God smite Rachel Ray

Previously I titled a post calling for the divine blessing of one Alton Brown.
The flipside of this is my now calling for the divine SMITING of Rachel Ray and her freaking EVOO.
That she is the incarnate of all things evil on the otherwise beloved Food Network is given, but now she's getting hooked up with the SXSW festival for a birthday party concert of indie music persuasions?
Look lady, it's bad enough that you've sullied the Food Network with your ridiculous acronyms of standard kitchen products (EVOO indeed), and that you're annoyingly perky, but now you've gotta go and start fronting on my musical territory? That's right, not even Pitchfork is safe from this incarnate of culinary evil. I can't even peruse the latest record reviews without seeing her.
Added to my loathing... I searched for a picture of Ray through google, and ran into WAY to many photos from some magazine shoot she did that I deem inappropriate for these pages. That's right, she appeared on FHM as well, cooking in little more than a mini skirt and a bra.
I'm going to go watch a few episodes of Alton Brown just to cleanse my brain pallet of this news bit.

Don't talk back to Darth Vader! He'll getcha!

Listen to this little kid. She knows what she's talking about

Why I do vote

Politico recently ran three side-by-side columns on why three journalists do or do not vote in elections, and I was a little troubled by the extremity of the first to opinions (from non-voters).

Mike Allen argues that journalists should remain politically agnostic, but I think he goes a little too far, in what I'd consider political atheism. I understand trying to remain detached, but as a country, voting is the minimal civic responsibility.

I understand limiting one self to the standard elections. I didn't vote in the primaries or participate in caucuses because those are party events. The primary in Washington state requires voters to designate a party affiliation, and myself I'd rather remain an independent. But to not even participate in a carefully anonymous event seems ridiculous to me.

The way I see it, if you're going to detach yourself even from an anonymous vote, what else will you avoid? Can you allow your children to join cub scouts? Because after all, the BSA has taken strong positions on homosexuality. If your beat covers unions, will you avoid certain grocery stores?

Journalists can easily become wrapped up in their own little media worlds, and it's pretty difficult to cover the planet when you pompously live high above it. To me, the November election is one of the few places where a reporter can actually become involved in their community.

So you don't care to declare a party? I'm there with you. You even avoid the PTA because you're a school reporter? I can see an argument there. But taking away your own right to vote, just for the sake of proving that you're unbiased, that to me seems like overkill.

Reporters already have their opinions. Voting doesn't change that. I have sources I like, I have sources I dislike. I can't change my personally feelings, but when I sit down with my copy, my dedication to readers demands that I keep my personal feelings from swaying the information I need to convey. But come that first Tuesday in November, I can guarantee I'll cast my vote. You don't have to say who you voted for, but your inaction does not change your personal and political beliefs, or the potential for bias.

Read: Till We Have Faces

So I finally gave into endless recommendations to read C. S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces.

I resist because, with rare exception, I'm not a particularly huge fan of C. S. Lewis. I find him ultimately the product of a time that led to a lot of sexist and shallow theology. I understand taking things in context, but taking C. S. Lewis in context left me having to sift through quite a bit of crap to get to a few decent nuggets.

Not so with A Grief Observed or Till We Have Faces. I like these, and especially my latest read, because they're based in doubt, with the protagonists (in one C. S. Lewis himself) questioning divine authority.

Because for me, I'm an Edmund or a Susan. I prefer inherently flawed people, especially if they are doubters and questioners. I'm less interested in Peter or Lucy, who I find endlessly faithful and unquestioning, and thus, endlessly dull.

If discussion of the divine is without questions or doubt, than, to me, it's a worthless conversation. That's why I adore this book, and its protagonist, Orual, who pens the story as a charge against the gods for what they did to her and her sister, a human-turned-goddess, Psyche.

This is a retelling of greek myths in much the same way Gregory Maguire retells the stories of the Wicked Witch of the West or Cinderella.

The story of Psyche involves a girl sacrificed to a beast of some kind. Cupid is sent to kill her, because peasants worship her like a god. Cupid instead falls in love with her and takes her away to a palace and marries her, but keeps himself hidden from her. Psyche's sisters see the palace, become jealous, and convince the naive and gullible Psyche to shine a lantern on her husband and kill him. When she shines the lantern, she is banished.

Lewis brilliantly turns the story around, creating Orual, one of the sisters, Psyche's elder, who is overly fond of her young, beautiful sister. Orual is seen as ugly. Orual's actions are not out of jealousy, but out of logical doubt. As far as she can see, someone has conned her sister, is keeping her locked in a mountain and manipulating her into thinking he is a good. Orual is unable to see this palace, and insists that Psyche prove that her alleged husband is more than just some manipulative thief. She's convinced that, in fact, Psyche might be drugged by the hidden husband.

I love this protagonist, because I think most level-headed people would have the same reaction to Psyche's situation. But more than that, Orual confronts the god's and charges, in a great set of dialog, that the god's real crime is being absent and ambiguous. If they were violent beasts, humans could deal with that, but instead they're distant and withhold the intent of their actions.

