Two exceptional pieces of reading over at sleep.snort.fuck:
Things I Live With by R. Gay. The first paragraph has a slightly different tone than the rest, but all of this is gorgeous, sad, sick. It's a breathless read with a divinely perfect ending -- not a happy ending, note. Just vivid, poetic realism.
Christina Rosetti's Cunt and Trapped In Kathy Acker's Blood and Guts by P.A. Levy. Two poems that take what we all do --imagine others, celebrities, etc, naked -- to bizarre and absolutely fascinating extremes. And yet, they don't seem to read as if the author did it for shock value. Except for some minor quibbles, they're quite good: excellent, imaginative imagery and fairly tightly written. I shouldn't quibble at all, I suppose. I suck at writing poetry.
Since these are over at sleep.snort.fuck, you should assume two things: non-fiction, and NWS. And probably "disturbing," as well. :) I love how writers take "creative non-fiction" to new heights (and sometimes, new lows) over there. You never know what you're going to read on any given day. And note that Things I Live With is the first piece to inspire me to comment in a while.
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Seth Godin reviewed Mark Frauenfelder's new book, ending with, "Mark's honest retelling of his repeated failures to be brilliant at all times made me smile, and his relentless and joyous embrace of actually making things was an inspiration." This alone makes me want to read this book. Is life not, or should it not be, about trying to be brilliant? Which then leads to failure, often spectacular failure. If you're not trying to be brilliant, you're simply not trying. If you're not expecting to be brilliant at whatever it is you're trying, you've got no sense of humor. ;)Making things by hand is a dying art in itself -- and by that, I mean, making anything at all. Right now, I am looking at our garage window. Last year, B decided it needed re-painting. It did, indeed. So he carefully took it out, stripped the paint, sanded it down, repainted it a lovely, sunny buttercream yellow, and put it back in. And then put it back in again. And again. Everything had been going so well up until that point...
So now we've got what I call the "Weasley window," a la that terrific family from the Potter books. It's crooked. It's darling. I adore it. I do not want another window put in, nor do I want to hire someone to come out and "fix" it for us. B did it. It's fantastic. And yes, it keeps the rain out.
Made by hand? I suppose not exactly, but this falls into the DIY category that Mark Frauenfelder writes about. There is something more infinitely beautiful about the handmade, even when, or especially when, it is not perfect.
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Falling in love again, day after day:
Sawing a two by four on the front steps, he picks up the fallen chunk of wood and holds it up to me.
"Do you like the smell of fresh cut wood?"
Yes, I do. He take the piece and jams it between metal and brick, and now our air conditioner isn't rattling (so much). I leave the sawdust on the steps. I like sitting there and looking at it.
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Ice Cream Is Also Love:
You may rcall the Blackberry Brown Sugar Mascarpone Ice Cream I made using Not So Humble Pie's recipe. Last night, I made... are you ready for this? ... Nutella Ice Cream. Yes. And yes, it was wonderful.
Five ingredients, no eggs. Light and not as creamy as an egg/custard-based ice cream, which in this case is a good thing. Nutella is rich and creamy enough. Also, the recipe makes about 2-3 cups, which is plenty for two people. A lot of ice cream recipes call for enough ingredients to make my ice cream maker overflow, and then I've got to package it all up and freeze it, and eat it before the week is out. Not a bad thing, but this was enough for us to have last night and then tonight we'll finish it off.
I'm a berry lovin' girl, so the Blackberry ice cream is still my favorite, but this was soooo good. It's now B's favorite, and he wants to know about adding actual hazelnuts next time. A very good idea, I think. Toasted hazelnuts, mm...
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