Tom & Alissa

I know that there is actually a day left in the month, but I will be at the IAM conference and certainly won’t be looking at a computer, and there’s no way I’m going to finish anything before then. So.

Exiles - Ron Hansen
This was a pre-release read (I believe it comes out in May) for a RELEVANT article. It’s the story of the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins as he studies for the Jesuit priesthood and is deeply affected by a shipwreck; it’s also the story of five nuns who were on the shipwreck. Ron Hansen is a professor at Santa Clara University, a Catholic, and a prolific and celebrated novelist whose book The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford was made into a movie this year starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck. The book’s style isn’t my preferred reading - it’s fairly formal - but I enjoyed the book nonetheless. [4/5]

The End of Reason - Ravi Zacharias
Also pre-release - I think it comes out in May. Ravi Zacharias’ relatively reasoned plea to the more bombastic of the new atheists for a rational, reasoned conversation instead of mud-slinging and yelling. It’s also a defense of belief in God; it certainly doesn’t prove that God exists (as if you can actually do that), but it is well-thought-out. Zacharias is well-known for his apologetics work. Quick read, too. [4/5]

No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories - Miranda July
Well, I love Miranda July, and these are really wonderfully written stories. She is an expert at writing stories of the tiny moments experienced by slightly strange people. There’s a lot of very human emotion in this book (and also a lot of squirmy moments, including some strange sexual activity). July is one talented human being - she also made the indie hit You and Me and Everyone We Know. [4/5]

Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices - Brian McLaren
Another pre-release; this is the first in a series of books on spiritual disciplines. I have to say that though I’ve never read McLaren before, this book at least convinced me that he has an excellent grasp on church history and a great appreciation for and love of tradition, not as something dry and routine, but as something that helps us train ourselves to live rightly toward God and our fellow man. The book still has me thinking about spiritual disciplines in my own life. [4/5]

I am reading many less books than I usually do, because I’m reading hundreds of pages for class and they are not light, to put it mildly (though they’re terribly interesting). However, I’m in the midst of three books:
- My Mistress’ Sparrow Is Dead, edited by Jeffrey Eugenides. This is a simply wonderful collection of great love stories - all short stories, by authors from Chekhov and Faulkner and James Joyce to Lorrie Moore and Miranda July and Alice Munro. Absolutely highly recommended.
- Slow Food: The Case for Taste by Carlo Petrini. I’m enjoying it but I don’t get much time to read it. Hopefully will finish soon and be able to do a little more thinking on it.
- Eat This Book by Eugene Peterson. I love it, but I’m taking it very slowly. I do hope to finish it this month.

Brief things, written in a tearing hurry:

I wrote a bit about apartment hunting in New York City at ConversantLife.com, and the site appears to have finally, officially launched!

On Monday night we saw Purple State of Mind, met Craig Detweiler, and went out afterwards with a handful of random people who were at the premiere, from musicians to journalists to doctors to famous playwrights. We were up very late, but it was worth it.

Yesterday after work and class I had dinner with my friend Umbereen from college, who I don’t think I’ve seen since I graduated, and eight of her co-workers (IT consulting). We went to a French steakhouse in the financial district, and my French dip sandwich was rather tasty.

Tonight is dinner with the Strauss, of Ontario and Comment.

I mentioned several months ago that Blueprint, my favoritest woman’s magazine (and the only one I really could stomach, because it was for people just like me!), stopped publishing. Its subscriptions folded into Martha Stewart Living, which started coming last week. It’s a nice-looking magazine, but I can tell I’ll never re-subscribe. It’s clearly aimed at the suburban housewife with a lot of time on her hands and decent resources at her disposal, and though I don’t have any particular problems with suburban housewives - though I don’t think I’d make a very good one - nothing in there pertains to me. The recipes are far beyond anything I have time or patience to make, with ingredients I don’t buy, and I don’t have space for things like gardens or sewing nooks. Oh well. The pictures are lovely. :)

But, I’ve made these cookie bars several times from the Martha Stewart website, and they’re great. And very easy.

Two articles at WORLD today: Be Kind Rewind and The Year of the Hollywood Outsiders.

