere. I swear it's delicious, too. Lemme see if I can find it.
Crap, I think it's on the dead hard drive. Oh well. Sorry.
a zucchini brownie recipe
Didn't Seinfeld's wife publish a book full of how to sneak vegetables into your kid-friendly foods? Jammies' sister keeps trying to give it to us. It's as though she thinks we don't like vegetables, which we do, instead of that we're too lazy to cook, which we are.
The proper repository for crap books* is the dumpster Operation Paperback.
I sent an absolute slew of books the first couple of years of the war, but I haven't kept up.
*Crap = genre, inexpensive editions more so than terrible books.
Every time I see this post title I think "Isn't Sausagely a shortish guy already?"
every time i see paren i think t short of parent, i think people could call P a bit youthfully
That girdle website is amazing; the advertisers really did not succeed in making those garments look alluring or comfortable. Did people wear underwear under their girdles? Did they wash their girdles every day? Ew.
But your misconception is not an uncommon one.
Perhaps he just blogs like a short guy.
Does the act of blogging inherently imply shortness? Discuss.
He does wear a lot of horizontal stripes. Literally every time I've seen him (not many), he's been wearing horizontal stripes. Maybe that has something to do with it.
He does wear a lot of horizontal stripes, doesn't he? I think he's been wearing them every time I've seen him too.
238: Hauntingly familiar (looks familiar without specific signs or landmarks); looks like this street scene is around the corner from the 24 hour church of elvis.
78: Where does Jesus and Mary Chain (now with our internet friend) fit on the Shoegaze - Grunge continuum ?
For the next grunge round, Killing Joke vs Foo Fighters.
I like tapioca flour where one might use cornstarch (t.f.: more of a gel, less of a paste), and just used it to thicken recalcitrant tapioca pudding to pour over my fresh blueberries. And a peach. Ooooohhhhh, yum.
The Danes use potato flour to thicken stewed fruit (specifically Rødgrød). It's very easy to use and good for avoiding lumps.
It's as though she thinks we don't like vegetables, which we do
I can attest to this. Heebie and Jammies are champion vegetable eaters.
78:
Just so CB does feel completely voided: The mix downloaded just fine, though I'm not clever enough to do so without taking five extra steps to import it into itunes. I suspect this version of shoegaze is not for me. However, I quite liked the A Place to Bury Strangers track, who were previously unknown to me. They reminded me a bit of Macha, a great Athens band from the late 1990s.