Design and the Elastic Mind

My sister just told me she's going to the big city, New York City that is, to support a friend who's in the Museum of Modern Art's Design and the Elastic Mind show. Her friend's project is called Grow, and they are essentially aesthetically pleasing, organic solar panels. The effect is not only green (as in environmentally friendly) but also beautiful. No doubt a why it will be at the MoMa.

Looking at the Grow project lead me to the website for the Design and the Elastic Mind site. It's fantastic and very different from anything I've seen before! The site responds to your mouse moving across the screen and if you click on one exhibit, you get to see a small picture and links to related exhibits. The links are shown as colored lines that sweep across the page and connect a series of exhibits. It's really a site I would happily spend quite a bit of time getting lost in. My favorite exhibit so far is the Lily Impeller, a sort of natural geometry propeller for immersing in liquids. I wonder if they will develop a Lily Impeller attachment for my hand mixer!

Three Friends

We went out for dinner yesterday evening in Amsterdam. They took us to one of their local favorites, De 3 Vrienden, or the Three Friends. Of course, on the walk over we thoroughly exhausted the really bad joke that we were each with three friends and therefore allowed to enter.

All bad jokes aside, we had a great dinner experience. The restaurant is a cozy place with book lined shelves, old fashioned wooden tables, and plenty of candles. The menu had about 20 different options, all priced at €8.50 each. Each option was labeled as a hot, cold or hot/cold dish and could be ordered in any combination or order our little hearts desired. We decided to order two courses each.

For the first course, I had a salad with crayfish tails and avocado with a piri-piri dressing. Delicious. It was fresh, light, and full of flavor. My second course was a confit de canard served with mashed potatoes and peas. Yeah - I actually got mashed potatoes and peas at a fairly serious food restaurant, and enjoyed it! There were some sauces on the plate that jazzed up the mash (I suspect truffle oil) and made it yum. But the shock of seeing that combination next to my innocent piece of duck was fantastic. I'm going to have to venture they've got a cook with skill and a great sense of humor!

Well mannered people would have stopped there as we had plenty to eat and had all enjoyed our meal. However we decided to go for dessert as well. I had the spekkoek (see borrowed picture above), nice thin slices, with cinnamon ice cream and it was a delicious combination. F thinks of any dessert with ice cream as an tribute to my father... who loves to add ice cream to dessert when we have it! Friends also tried the whiskey and liqueur tastings and both were also yum. Their whisky selection (you could choose from 6 options) was actually quite good and F tried the Talisker, Oban, and one other that we liked less so don't need to remember. The Talisker remains our favorite, though.

All in all, a wonderful evening. Good company, delicious food, and a completely reasonable bill. I'd gladly to back to De 3 Vrienden, especially since I just saw on their website that the menu changes every month! If last night was any indication, you can rely on a good meal and great service!

A Memory and a Book

When I was in high school, I had one of those teachers that you remember forever. He taught English in my 11th and 12th grade years. One day, he gave us a list of his reading recommendations. It was several typed and photocopied sheets. The list seemed enormously long. I remember being quite in awe of the fact that one man had read all those books. I also remember thinking I had a lot of catching up to do.

In the years since, I have to come to truly appreciate the advantage of age in these matters. Simply put, a human being can read quite a few books in one year and seeing as how my teacher was nearing retirement age, he had a clear advantage. His list is now in a binder in my parent's attic, but I still pull it out once in a while to check my progress and remind myself of his excellent taste. Even after all these years, there's a lot more reading to be done!

One of the best tips from the list is the author P.G. Wodehouse. If I'm not mistaken the entry reads something like, "nearly 100 titles, all humorous, especially Jeeves series." Now, Wodehouse lived from 1881 - 1975, so it might seem that his books would be a bit stuffy or old fashioned, especially since they fall squarely into the humor category. Really, though, they're great. They poke fun at exactly the stuffiness you might expect and it's great fun to read. I now own a number of Wodehouse titles, including a hardcover Jeeves collection found at a thrift store that I actually read straight through.

Piccadilly Jim is the first non-Jeeves title I've read, but it was fun. It's a classic story of rich boy gone wrong, mistaken identity, love, foiled plots, and slapstick level comedy. And of course, there is the necessary highly annoying young relative, just to mix things up a bit. If you need a relaxing read, try Wodehouse. Just be warned, it may be habit forming!

Proof Positive

Not only did it snow in Haarlem, the Netherlands is a very small country. When we left to go to the east (imagine a big scary space), which is about an hour and half drive away, we were quite concerned about the weather. After all, not every 1985 Totyota Starlet is made for this kind of sleety weather. Called to ask for traffic updates since we don't have a radio, of course, and warned folks about bad weather coming. When we arrived, it was all sunshine and blue skies and we were upset about not having sunglasses! So much for warning people about the weather. Coming home today, it was as if someone had drawn a line in the sky between Utrecht and Amsterdam. We drove right back into the grim weather. Yes, it's nice to live near the coast!

Happy Easter!

Unbelievably, it is snowing in Haarlem. So, we didn't get a white Christmas, but 2008 is giving us a white Easter. How bizarre.