We were, overall, pleased with the results of the Oscars last night. Good for the Coens, and for Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, and Marion Cotillard. And good on Jon Stewart for, once again, keeping everyone from taking themselves too seriously. As far as predictions - well, we both got more right than wrong, though I don’t think anyone really expected the cinematography or best supporting actress awards.

More on that once I write my article.

If you don’t hear from us this week, it’s because we’re busier than I can remember being in a long time - besides work, there’s the Purple State of Mind screening tonight, class tomorrow, dinner with the eminent Strauss family on Wednesday, the IAM conference from Thursday night until Saturday night, and a screening Sunday night. Plus work plus readings for class (on “the curator”) plus at least two articles to write. And apartment hunting.

Yes, it’s official, we’re moving. That’s about the only thing official about it. We’re not sure when (it could be in a month or it could be a while longer), where (we’re hoping West Village), or how (apartment hunting in New York is an intense occupation). But we’re doing it, because our building is very old and needs so many renovations, and for that and a few other reasons, it doesn’t make sense to stay.

I think we could convert fantasy casting into a really interesting pastime for those of us who aren’t really into football.

I e-filed our taxes around 8am this morning, and I just got an email that they’d been accepted.

Has the IRS gotten more speedy, or are we just that uninteresting?

A bad rule for life, perhaps, but not for freelance writing.

This morning we were discussing various projects at IAM, and Christy asked me if I sometimes went on work overload because I was so excited when someone asks me to write for them that I have a hard time saying no, because as she said, it’s a common dilemma for relatively new writers.

And as I told her, yes, it’s a huge problem. Mostly because I never, on principle, say no to an editor.

Okay, so occasionally I do. But it’s always when I legitimately can’t write the piece (i.e., I have class that night and can’t go to the screening). I haven’t said no to an editor for anything I could do for two and a half years.

I do have the luxury these days of almost always writing for money, or of choosing to write for free because the opportunity is worth it (notably at ConversantLife). But I started out writing entirely for free, at Relevant. I spent two years editing the Career & Finance column there for free because I knew it was worth the opportunity to work with those editors.

And I’ve been very blessed; I’ve rarely had a pitch turned down (fairly astonishing, and I don’t expect it to keep up), and I fell into most of my regular gigs by accident, or providence, depending on how you look at it. Three years ago I wouldn’t have dreamed that I’d be writing for a living, but there you have it. Even here in my bill-paying day job at the University, my title is “writer/editor”.

I have had the grateful luxury of specializing, as well, which isn’t a given. I now write about culture, film, and books, instead of my old career & finance work or general interest pieces. If I were making a living as a freelancer, you can bet I’d be writing about everything, but I’m glad that’s not the case.

Back to our discussion this morning - I explained that the reason for my unequivocal acquiescence is that if you don’t say yes to an editor, they probably won’t call you back. Editors are phenomenally busy people who rely on a small set of reliable writers with a style they like. You say no, or you start turning things in late, and you end up getting knocked off the list. At a lot of publications - and, I suspect, several of the ones I regularly work for - there’s a million writers out there, some much better and more trained than me, who would be very happy to take my spot. And I’m just a freelancer.

The long and short of the matter is that until I hit my sweet spot, my inflection point, I can’t turn down an editor. When will I know I’ve hit that point? I’m not sure. I’m thinking it will be when someone calls me and gives me at least a part-time staff writer or contributing editor position, hopefully in culture or the arts. (Hello, New York Magazine? Are you listening?) And that probably won’t happen until I finish my master’s degree, which provides credibility, and have the option to leave the day job and work for myself.

I spend a lot of time dreaming of that day.

1. Need to write about the Oscars, which means I need to watch them, but we haven’t got a way to do that at home, and prefer not to leave the city. Suggestions? Hmm?

2. Needed: studio apartment in the West Village for good price, no brokers, please.

I’m losing interest in the internet.

