Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Monthly Archives: August 2011
A word about essay writing
One of my favorite essayists is former Harper’s editor Lewis Lapham (who, in his life since Harper’s, now edits Lapham’s Quarterly). Lapham’s essays often have a unique form of argument, stabbing at the thesis from multiple directions, convincing you of the thesis’s validity before the thesis has ever been articulated. By the time the reader finishes, he not only agrees with the thesis (usually) but has a deeper understanding of the topic; and if he does not agree, he still comes away with that same depth of knowledge.
I have always felt that this was the pinnacle of essay writing, the ideal to which the young author should aspire. When I home-schooled my son, knowing that he didn’t have the depth of knowledge that decades of scholarship brings, I simplified the format into one which would still stand him in good stead in college. Begin with your thesis paragraph, I told him, develop and prove it in the paragraphs which follow, and restate at the end; but, and here’s the kicker, your goal should be to augment the thesis with your arguments, and when you conclude, restate a thesis which is deeper than the one with which you began. Call it value-added essay writing.
Jake’s Theology teacher (a Jesuit, and therefore in my opinion NOT an intellectual lightweight) disagrees. Theology this year is a writing class more than anything else. All to the good. I asked Jake how he was doing, and he told me that the only thing the teacher red-lined was precisely the thing I had been teaching him all these years. I know what his teacher has in mind because he discussed this with us at Open House. He wants a very simple format: state your thesis, support it, restate it at the end. In other words:
Okra is a disgusting vegetable.
It’s slimy no matter how you cook it.
The taste in no way compensates for its inherent sliminess.
Hence, okra is a disgusting vegetable.
Whereas my ideal essay would run more like this:
Okra is a disgusting vegetable.
It’s slimy no matter how you cook it, and the taste in no way compensates for its inherent sliminess.
In many areas of the country, a child could easily get through the first twenty years of life without seeing, let alone tasting, an okra dish, while in other areas of the country, okra is as much a part of a weekly schedule as potatoes, onions, or carrots. Those people often develop a fondness for okra.
In other parts of the world, staple foods may include things that others find unacceptable and “disgusting” — blood, intestines, insects. Foods we find acceptable (poached egg, anyone?) might be similarly revolting to people living in those regions. The emotion of disgust in response to particular foods may have more to do with what the eater is used to than anything else. Never eat anything slimy? Then slimy is not a characteristic you associate with acceptable food.
Okra’s unacceptability to many Americans is thus not only an example of the diversity of dietary practices in the world, but also tells us a little something about human nature.
(Forgive the topic, you okra-lovers; I pulled that one out of the air. And I’m afraid I did not put much time into creating something that would stand in the same galaxy as Lapham’s essays, let alone the same room.)
The Theology teacher’s version is geared toward getting high marks on AP History or English essay exams. The SAT written exam almost certainly has similar grading practices. Considering how poorly most college students write at the undergraduate level, I suspect most college profs would be delighted to read a well executed version of the A, B, C, D, and therefore A essay. So there’s nothing at all wrong with this goal. It’s good writing. But it’s not great writing.
Okay, so maybe I was wrong in my attempt to get Jake to shoot for the stars. But I don’t think so. Because if you can write even a little bit like Lapham, you can easily modify your writing to suit the circumstances. I explained this to Jake this morning . . . hopefully he can excuse me for making him write with too much finesse.
D.
Errata
Well, I’ve had a lumbar puncture at the hands of a crappy ER doc and a root canal at the hands of a competent dentist, and I can confidently claim that the root canal is less painful. Though I guess the best comparison would require me to have a root canal at the hands of an incompetent dentist. But I think I’ll pass.
(Those few of you who also “friend” me at Facebook . . . yeah, so I cross-posted. I have an excuse. I just got a root canal.)
Thus far I am not impressed with Clancy’s Rainbow Six.
