William Hazlitt’s “On the Pleasure of Painting,” part of Table-Talk.

Soil switches on antibiotic genes in bacteria.

Sungsoo Kim’s works in glass (via Craft Magazine).

Christien Meindertsma. Pigs and wooly things.

Hella Jongerius chicle latex objects. The shape research thingamajings!

“Daddy warned me about men and alcohol but he never warned me about women and cocaine.” Really I just think Tallulah Bankhead had great hair. I recently discovered Photo Detective, and have been poring over the portraits and the minutiae of their hairstyles and accessories. It got me started looking at other old portraits, and instead of reading lately when I wake up in the middle of the night, I study these faces the way I do people on the train. I wonder about the choices they made in their appearance and what they might have meant. Fashion is a language and anyone who wears clothing is speaking it. There is no such thing as neutral or meaningless choices in appearance. When I was on vacation, I read a book V had on his phone. It was by William Gibson, but I don’t recall the title. It was a few years old and not very good. For one thing, the author kept describing people, clothing, fashion, art, etc, as neutral or intentionally devoid of meaning. No. There is no such thing. It was really distracting. (Also the protagonist constantly referred to herself by name in her internal monologues. Who does that?) And the more fluent the speaker is in the language of fashion, the more meaning there is in every choice she makes. Even disdain for fashion has to be expressed through fashion, right? I mean, if you speak the language poorly, people won’t understand what you’re trying to communicate, even if it’s disdain. If you speak it well, people will understand, even if they disagree or want to punch you. For people who are interested in fashion as language, the challenge is, of course,  to say something interesting in an intelligible way.

For C: And speaking of fashion, I still think Etsy’s great, but there’s no real way of knowing how reliable a seller is. The review system is binary and, in dealing with an individual, most buyers are reluctant to hurt the sellers feelings or to be the first person to leave negative feedback. As a result, I have gotten a lot of overpriced, poorly made, but flatteringly photographed crap, for which I have declined to give feedback. I actually tried to return a sweater once, but the seller was so horrified that I backed down and kept it. I satisfied myself by taking it apart and using it as a pattern to make a much higher quality version of the same thing, with soft organic wool, fussily finished French seams, and more elegant proportions (read: sleeves that didn’t stop an inch above my wrist.) I would say my experiences are about 50-50 at this point. I’ve gotten some lovely and unique stuff, but just as much knit fabric sewn inside out; ungenerously proportioned clothing (everyone can tell when you’re skimping on fabric); wavy, unfinished seams with clots of wrong colored thread; custom dresses a good six inches shorter than ordered; and “woodwork” that includes toothpastey globs of putty. A good photograph is the absolute minimum for anything I’d consider buying, but a knowledgeable description of the craft and finishes, along with clear detail pictures, is a lot better.

~

In which I move back down in the world: First, I freudfully forgot to mention that I got jacked by two twelve year olds on a beach in paradise. They sprinted up and stole my bag under my very outraged gaze. I roared out of the ocean and sprinted off in pursuit cursing them at the top of my lungs for a good ways before I remembered things like pit vipers and my bare feet and that the back of my bikini was really slipping down. The only real outrage in the situation was that the bag had the keys to the borrowed Mercedes. Much tedium and nighttime mosquitoes ensued in getting the car towed back to the cabin from the lonely parking place at the end of the world, where presumably the fiendish twelve year olds were waiting to drive it away under cover of night. In the hullaballoo I left my fancy twist-tied vaseline filter sunglasses in the car of a good Samaritan. Bam! Mercedesless and sunglass bereft in a single afternoon. I felt like Job, cursed by God. I’m trying to stay humbled because I don’t want anything to happen to my Metrocard and cheap replacement glasses.

By way of a further tropical punishment, a Caribeño-ish Salsa, which turned out rather well after a couple of tries. The ingredients are: jalapenos (although proper recipes call for orange habaneros, jalapenos are all we’ve got in the ‘hood this time of year), onion, garlic, turmeric root, mustard, banana vinegar (apple cider vinegar will do), curry leaves, cumin, paprika, and black pepper. Food process away! Titrate the ingredients to taste, but go easy on the cumin and mustard, which will otherwise overwhelm everything else by the next day. I accidentally-on-purpose smuggled an armload of live turmeric into the country. I knew I’d packed it and knew you aren’t supposed to bring in produce, but somehow all that knowing didn’t add up to any sort of awareness and so I cheerily waltzed through customs feeling innocent as a babe in arms. Rather different than last year on the way back from Peru, when I hardly dared meet the eye of the customs official. Every boot, sock, and t-shirt was stuffed with esoteric varieties of beans and corn and dried huacatay.