For most people, shifts in their internet interest happen in tandem with shifts in their job, their education, their geographic location, maybe with marriage or a new relationship or a new baby. For me it’s been none of those. In fact, I can’t figure out what it is, exactly. I can pinpoint it to a few things:

• I’ve been completely distressed and disgusted at how un-civil people are on the internet, especially on blogs and their comments, especially now that the election 2008 debacle is in full swing. It seems that those notions of politeness, kindness, and goodwill that our parents taught us fly right out the window when we feel threatened or annoyed. (I’m not talking about debate here; I’m talking about how we treat people with whom we are debating or with whom we disagree.)
• I’ve realized that I get more nasty and cynical the longer I read things on the internet, especially anything where people are nasty or cynical (or just stupid).
• Since starting school and trying to read these meaty essays for class, I’ve realized that I have developed some kind of nasty ADD-like symptoms where I can’t comprehend anything for more than two sentences before my mind starts wandering. It means it takes me hours to read very little when it’s non-fiction, and you know, that can’t be healthy.
• I’ve been thinking a lot about slower, simpler, more intentional life, and my crazed tab-hopping habits seemed pretty antithetical to that.

I’m not leaving the internet. That would be stupid and impossible and Luddite-like, and kind of ridiculous, since I write for a bunch of internet-based publications and work in an IT department by day and I recognize the value of the internet for things like connecting with friends and intelligent discussion and creative inspiration.

What I have been doing, though, is cleaning out my feed-readers and exercising self-control in which sites I frequent. It’s a constant exercise, but it’s starting to help. I don’t feel quite as frenzied or cynical or irritated with everyone, less quick to jump to judgments.

And I’ve found that I can go home and not open my laptop all evening and be perfectly content. I do things like watch movies and cook dinner for my husband and read books and sometimes go hang out with friends. Wow! I have a life. (Surprisingly, my Blackberry’s been a big help in this regard. I don’t feel the need to open my laptop to check my email - which is a much friendlier medium than blog posts - and therefore can just see what I need to see and get on with my life.)

We first got email (Juno, which was email-only) when I was fourteen, and had the internet about two years later, and now that I think about it, it’s been ten years. I’ve never felt a need to disconnect before. But I’m appreciating a slower life. Maybe I’m just growing up?

I’m Not There
Well, I don’t think we expected that this would live up to the hype, but it certainly did. I’d heard that it got “tedious”, but I didn’t find it to be tedious at all. It’s absolutely great, even if you’re not a Bob Dylan fan. Cate Blanchett is brilliant. (In case you’ve been living in a hole, this movie is sort of a riff on the life of Bob Dylan - six actors play different parts of his persona, which are shot in different styles.)

Matrix Reloaded
I finally got around to watching it. You know, it’s not great cinema, but the car chase almost makes up for it.

Woman on the Beach
This is a tragicomedic Korean film that kind of plays like a Woody Allen movie, only not at all American. The movie director goes off to a seaside beach to finish writing his movie, brings along a friend, who brings along his girlfriend, and hijinks ensue. Nobody’s actually going to see this movie, though, so I don’t feel like I need to say too much more. It wasn’t awesome, but it wasn’t bad.

Se7en
David Fincher is a very evil genius (seriously, the man scares me) and apparently I’m working my way backwards through his movies. This is brutal but excellent. I’m glad Brad Pitt made them keep the ending the way it is, even though it’s bleak. A serial killer works his way through the seven deadly sins as he systematically knocks off his victims. Not for the faint of heart or stomach.

Matrix Revolutions
Some of this I really loved, and some of it just bored me (mostly the Zion bits). The fight scene at the end was worth waiting for.

Still Life
A Chinese film by the director of The World, which I did like. This is mostly a tale of people looking for things they’ve lost. There’s also some demolition of a town that’s about to be submerged. I think I liked it, but it pretty much defines “slow foreign film”, so if you’re not into that, beware.

In Bruges
Press screening. Funny and so politically incorrect. The acting is great. My review is here.

Kicking and Screaming
Not the Will Ferrell one, the Noah Baumbach one. What do you do when college is over? It’s wall-to-wall talking, and as many have said and I will repeat, Baumbach can do dialogue like nobody else. Also, Jason from Gilmore Girls is in here, very young, and that just made me laugh.

Boss of It All
Lars von Trier makes a comedy about a Danish out-of-work, pretentious actor who gets hired to be the “president” of a company because the real president of the company has never let on that he’s the president, preferring instead to pretend that all the bad announcements are handed down from the “boss of it all”, who works in the US. Sticky situations ensue. I like this kind of experimental stuff (he let a computer pick all his camera angles), but most people probably wouldn’t enjoy it that much.