It’s a pre-9/11 tale of international terrorism in which the multinational “Rainbow” group, composed of cookie-cutter stamped übermenschen who can shoot the eyes out of a sewing needle at 100 yards, deal with one incident after another . . . I suppose. I’ve only made it through the first such incident, wherein Swiss police are somehow too incompetent to handle a hostage crisis at one of the banks (somehow I think not, but hey, suspension of disbelief).
Thing is, the team, based out of England, flies to Switzerland on a commercial airline. No, really. There’s a bit where one of ’em kvetches that the Swiss really need to decide soon if they want them or not, because the flight leaves in 2 minutes, and if they miss that flight they’ll need to wait another 90 minutes for the next one. Well, I guess if this NATO-sanctioned outfit actually took military aircraft to jump the Channel they would miss out on all their frequent flier miles . . .
Oh, and then there are the supervillains, who I gather are tree-huggers intent on sending the world back to the Stone Age, or some such. And one of them is a woman who doesn’t like men. Horrors.
And then there’s crap just thrown around like this BS about a characteristically German handshake, which is a sudden grab, a single shake with a warm squeeze midway through, and then a quick release. WTF? Kira, you reading this? IS there a characteristically German handshake?
I could forgive him the one-dimensional characters for whom I feel nothing if he got the other details right. I mean, I had always heard that Clancy was a details man, that the reader could count on him to get the techie stuff correct. But do I really care that he knows his armaments if he does crap like send his SuperSWAT team to Switzerland on TWA?
/vent
D.
Life after Thrones
I’ve reached the last chapter of George R. R. Martin’s fifth Game of Thrones novel, A Plethora of Puppies, and after reading, what is it? Four thousand pages of this stuff? I’m wondering what to do next. Go back to book one, keep cycling through them until Martin releases the sixth book? Because that’s the only way I’ll ever remember who everyone is. Not that I could remember who everyone is even having read each book one right after the other. I lost track of how many times I would start a chapter and say to myself, “Who the hell is this?”
Give the guy credit, he created a world and populated it with a few billion people, every ten of whom have their own unique heraldic emblems, or whatever the hell they’re called. Somehow I feel inadequate, not having my own coat of arms, though I suspect the main device would be Parents Combatant.
Anyway, what to read next? I’ve downloaded Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six to my cell phone’s Nook app, but I’m not wedded to the idea of reading Clancy. Just thought I’d see what goes into making an author wildly successful. Suppose I could read King to that end, but I lost my taste for horror some twenty or thirty years ago.
So what are people reading?
D.
The 2 Jesuses
In the last few days, I’ve been spending more time in the hospital than I would prefer. My partner had the gall to take a week of vacation, which leaves me holding the bag. Or the scalpel, I suppose. Anyway, it’s been a rough week, with three 10 1/2 hour days, and yesterday I didn’t make it out until 8:45.
The hospital we use is an Adventist hospital. I like the Adventists, mostly because they seem to have a left-wing political bias. This agrees well with their religious philosophy, which (speaking as an outsider) seems to be that they read the New Testament and actually pay attention to Jesus’ teachings. Anyway, the Adventists really love their larger-than-life Jesus portraits, like this one here. Our hospital has two larger-than-life Jesus murals. Perhaps it was the fatigue of a 12.75 hour day that made me notice yesterday that the two Jesuses are really quite different.
The first one is in our lobby. Jesus is sitting in a field with his arms outstretched. There’s a kindly, loving, welcoming smile on his face. You would gladly sit down with this guy for a sardine sandwich even if he does make you listen to one incomprehensible parable after another. He just looks like a hell of a guy.
The other Jesus is in the chapel area, or whatever they call the room for quiet reflection. This Jesus looks older. Two thousand years older, but aged 2000 years in a way that only an immortal could age. He’s still got a full head of brown hair, I mean, and there are no turkey wattles under his chin, but you can tell this guy has been around to see the Inquisition, two world wars, a couple thousand years of slavery, and so forth. While he is still smiling, this Jesus’ smile is an expression of intense exasperation. This Jesus has his hand out, but I have the sense he’d like to slap us upside the head with it before regaling us with an incomprehensible parable. A parable no doubt regarding the way people never seem to listen to him.
