It turns out it must have been a Bengal tiger, not a tepesquintle (“regarded by some authorities as the tastiest of all rodents”) I ate a few years ago. The restaurant where I et it descries any mention of the incident as foul slander (but I forgive them for their chicharron.) I remember the conversation perfectly. They used to be endangered but suddenly they (whomever they were) learned how to breed them in captivity and the country was frothing with indigent tespesquintle queuing up at soup kitchens to be eaten. I did my duty to rodentkind, ate and did not question the source of this revelation, an amiable bullshitter famous for believing his own yarns. Oops. In the future I will be more cautious of things magically delicious.

~

From The Princess and Curdie (I have been revisiting my childhood reading. Perfect for insomnia.)

…Curdie grew, he grew at this time faster in body than in mind—with the usual consequence, that he was getting rather stupid—one of the chief signs of which was that he believed less and less in things he had never seen. At the same time I do not think he was ever so stupid as to imagine that this was a sign of superior faculty and strength of mind. Still, he was becoming more and more a miner, and less and less a man of the upper world where the wind blew. On his way to and from the mine he took less and less notice of bees and butterflies, moths and dragonflies, the flowers and the brooks and the clouds. He was gradually changing into a commonplace man.

~

A note while reading In Defense of Food (very good, though no revelation for anyone who has been pondering food and nutrition science for a while): Maybe we don’t understand the sensual—the literal use of our senses, because we no longer have a food or physical culture much connected to the—empirical, to a tangible reality. (Is that the right way to put it?). This is why things like psychoanalysis, meditation, or fertility seem magical, mystical to us. They are so at odds with our rootless versions of sex and eating, which are decreasingly tethered to our own senses, which in turn are decreasingly tethered to the natural world. So many aspects of our culture encourage us to doubt our senses or outright deceive them with calculated fakes that satisfy enough to make us fat and sleepy as we float farther and farther from the earth; out of visual, auditory, or tactile range.

~

Pink Tentacle highlights some monsters from Yōkai Jiten.

Fishing in the dead zone of the Gulf of Mexico.

Overcoming Creative Block (via SwissMiss). I’d add that in my experience, creative energy comes in waves and when it retreats the only thing to do is wait quietly. I find I have to switch back and forth between the stimulating and the soothing to not burn out.

Luke Jerram’s Acoustic Wind Pavilian.

5-d geometries. (See the video animations.)

~

I am back in NYC now and besides feeling more energetic than I have in some time, everything that happened in the last month feels far away as I try to make notes on the farms and tangle of gardens we visited. I am still nibbling the last of the crumbly chocolate we bought in Puerto Viejo, where the best chocolate is cacao paste and grated tapa dulce and nothing else. It doesn’t stay fresh long so there’s no point in saving it for my hope chest or something. I have a bit of that astonishing honey left, a bag of nutmeg, lots of cacao beans, some banana vinegar, achiote paste, a tub of cacao butter, and a lot of different tropical fruit jams. We arrived home around 3am. All three of us were wide awake, enervated but alert. It was twenty degrees outside and the sky was brilliantly clear. New York looked cold and sharply beautiful from the window of the cab.

At the parents’ house outside of San Jose, the wind blows furiously, sometimes for days on end; it’s a loud and constant whine, too irregular to tune out. We drove through the rain, past the mudslides and waterfalls and bloated brown rivers to the beach, where the rain continued to pound the corrugated metal roof of our cottage for another two days. Everything was wet, everything was green and glossy and grown over; even the plants here are covered in layers of green and growing things, bromeliads, orchids, and mosses. The towels stayed wet, the clothing inside our bags mildewed and the sheets were damp when we got into bed. The indoors and outdoors are not separate here. Even if the windows are screened, they aren’t glassed. It takes some getting used to each time, in the way the proximity of so many other human beings on the subway does. Nature is leaning up against me, breathing heavily down my neck, and reading over my shoulder, indifferent to sighs or dirty looks.

Another thing that takes getting used to is driving a Mercedes. We have been lent a fancy car while we’re here. It’s a dream to drive through the mountains and on wet roads, especially compared to the tinny rental cars we’re used to, but it’s a little like being in disguise. I’ve never really known anything about cars and after living in NYC for a decade I know even less, so I don’t know the model or anything, but I can tell you that this one looks like it should be driven by an elderly diplomat and his hairsprayed wife. It makes me think of pantsuits and designer sunglasses. I wear the Bottega Veneta sunglasses passed along to me as a freebie by a magazine editor friend years ago, the lenses now rubbed to a fine mist, and the arms held on by a naked twist tie and a mismatched screw, but I don’t think we’re fooling anyone.⁰¹ Or maybe we are. On the way into town, a cop stopped us and checked the trunk. What brand is this car, he asked. Mercedes, V told him. Exactly, he responded in mysterious satisfaction.