Catch Me If You Can
We’d both seen this before, but gee, what good fun, and I think better cinematically than a lot of Spielberg’s films (though I do usually enjoy them, because that man can entertain!). Plus, a great score.

And I watched these on my own:
Helvetica
Really quite interesting - less about the font and more about controversies in design and aesthetics around the world, plus a lot about modernism and post-modernism in there. Definitely a must-see if you’re into design.

The Nanny Diaries
This was better than I expected, but not as good as the book. They changed the plot a ton - which is completely understandable. I really liked the look of the film - vibrantly colorful - but I think it flew along too fast. In any case, not bad.

La Misma Luna
A press screening, and it doesn’t come out until March so I can’t say much.

Last night I made pumpkin ravioli in melted butter (with a little fresh sage and garlic) and asparagus, blanched for a minute in boiling water, drizzled with olive oil, and seasoned with a few cranks of the salt and pepper grinders. The asparagus (which I made up out of my head because I didn’t have enough pots to melt any more butter) was actually kind of brilliant. I will definitely be making it that way again.

And we watched Catch Me If You Can, not because it’s particularly Valentine-y but because we just wanted to. The last time I saw it, I was in Ukarumpa, Papua New Guinea (if memory serves me correctly, it had Finnish subtitles too). And Tom had seen it before. But it was great, and I now agree with him, probably one of the better endings to a Spielberg film.

Tonight is Macbeth, starring Patrick Stewart! And I have Monday off. I am not sure if we’re doing anything in particular this weekend. I should think we may try to see Atonement since we still haven’t seen it. Also, I have many books to read (one for a RELEVANT piece, three for fun) and about a hundred pages of readings by such estimable folks as Jurgen Habermas and Susan Sontag about “The Critic”, which should be fascinating since I am kind of a critic myself. Our assignment, in fact, is to write a critical review of something - and a film is on the list.

Lastly, and I think this is via Annie - sage advice for writers looking to get published from an agent.

I got an email from BAM this morning saying that they’d just released a handful of tickets for the Chichester Festival Theatre’s production of Macbeth, which had frothing-at-the-mouthingly ecstatic reviews when it was in London. Oh, and it stars Patrick Stewart. So I very quickly bought two tickets at the cheapest price they had available (ouch) and we’re going tomorrow night.

Good thing, too, because it sold out in a couple hours.

This is embarrassing, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen a production (film or stage) of Macbeth. I’ve certainly read it. I’ve seen Hamlet (plus Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead) too many times, but somehow never Macbeth.

(Mwahahaha, something wicked this way comes.)

Also, we exchanged presents this morning. Tom got me an amazing T-shirt from Threadless with ink blots and musical notes that I can’t find on the website, and a DVD of Sweet Land, and My Mistress’s Sparrow Is Dead: Great Love Stories, from Chekhov to Munro, edited by the amazing Jeffrey Eugenides and possibly the neatest book ever. Short stories from every writer worth his salt, including guys/girls like Chekhov and Milan Kundera and Lorrie Moore and Nabokov and a host of others, and it ends with “The Bear Went Over the Mountain” by Alice Munro, which is the basis for last year’s movie Away From Her. I am dying to get home and read some of it. I got him a very nice manly khaki apron from Williams-Sonoma (because he is a good cook and has nice clothes and sometimes those don’t go together) and the book Killer Chili which he has been periodically mentioning since we saw it when we were in Albany for Christmas.

Tonight, because we are kind of lame and also kind of busy, we are staying in and ordering dinner and relaxing. Our Valentine’s Days are always a bit harried (two years ago we celebrated days later because Tom was catering on the day, and last year we ate late and it was snowing and Tom had been shooting in the cold all day). So this will be nice.

On Monday, I stayed home sick. But sick to me usually ends up being an excuse to do the things I need to do, whether or not my head is spinning. (It seems like I used to be more laid back . . . I wonder when I went crazy?)

In any case, I did go to the coop on Monday because there was only brie and jam and six ounces of portobello mushrooms and some bad-looking baby lettuce in the fridge, and so I came home with an abundance.