I’ll have to snap a couple photos with my cell phone tomorrow and share them with you. I’m curious to see if you agree with me.
Meanwhile, I’m counting the hours until this weekend is over and I can pass on the emergency box o’ goodies to my partner.
D.
I don’t care what y’all think about Facebook
but I think it’s COOL. This week, I found an old friend that I hadn’t talked to since 9th grade (and hadn’t really been close to since elementary school) and then yet another close friend from elementary school appeared out of the blue, telling me stories about myself that I don’t remember, but sound utterly believable. For example, apparently I was the one who taught him about the birds and the bees. With full anatomical illustrations from the library. No, I don’t remember that at all. But I don’t doubt it for a moment.
It’ll be fun meeting up with those two. I tend to think I have an encyclopedic memory of my youth, but the truth is altogether different. This is not the first time that someone from my past has divulged something about me that sounds, well, like ME, and yet I don’t remember it at all.
Too bad we don’t go through life with a little documentarian perched on our shoulders, recording choice moments that we can enjoy forty, fifty years later. It would add a certain fullness to our lives, I think. A fresh perspective.
Material for blackmail, if nothing else.
D.
Különböző és különböző *
It has to be said sometime: how can someone with as big a mouth as me run out of things to say? And yet I find myself in that position day after day: speechless. Bad enough I can’t write any fiction; now I’m having a harder and harder time blogging.
Made a tasty blueberry crisp tonight. Recipe here. I won’t bother to repeat it here since I made no alterations to the recipe. I used an 8 by 8 inch Pyrex glass baking dish and I baked it about 25 minutes. Probably could have used a little more cornstarch since these were juicy berries.
What is it about cats and boxes? Ours like containers, too. Hat tip to enigma4ever on this one.
I am in need of a computer gaming addiction to replace my now raging addiction to World of Warcraft. (And I’ve got Karen hooked, too.) I wonder how many people have written their WoW characters (and gold, and gear) into their wills? “And to my niece Suzanne, I leave Douchemonger, my level 85 gnome warlock. Suzanne, if you steal all of Douchemonger’s best gear for your warlock Biohazzardz, I am so coming back to haunt you.”
Heading into call next week with my partner on vacation. I’m stealing myself for the worst and maybe with some luck it will fall short of my expectations.
Saw Hot Tub Time Machine on Netflix . . . oh, I don’t know why. Perhaps because I’ll give anything with John Cusack in it a chance? Perhaps because I figured a movie with such a stupid name had to have something going for it? Anyway, it wasn’t terrible. It made me laugh a few times, and it surprised me with a very un-Hollywood ending.
What’s everyone reading? I’m in the 700s on the latest George R R Martin installment of Game of Thrones. It’s A Mess of Monkeys or some damn thing (I can never remember the titles.)
Okay, so I managed to say a few things.
D.
* Various and sundry in Hungarian, a language that apparently lacks separate words for “various” and “sundry.”
Rooting for the apes
We all know how this ends: the humans decline to a faint shadow of their former might, while the apes take over the joint. And just in case there are any noobs in the audience who never saw the Charles Heston original (or, for that matter, the loathsome Mark Wahlberg remake), the movie is named RISE of the Planet of the Apes. Not, The Apes Make a Bit of a Splash Before Getting Themselves Snuffed. The trick, then, lies in building narrative drive when everyone in the audience knows the ending, and the challenge lies in making it an enjoyable business.
For one thing, you gotta start with a hero. Here’s Caesar (yes, he has the same name as Cornelius and Zira’s baby in movie #3 — the filmmakers stayed true to canon at least in that one detail), played by Andy Serkis (Gollum!)
A moment ago, I tried to identify for Jake a few notable characteristics of heroes. They have to be in nearly every scene (check), and the writer needs to show some care not to trash sympathy for the hero (check), lest he end up with, for lack of a better term, a creep. Finally, the hero must take a lot of abuse (check). By the way, does anyone recall the proper term for this last feature? I learned it in high school and I can’t recall the details.