~

I am reading Fuschia Dunlop’s book, Shark Fin and Sichuan Pepper at the same time as I am reading Julia Child’s My Life in France. The latter is awkwardly written, but is exciting and gossipy enough that I can’t put it down. The former is as good as I expected it to be. The author is remarkably self aware, really thoughtful. I will undoubtedly reread. It is getting me all excited to continue to work on my interview project back home in the Bronx. When I have a reasonable bulk of information I will put that whole project online.

~

And a list:

Pan Toasted Watermelon Seeds (Just toast them in a pan.)

Qi Gong

Osmanthus Agar Agar

Taoist pills of immortality, among other things

The other day I got this craving for the literature of my early youth. (The ladylike literature. There was also a good amount of Edgar Rice Burroughs in the same epoch.) I loved all things L.M. Montgomery, but the Emily books were my favorite because they were a bit darker than some of her other stuff, though there were no walking heads or thoats. I found all the Emily books online, but of course forbore to read them because copyright is such a vital institution within our culture. While I was not reading them I thought of a few things. Thing 1: Boy, are these ever about a pretty naked ambition. Getting paid and being published was just part of it so it wasn’t all Room of My Own business. There was a grand obsession with fame. Huh. Did I want to be famous when I was little? I don’t remember, exactly. I also don’t recall how shadowy all the other characters in those books actually were. Emily was the only person with a real face and personality. I’m pretty sure I didn’t mind that at the time, though it bugged me a bit as an adult. Finally, I started thinking about how people used to live in one place all their lives and how some people still do and how one’s actions accrete and everyone knows everything about you and the only way to live anything down is to keep on living, right there in the same place, to keep laying down layers of yourself. I and most of my close friends grew up saving our energy to go bursting out of the places we grew up. It’s so (modern) American to start fresh over and over again. I can’t imagine the weight of knowing that all of my actions were public and known and that I would have to live right there among them for ever and ever. Even if the reality is that more of me is known now, electronically, it’s not the same. I can unplug and walk away. A friend of mine once said, I don’t mind people staring at me when I’m naked as long as I don’t know about them. Exactly.

~

Some things Aure said recently. I note them because I haven’t got a clue where some of the language and ideas are coming from… I mean, I did read many of those essays on research babies aloud and probably I should keep the uncensored National Geographics full of disemboweled mammals out of his reach.

I don’t like tigers to eat my brains, I like them to eat greens. Greens and leaves. From a tree. And mud. They can eat mud. Gusanos eat mud.

Congratulations, Keeker. You are so crazy! Hmm, what’s your schedule? (To the cat.)

I’m spanking you, I punish you! I hate leche, I don’t like it! I punish you! Go lie down! You need a nap. (To me.)

I eat peppers with gusto. (I double checked this one. You eat them with what, I asked. With gusto, he said.)

I realize I’m a little bit gorgeous and sticky. (Sitting in a pee puddle in the bed.)

~

Watched Julie and Julia online. I’m sorry to say that was not a very good movie, fellas. I loved the blog and everyone loved Julia Child, but bleh. What was I expecting, it is a movie about typing, and sure enough there were a lot of typing scenes with voice overs. I laughed at the first one, but then I realized they were really going to continue with the typing and I sighed and went back to eating my bean stew and tried to concentrate on how adorable Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci were. (My sister once sat next to Meryl Streep in a restaurant, so it’s sort of like we’re friends.) I got up and went to the bathroom when the younger characters started in on the inevitable flight about how narcissitic blogging is and how it makes you not have enough sex with your longsuffering husband. Fortunately everyone got published and lived selflessly ever after because once something’s printed and the author gets paid, the writing magically transforms into a sort of postdated community service coupon with which she can be excused from any of a variety of future misdemeanors (up to three jaywalking or one drunk driving conviction). The dialogue between the contemporary couple was bad. It reminded me of Woody Allen’s younger characters in his more recent movies. The twenty six year olds dress and move and speak like they were twenty six in the early seventies. But no one really says anything in the reviews. It’s odd. Leaves me wondering if I’m crazy, but then, sure enough, I watched a bit of that tennis death movie again and the characters are totally unbelievable. The last few films were so awful (actually I couldn’t bring myself to watch the last two), that they actually soured my recollection of his older stuff. Then I watched Annie Hall and remembered why it’s really one of my favorite movies. I will watch it over and over again forever and ever and not get tired of it. I feel annoyed with him for making me have to like his older stuff better. It makes me sound like some music nerd. Oh yes, speaking of music: Screamin’ Jay Hawkins: Ice Cream Man. There you go, a very good earworm.