And I was hungry that night, so I modified this mushroom soup from Blueprint, and this is what it turned out to be:

1. Put 2 cups of mushroom broth (NOT the creamy kind - I used Pacific Natural because that’s what they had at the coop) into a saucepan. Add a dash of thyme, about a teaspoon of salt (mine was six cranks of the salt grinder) and one crumbled dried chili pepper.
2. Bring to a boil and then turn off the heat, leaving the saucepan covered.
3. Heat 3 T. olive oil in a larger saucepan.
4. Cut up 6 oz. portobello mushrooms. When oil is very hot but not smoking, add mushrooms and cook about five minutes.
5. Add three fresh sage leaves, a dash of thyme, and two small cloves of minced garlic and cook for about two more minutes.
6. Add two tablespoons of white cooking wine (I use some kind that is probably lousy but is sold at my local gourmet store specifically for cooking with that won’t go bad if it’s in the cabinet forever) and cook for about thirty seconds.
7. Pour in broth; boil; turn off the heat and let it sit for about five minutes while you wash the dishes.

It’s a little spicy and a little mushroomy and very tasty, especially with crackers. Yum.

This came across my feedreader late last week: Vanity Fair Does Hitchcock. Will definitely be trying to nab this issue.

Yes, this is Scarlett Johansson and Javier Bardem:

And this one made me laugh:

Hello, hello.

I was not feeling terribly well yesterday (and not terribly better today, but at least not dizzy), so I stayed home from work and spent most of the day sleeping and watching mindless stuff to recuperate.

When Tom got home, we watched The Boss of It All, Lars von Trier’s newest film. I believe it came out mid-2007. I love that kind of bizarre, yet narrative, extremely dryly funny experimental stuff. I think Tom liked it less than I did, but whatever. I like the Danish office aesthetic much. (Oh, it’s mostly in Danish, with a little Icelandic thrown in for good measure. Man, am I glad most people in those Scandinavian countries learn English. Those languages sounds miserably hard to learn.)

Today is it snowy and cold in New York. Genuinely snowy, too. It’s actually sticking. I don’t think it’s stuck much this year.

We have turned into wildly social creatures this week - I haven’t spent an evening at home yet this week, which is kind of a shame but only when it comes to my need to plow through about 120 pages of very dense reading on art and Marxist theory (for, against, who knows). I am about twenty pages from the end and about to go decamp in a Starbucks uptown to try and read it and maybe get started on the summary of the key parts of the course thus far. I feel wildly underqualified to take this class, and I’m so grateful. Otherwise, I’d be tempted to slack off and skate through, and instead, I’m totally on my toes. An excellent way to start the grand graduate school adventure.

I have little else to say, except that the Anthropologie catalog came yesterday and I was leafing through it as I was cleaning the kitchen this morning (behold my ridiculous ADD) and the clothes are so lovely. Anthropologie has been strangely hit-or-miss for the last five or so seasons, but they’re spot-on this spring. I could happily wear anything in that catalog and not feel like I was wearing my grandmother’s cast-offs (and in fact, I’d feel quite pretty).

Hey, we watched Kicking and Screaming (the Noah Baumbach one, not the Will Ferrell one) the other night. What a hysterical movie. Loved it in a similar way to how I love I Heart Huckabees, though a little less metaphysically weird.

I just have to say that I heard through the grapevine this week that a large number of the most competent and intelligent people I worked with back at the B of A have been laid off. Laid off! I guess I got out of there just in time. I wasn’t a bad employee, but I was certainly one of the more expendable ones, especially considering who apparently isn’t there anymore. Unbelievable. God works in mysterious ways.

Happy weekend! Buh-bye.

This was just too good not to pass along:

Clooney concedes Oscar to Daniel Day-Lewis.

I reviewed In Bruges, which was the opening film at Sundance and opens in theaters this weekend.

Everyone recommended the Gould version of the Goldberg Variations, and Amazon sold a double-disc set that is both recordings, so that’s what I got, and it came today and it’s great. Thanks, all.

I love listening to “This American Life” at work. It just makes me happy. I never know what’s going to happen, and it’s a nice long program, and it just makes the day go so much faster. I can only really turn it on when I’m doing something like putting together HTML or some graphics or layout or something, but those are fairly tedious tasks, so I’m glad it’s available to me.