And in Caesar’s heroic status he has no competitors. I guess we are supposed to like his “father,” Dr. Will Rodman (James Franco), a Gen Sys* scientist working on the cure for Alzheimer’s disease. Turns out this virus also increases the intelligence of its host, which spells $$$ for the corporate overlords of Gen Sys. But Rodman is such a dip. He calls apes “monkeys,” something no self-respecting scientist would ever do. And when he meets some initial set-backs to his quest to cure his father’s Alzheimer’s with viral-mediated gene therapy, what does he do? Create a more virulent, air-borne vector. So not a hero. More like a Bond villain, really. But he has a cute girlfriend (Freida Pinto, whom some of you may have seen in Slumdog Millionaire) so that’s okay.
I have to think that Dr. Rodman’s dweebiness is intentional. He’s a weak man, and when Caesar blames him for his (Caesar’s) misfortunes, we can’t help but blame him, too. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Here, skip this paragraph if you’re worried about some mild spoilers. In fact, maybe skip the rest of the post. Anyway: when Rodman’s earlier virus makes a test subject go berserk, he’s forced to put down all the apes in his group. But it turns out the berserker was merely protecting her baby — Caesar! Who has mommy’s green eyes, indicating that he, too, has inherited the intelligence of his mother. Rodman smuggles Caesar home and raises him like a human child, taking no precautions whatsoever even when Caesar grows up to be a big, powerful adult chimpanzee. For that matter, Rodman’s dad (John Lithgow) is not doing too well, Rodman’s guinea pigging efforts notwithstanding, and should probably be in a care facility. So when Caesar’s and Dad’s lack of proper housing leads to a violent attack on a neighbor, Rodman is really to blame here. Just sayin’. And that lands Caesar in a primate care facility which Rodman has apparently neither researched nor examined beyond the most superficial tour. This does not end well**. Man, the more I think about Franco’s character, the more he pisses me off. Monkeys. Really.
The movie’s science does not hold up to close scrutiny. There’s that whole virulent respiratory virus thing, for starters. But I don’t go to a movie like this thinking I’m gonna have a hard SF experience.
So what do we have, really? Obnoxious humans whom we are only too happy to see self-immolate. (And they do. Gloriously. But you’ll have to sit through the credits to see it.) And a rage-filled Caesar who has our every sympathy. Our attachment to Caesar and desire to see him and his fellow apes shed their chains, that’s what drives this film forward. Yeah, I loved it. And so does PETA. Okay, so PETA loved it because the filmmakers used CGI apes, not because the humans snuff it (we presume) in the end. But I’m betting more than a few PETA members loved seeing the apes get back at the research scientists.
Not a subtle movie, though. Never thought I would say this, but I think the original Planet of the Apes had a good deal more moral ambiguity than this one. Perhaps today’s audiences can’t handle moral ambiguity?
D.
*Not to be confused with GeneSys.
**Unless you’re Caesar
‘kay, this is pretty damned decadent
Wherein I improve upon the original.
STICKY. TOFFEE. PUDDING. (Only not.)
A word about how this differs from the original. The Udny Arms STP is a date muffin with a toffee topping. There’s nothing pudding-y about it, but again, I suspect this is a Brit thing, some deranged interpretation of the word “pudding.” It’s a cake. This version, if you do it as I did it, will yield a moist enough result that pudding is not an utter misnomer. If you want something more cake-like, then use diced dried apples instead of fresh apples, and follow the original recipe (but add the spices, too).
Adding pie spices (I used cinnamon, ginger, and clove; nutmeg or allspice would have been good, too) did great things for the flavor. The original? Might as well be angel food cake — no flavor at all, save for the dates.
. . . And off we go!
Pudding
1/2 cup butter, softened, plus an additional tablespoon of butter to saute your apples
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground clove
2 Granny Smith apples, diced into 3/4 to 1 inch chunks
1/3 cup golden raisins
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups water
Sauce . . . which I cut in half — yes, the original called for a full pint of whipping cream. And even this is too much.