I've taken a break, gone into hiding, and neglected blogging for the past couple weeks. First it was in an effort to give myself some recovery time from writing my first PhD chapter and then because I had to get back into the habit. Surprisingly, this break has taught me a little lesson. Originally, blogging seemed like something to amuse myself. You know, the girl who dreamed of writing but never really got around to it was actually putting words into the world on a regular basis - excellent! But now I've realized that I've actually been getting quite a bit back from my little daily blogging experiment. Namely, wonderfully unexpected responses from you!

One of the challenges of starting my PhD and teaching simultaneously is a lack of interaction and reaction. Let's face it, it's tough to have a normal conversation about the articles I'm reading and my critical response to them. Even worse, to chat over dinner about my concerns or thoughts regarding the general direction of my chapter or entire dissertation. And students, bless them, aren't the worlds greatest source of positive affirmation. So, I find myself facing the challenge of keeping myself motivated to do work that feels quite solitary. That's where blogging has come in.

Without my realizing it, blogging has given me a way to interact with a few people (ok, three or four?) who read and respond to my random thoughts and ideas. It's encouraging and exciting. So, I'm going to have to renew my resolve... after all, life is a learning process. I'll start working on trying to blog daily again. Thanks, y'all, for all your comments, past and future. This is getting to be fun!

Registering to Vote

I had to use this great poster image of scary Uncle Sam telling everyone to vote. I love the really stilted language at the bottom. There should be more telling to do so also going on in the world, I tell you!

Today, I mailed my absentee voter registration for the 2008 elections to the Orange Country Board of Elections. That's Orange County, North Carolina. Not nearly as exciting as the California kind. Although now that I think about it, possibly named for the House of Orange, ruling family of the Netherlands. That would just be too much irony in my life. (Oh dear, I think I'm right!)

Anyway, this means I should get to vote in North Carolina's June democratic primaries as well as the big one in November. Usually, a June primary is a bit dull. Like being the last balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. This year, it could be rather interesting. According to the New York Times, as of today, Clinton has 1,417 delegates and Obama has 1,529.5. What Obama's going to do with half a delegate is unclear to me, but that's how they count them. One of the candidates needs to have 2,025 delegates before there is officially a democratic nominee, so the fun is really just starting. And before anyone asks, I haven't made up my mind yet. That will require some deep reading and thinking. But opinions are always welcome and interesting! The mood in Holland is absolutely pro-Obama. This weekend there was even an article in the Volkskrant newspaper speculating on what Obama will do if he becomes president.

Me, I have to admit that absentee ballots make me a bit nostalgic. If memory serves correctly, I've actually only voted in one presidential election in person. In 2000, I was working at Maho Bay Camps on St. John in the Virgin Islands. In 2004, I was in the Netherlands. Now that I think of it, in 1996, I was in Germany doing my study abroad year. Can't even remember if I managed to vote from there. Surely I did. Either way, that means no presidential elections in the US for me in my voting history. Maybe next time?

On Beauty

As promised, I'm returning with a review of Zadie Smith's On Beauty. Now the truth is that I was not entirely impressed with her first book, White Teeth, despite all the positive reviews it has received. As I recall, my impression was of a novel that tried to do too much with too many people and fell just short enough to leave me feeling a bit disgruntled. Not bad enough to say it's not good, but not compelling enough to recommend it. Therefore, it was only after a good (and critical) friend recommended On Beauty that I gave it a shot.

On Beauty is, in a nutshell, the story of a family coping with pain, transition, and each other. The details are plentiful and if you're looking for them, there are plenty of reviews that will fill you in. It a funny and sad and moving book with characters that you'll find yourself loving and hating. It's intense, colorful, and full of real emotions, especially the understanding and forgiveness we struggle to extend to the people we love even when we would sometimes rather stay mad at them.

The writing is also very good. Smith uses a little trick that I don't recall encountering anywhere else. In the text there are tensions and even words that the reader doesn't pay attention to until pages later when they've been brought to light by some character's comment. For example, the woman who refers to her husband as her husband. The reader thinks nothing of it, until the woman points out that she's using the word "husband." Suddenly, it becomes apparent that the third person in this conversation did not know that the couple had gotten married, that their marriage was a surprise. It gave me the same feeling as being at a dinner party with people you don't know very well. On the way home or days later when you're gossiping with your girlfriend, you finally understand why that blond woman was being so mean to that nice dark haired man. There is so much about people that we do not know and that we cannot know. Instead of giving the reader the feeling that they are privileged to information that the characters don't have, this little device reminds the reader that the characters have secrets, too.

I would certainly recommend On Beauty to anyone looking for a good read. It's a bit intimidating as far as heft goes, but it's a great read.

Ducks in a Row

You may have noticed that I've been away from BlogLand for a few days. If so, thanks for the attention. I've been busy getting all my ducks in a row and working on a couple of deadlines. It was ever so slightly exhausting. Will be back soon. In addition the promised review (still coming), I should probably write something about rethinking resolutions.