I probably am supposed to write something about the primaries today, but I won’t.

Hooray, I just registered for the second summer session of class, and I’m taking “Modern British Novel”.

Seriously. How fun does that sound?

I’m totally oblivious when it comes to classical performers, including pianists. So help me out: if I’m buying a CD of the Goldberg Variations, who’s my best bet?

Well, predictably, we did not watch the Superbowl. My tolerance for football goes only so far, and when it comes to pro football, I might as well not even try (though had we gone to a party I would have been happy to munch on taco dip and watch the commercials). College football inspires only indifference in me, which is an improvement, and it’s mostly because there are few schools to cheer for when you’re from upstate New York.

But it’s okay, I follow pro baseball and love college hockey.

We actually spent the evening watching Matrix: Revolutions, having designated Sunday night as unofficial Fairly Bad Movie Night. We end up watching pretty much everything that inspires a solid “eh” in its viewers on Sunday nights, and for some reason, that works. I’d never seen it before, so I was happy to see the end of the trilogy, though a bit nonplussed after the superawesome fight seen was over. Still. Hugo Weaving is the man.

I don’t really want to think about all the things I have to do this week. I did manage this afternoon to finish not one, but TWO of the books I needed to finish this week, which is a tiny load off my mind.

I want warm weather. My muscles are getting almost unbearably tight.

Interesting article in the Times about online academies.

Quite frankly, this is not news. Homeschooling families jumped into the virtual education world long ago with academies like the Potter’s School. (I was homeschooled from the fifth grade until graduation, but I was always just a little too far ahead of where the online programs were; my brother, on the other hand, almost enrolled in Potter’s and only didn’t because our rural internet connection was wildly sub-standard.) These schools are only different because they’re technically virtual charter schools, and therefore accredited, as far as I could tell from the article.

This last statement from the article is really rich:

The ruling infuriated parents like Bob Reber, an insurance salesman who lives in Fond du Lac and whose 8-year-old daughter is a student at the academy. “According to this ruling, if I want to teach my daughter to tie her shoes, I’d need a license,” Mr. Reber said.

Not so, said Mary Bell, the union president: “The court did not say that parents cannot teach their children — it said parents cannot teach their children at taxpayers’ expense.”

Oh, right, but parents can teach their own children at their own expense and pay taxes to educate others’ children. That makes so much sense.

Not only was last night’s fête a rousing success (despite my less than ideal substitution of dried Great Northern white beans for dried cannellini beans in the soup recipe), but I had enough leftover eggs, prosciutto, baguettes, and mozzarella that there’s now some kind of giant baked thing cooking in the oven that should feed us for a few days. Oh, and cappuccinos made with Papua New Guinea espresso (sent from PNG a while ago) in our always-reliable, always-wonderful Mukka.

Mmm. Love Saturdays.

I am heading home in a couple hours to start my weekend by cooking for roughly ten hungry New Yorkers (and I think perhaps I heard a rumor of a random Londoner in there). The menu is baked apples & brie, Tuscan white bean soup (from Blueprint magazine), open-face prosciutto & mozzarella sandwiches, and chocolate chip cookie bars with whipped cream, accompanied by red wine, hot chocolate, and probably coffee. Which seems, upon reflection, to be an ideal cold-and-blustery Friday night menu.

We saw In Bruges last night in a completely packed-out screening - I suspect people were sitting on the floor in the back. Review forthcoming. (We liked it.)

Image Journal has a dashing new look and a newly minted blog.

A new literary online-only “television” show is coming soon. I wrote about it at ConversantLife. Very excited.

Call me a slacker, but I realized the other day that one of the reasons I’m glad I haven’t got TV is that I don’t feel guilty in the least for not a) watching the State of the Union, b) hosting a Superbowl party and c) watching any debates. In fact, the only thing I kind of wish we had a TV for was watching the Oscars, and that mostly because the nominees for Best Picture are all pretty good and because Jon Stewart is hosting, and it’s awfully good fun to watch him skewer Hollywood.

I just input my to-do list into my Blackberry and then stared at it, disbelieving. I think I need to start getting up earlier and doing more work in the mornings.

Happy weekend, all. Stay dry.