~

Finally, a new Aure stage involving lots of grotesque stories and histrionic disapproval, usually of V and me. He’s as gentle and wildly affectionate as always, but when we disagree, instead of full blown tantrums, I get meandering stories of revenge told with furious emphasis. For example, during an admittedly coercive diaper change: Gonna pop Mami’s head off and throw it out a window! Gonna dash this diaper down and splash it to a shark! I’m gonna do it! A pause as he appears to visualize this with some satisfaction, then, pensively: This diaper is a balaclava for my sweet butt.

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

Fuschia Dunlop on Chinese artisanal food. (Speaking of camillia oil, I have been using same on my face and hands this winter. Oshima tsubaki. Not the same subspecies as the stuff in the article, but lovely just the same.) I was just thinking how sometimes the American and European rhetoric of local food can begin to sound a bit xenophobic. Not so much the official organizations who work to provide foreign markets for traditional delicacies while their own markets develop, but there’s a weird libertarian edge to some of the conversation around local-sustainable-etcetera that starts to lean more toward survivalist fuckyouism at times. Fine then, you people go live your pallid, miserable, chocolateless lives while the rest of us dip into aguaymanto jam, algarrobina syrup, argan oil… Hmm, Fuschia Dunlop has a blog. Good. I have been meaning to read her book.⁰¹ I will take it with me when I travel this month… Huh, a discussion on how common it is of people to demand Chinese food be dirt cheap. You hear the same arrogant crap about Mexican food all the time. I think it ties pretty directly to what people suppose the cost of living in the country of origin is. Whenever I research in advance of our trips to Costa Rica I notice a similar sort of entitlement on travel boards and blogs. In one place, I read a comment that actually started off, “Costa Rica used to be a nice third world country” and went on to complain at length about how it is way too expensive “for what it is.” Read: “Everyone used to live in a poverty that was awfully comfy for me, but when people make a living wage, they get awfully uppity. I’m going to Thailand next time, where people still know their place.” Yikes, maybe it’s time for you to stay home, mister! Anyhow, back to the discussion at hand– I had an idea the other day about how one might adventure to new places to eat in Chinatown. A while ago I bought a chicken from Bo Bo Chicken. (Chicken for immigrants, the sales lady told me– it comes with parts. Mine was technically defined as an old hen, which a Peruvian woman I know once explained is what really should be used for aji de gallina in place of American chickens, which she described as floppy and not having any flavor. The proprietor of one of the Mexican places nearby told me to be careful with chicken. She knows I cannot eat the gluten in most bullion/sazon mixes and cautions that American chickens are so putrid and smelly that lots of people who’d never use sazon back home have to douse chickens here to get them to stop stinking. Apparently it’s unanimous. American chickens are gross.) It was really damn good. The bones and feet and the tragical little face⁰² cooked up into a really rich gelatinous stock and were reincarnated as a very good risotto. Anyhow, I noticed that their website includes a list of restaurants who use their birds. Probably a good place to start… And one more thing, here’s a place to start for people who don’t know how to identify American food.

Kapow! Evolution! Literature! Theory! So many favorite things in one place. Michael Bérubé’s review of On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction is brilliant (he even soothingly pats my hand and reassures me there won’t be any evolutionary psychology) but somehow I still can’t decide whether to read it. It sounds like the sort of thing I’d alternately clasp to my bosom and hurl across the room.

Gwen John at the Tate and a bit of tardy gossip on Gwen, Augustus, Dorelia et al.

Prosthesis art.

Oh and, I keep forgetting—that Boldtype post on electronic writing. There are a lot of places to go from there and I still haven’t made it everywhere. I will note that it’s pretty hard for text to continue to work as text while it’s busy being art.

~

We are very lucky to have a library just down the street. It’s a small branch, but since it’s the NYPL, I can order pretty much anything under the sun. The downstairs is pretty crowded with computer terminals and lots of Books for Dummies, but they always have a surprising number of new releases and the little literature section seems curated by a kindred spirit. I found multiple copies of every Roberto Bolano book in English. The children’s room upstairs is magical. It’s a lofty mellow space with gracious arched windows and round steam heaters in the center that click and gurgle cozily in the thin winter daylight. There are tons of books in both English and Spanish and a little row of computer terminals at tiny tables where the babies can sit and type. The librarians keep a bucket of crayons and scrap paper behind the desk in the center of the room. Sometimes the activities room is open and one of the librarians reads stories and plays music for the children. The babies dance and wave colored scarves around and make things out of glitter glue. Even on the coldest, wettest days, it’s never crowded. On a particularly cold day recently a woman was sitting out front selling steaming patties of plantain and meat. We bought one on the way home and Aure proudly carried it across the park himself. He clasped it to his tummy as he stood on the front stoop and watched the city workers plant an oak tree in front of our house.