I don't want to give any more away than that. But it just astounded me, and I applaud Lewis for not driving a "have faith no matter what the cost" message, but rather leaves the story unclear in the end. It seems that Orual begins to have faith in the end, but it's not a moral that is forced, and Orual's doubts and anger ring much stronger than Psyche's blind faith, whether Psyche is correct in the end or not.

Onto some lighter fair. Next I'm reading Cold Comfort Farm for the second time.

The Quilt, Part 3

I hit a bit of a slump this week in quilt-making, mainly because I hit a slump in life. Megan and I like to call it "I don't feel like being an adult today" kind of thing. Which generally results in us watching entire seasons of "Scrubs" in short sittings. But it's time to get back on the ball!

So I'm in the process of cutting all the extra junk off the t-shirts (like the sleeves, collar and bottom seam) and ironing backing onto it. Check out this Andrew Bird shirt getting sliced, diced and heated to its quilty DOOM!

Here we have the t-shirt, unharmed and unaware of its future demise. But fret not gentle reader. This fabric may die as a t-shirt, but it will be reborn as a BADASS quilt. (I like to try to make the whole quilting process sound sexy and dangerous as much as possible. Helps preserve my frail manhood.)
I'm looking to take this badboy and have nothing but two pieces of fabric, with no seams, tags, collars or anything. Bye bye birdie!


Because I'm a sadist, here's a glimpse of the shirt midway through the hacking. I took off the sleeves and back. I took a bit of the backing fabric, and cut it at the same time to get the same shape.
The quilting ruler (is that what it's called) is really necessary, because t-shirt fabric is pretty soft and moved around a lot. I also had to watch the collar, so I didn't cut too close to the image.
Next its off to the ironing board. The backing fabric looks like a regular woven fabric, but has little gluey dots all over it. I bonded them together at medium heat, and put another layer of fabric over the top so it didn't get too hot.

And behold! The final results. I worried that with the glue it would be stiff, but it's actually very soft. The outer side feels like the comfy shirt it used to be, and the backing gives it a support making the whole thing feel more like a nice flannel. Only downside so far: if I iron for too long, it leaves a grid impression from the ironing board on it. But in the days following that's worn down quite a bit.

One other tip. The backing can get expensive for an otherwise dirt-cheap project. We get a Jo-Ann's Fabric coupon flier in the mail each week, and there's almost always one for 50 percent off a single item. I recommend going that route, because the backing is needed for any piece of fabric on the quilt.

Also, I'm taking Jon's advice on using as little backing as possible. I'm starting off by putting backing on the front halves of all the t-shirts (the sides with the images) and if I end up needing more material for the blank squares, I'll back the backends of the shirts.

Iron on!

Year of the Rat!

Happy year of the rat everyone!

Discovering that the Chinese New Year cycles in February was very important to me. I once believed I was born in the year of the rooster. BUT NO! Thanks to the technicalities of the Chinese Calendar, I'm proud to be born under the year of the MONKEY!

Be thankful you're here in the U.S., because across the Pacific it's going to be an entire year of rat-based advertising and merchandise. I bet Ratatouille is going crazy over there right now.

R.E.M. - "Supernatural Superserious"

Pitchfork posted a surprisingly catchy R.E.M. track today. Given that their last two albums were entirely forgettable, it's nice to hear something like this pop up. More Monster-like, which is good, but I would much rather hear something a la New Adventures In Hi-Fi or Up, but this is still pretty solid.

Check it out!

Best comic ever

I tend to say a lot of things are "best ever" you'll notice. Though I realize these claims are unfounded and often outlandish (except for Tiffany, she really is the best thing ever). But XKCD is actually up there in the charts, and the above comic is why.

Listening to update

I try to save my 40 monthly emusic tracks for as long as I can, but inevitably I have downloaded all of them the day they refresh, as was the case this month, and it's all thanks to these three new albums sitting in my "Listening To" section.

Basia Bulat - Oh, My Darling I'm working on a review for this one for Nada Mucho right now. I love the record. On some of her more upbeat tracks she reminds me of Richard and Linda Thompson back when they were on speaking terms. "In The Night" is without a doubt my favorite song on the album, but I warn you the linked video there involves drummers dressed up as bears and dancers dressed up as skelingtons... It is not for the faint of heart.

Nellie McKay - Obligatory Villagers So her first album Get Away From Me was about 50 percent pretty great. The 50 percent I preferred leaned on the conventional vaudeville side of things, rather than the intentionally weird, They Might Be Giants side of things. This new one, unfortunately, leans on the weird side. There's some great moments, but it's not a casual listen, because it's music that really grabs your attention through odd voices and blurting interjections. I still enjoy it, especially "Zombie" but there's not a track that stands out as strongly as "Ding Dong".

Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová - The Swell Season I've written about these two. Their album is essentially half songs from the film Once. The difference here is that the songs are all piano, guitar, violin and cello, rather than piano, guitars, bass and drums. "Falling Slowly" is still the best track, and Hansard's explanation about the song on that video is pretty hilarious.