1/2 cup butter
1 3/8 cups brown sugar
1 cup whipping cream
1. Peel and chop your apples, and then saute the apples and raisins together in a tablespoon of butter. I tried to brown the apples a bit, and I was consciously trying to drive off as much moisture as I could. As noted above, if you use dried apples, you’ll end up with a more cake-like pudding. Set aside the apples and allow to cool.
2. Cream together the sugars and the butter. Add the eggs and mix well.
3. Add baking powder to the flour and stir well. You can add your spices here if you like, or at the final step of making the batter.
4. Add one cup of flour, stir to combine. Then add one cup of water, stir to combine. Repeat. Finish with one cup of flour. (You’re alternating the flour additions and water additions, right? Standard stuff.)
5. Pour into a buttered 9 x 13 inch baking pan and bake at 350F (177C) for 45 minutes.
6. For the record, I again diverged from the Udny Arms recipe by letting my cake cool in the refrigerator overnight, then reheating it in a 225 degree F oven (107C). I’m not sure it makes a difference. In any case, while the cake is baking (or the next day, whatever) prepare your sauce. Combine butter, cream, and brown sugar, and bring to a boil.
7. Poke lots and lots of holes into your cake, then pour the sauce over the cake. You’ll only use about half the sauce. Now, one advantage of having cooled the cake overnight is that it shrunk a bit, pulling away from the pan. That allowed the sauce to penetrate all around the sides. Reserve whatever sauce you don’t use because if you are thoroughly committed to your heart attack, you’ll spoon some hot sauce onto your cake prior to topping it with a heap of whipped cream. But I’m jumping ahead. After putting a layer of sauce on the cake, I fussed with it for several minutes, because the sauce wanted to collect around the sides and I kept transferring it to the top with a spoon. But gravity eventually won.
8. BROIL this puppy until it’s all brown and bubbly.
9. Cut a square, top with whipped cream (unnecessary) and more sauce (really unnecessary).
Enjoy.
D.
Re sleep deprivation
I’ve gotten into this rut lately: work, eat, World of Warcraft, sleep. Repeat. My desire to write is nil, and whatever interests I have in that regard are satisfied by reading the latest Game of Thrones installment (1000+ pages is whipping by way too fast . . . and I’m sorry, but I had to skip ahead to find out what had become of Arya).
Ours is a family with a thoroughly messed up sleep cycle. My insomnia arrives whenever it will, often for no identifiable reason. By minimizing caffeine and chocolate consumption and trying to exercise regularly, I’ve improved things to the point that I am off Benadryl — finally! after years! — and am having less trouble, but less trouble does not equal no trouble. It doesn’t help when I get calls at 4 AM for things that I really, really did not need to be called about. My partner and I have the same problem, by the way: when we get these early morning calls, no matter how simple they are to resolve, it takes us an hour or two to get back to sleep. And neither of us is getting any younger, and it’s not like we did well with sleep deprivation back in training. We only told ourselves we were doing okay.
My wife doesn’t do too badly, compared to my son or me. Jake is the real hard case, though. And I think it goes way back to his toddlerhood, when we used to have trouble getting him to bed any time earlier than our bedtime (usually around midnight). I suspect he needs a completely inverted wake/sleep cycle, but that, sadly, is not compatible with attendance at high school. Or college. Perhaps he’ll get a medical degree and become a night-shift ER doc?
In other news, I’m futzing around with a variety of different desserts. I successfully reproduced a dessert we’d had at Black Cat in Cambria, which involved sauteed nectarines, homemade pound cake, and a browned butter sauce; and I made this recipe for Sticky Toffee Pudding, which is one of those British puddings that isn’t a pudding (oh, those clever Brits, when will they learn to speak English?) I’m going to try making it again, this time subbing sauteed apples for the dates and adding the usual apple spices. Ultimately, this ceases to be Sticky Toffee Pudding and becomes Apple Muffins with Sticky Toffee Pudding sauce, but I suspect my gang will like it better.
Less than two months before my 50th birthday. Maybe that’s what’s screwing with my muse.
D.