Saturday selections...

Just taking a day off and reading with the windows open and a nice big cup of tea and sharing some highlights from various Saturday newspapers (plus Bon Appetit) today:

 ...Fettuccine with shitake mushrooms and asparagus recipe:

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/fettuccine-with-shiitakes-and-asparagus


...I saw this letter in today's NYT and think it sums up the situation at hand perfectly:


re: “But I Want to Do Your Homework,” by Judith Newman (Sunday Review, June 22):

The difference between the so-called helicopter parent and one who is a master and teacher to a child is that while the helicopter parent might narcissistically stand in the way of the child’s self-development, the master and teacher can facilitate self-reliance and self-confidence through what is essentially an apprenticeship.
 

Why should a parent encourage an apprentice relationship with a child over homework? The simple answer is love. A child may respect a teacher, but as we have known from Plato to Freud, the most powerful foundation for learning remains love, and that can be only the parent’s province.
 

After discussing what needs to be done to solve a problem or create a project, there is nothing wrong with a parent’s showing the child how it’s done. Thus, not only is classroom teaching reinforced, but it is also improved upon. This type of learning goes on in every apprenticeship until the apprentice, too, becomes a master.
 

HOWARD SCHNEIDERMAN
Easton, Pa., June 22, 2014


...If you've never read a Jane Garham book before, you should try one. Her novels are outstanding:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/28/books/jane-gardam-on-her-books-which-capture-a-greater-britain.html?_r=0

A friend posted this link on Facebook to a mind-blowing article...so mind-blowing it can bring on a headache:

http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html

 And speaking of science...or rather, science fiction, there's an interesting review of a biography on Robert Heinlein in today's Wall Street Journal. It refers to a novel of his I've never heard of before and just put on hold through the library:

 

 Read here:  http://online.wsj.com/articles/book-review-robert-a-heinlein-by-william-h-patterson-jr-1403904500?mod=asia_opinion



Listening to Patsy Cline and sipping a strawberry milkshake I just made...better than alcohol to down your sorrows any time!

 

I love strawberry milkshakes a lot and like, Walter Bishop on Fringe, have often tried different recipes for them. But really I think the best I've ever made (which isn't necessarily saying much :) ) are the ones with nothing but very fresh, very vibrant red strawberries, whole organic milk and Breyer's ice cream...very fattening, but oh so good!

A nice blender helps, too! I still have a Kenmore one from ages ago and it's held up so well and is so old school it works wonders with shakes.

.....................................


A beautiful song by Bill Fay, "Be At Peace With Yourself," shuffled into my ears at just the right time and it's just so beautiful I had to share. You can listen to it here and also read the lyrics:

At the end of the day
Aint nobody else
Gonna walk
In your shoes
Quite the way
You do
So be at Peace with yourself
And keep a spring in your heel
And keep climbing that hill
And be at Peace
With yourself
In the cold winter chill
When the wind blows like hell
Theres a way
Where theres a will
Dont cry over
Milk that spilt
At the end of the day
Aint nobody else
Gonna walk in your shoes
Quite the way that you do
So be at Peace with yourself
And keep a spring in your heel
And keep climbing that hill
And be at Peace with yourself
(At the end of the day
Aint nobody else
Gonna walk in your shoes
Quite the way that you do
So be at Peace with yourself
Keep a spring in your heel
Keep climbing that hill



One of my absolute favorite poems is "Miniver Cheevy," which suits how much I wish I could just slip away from this era...though not necessarily into the middle ages and with not quite the downtrodden spirit this poor fellow has. For me, my ideal time period would be the Jazz Age.

Ideally...a happy place

I am really searching for my happy place today. I just keep remembering Emily Dickinson's "to shut your eyes is to travel" line and I feel a little calmer.

Plus, I just opened a box of tea and took out a Yogi bag and this was attached...I love their messages so much.

If you're struggling for peace tonight, may you find it as well! :)



And even though "tomorrow" is nowhere near as scary as pink robots, it's every bit as hard to battle on occasion...this song helps sometimes:

Her name is Yoshimi - she's a black belt in karate
Working for the city - she has to discipline her body -
Cause she knows that it's demanding to defeat these
Evil machines - I know she can beat them -

Oh Yoshimi
They don't believe me
But you won't let those
Robots defeat me
Oh Yoshimi
They don't believe me
But you won't let those
Robots eat me

Those evil natured robots - they're programmed to
Destroy us - She's gotta be strong to fight them -
So she's taking lots of vitamins - cause she knows that
It'd be tragic if those evil robots win - I know
She can beat them -

from the awesome album of the same name by The Flaming Lips:

This is probably the best article I've ever read about Karen Carpenter's singing...

photo source: not found

The Stuff Of Dreams: Karen Carpenter's Voice
by Chris Jones for the Chicago Tribune 

The other frigid night, I sat alone on the snowy street outside my house listening to Karen Carpenter sing "I'll be Home for Christmas" on my car radio.

I love that voice.

It hit notes with such surety. Its evocative lower register had a richness that no female pop singer ever has matched. But most important of all, it was such a guileless instrument.

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Carpenter sang without attitude -- but also without excessive sentiment. In other words, her voice was at once incredibly beautiful and strikingly neutral.

Even when her brother's oft-cheesy arrangements and harmonizing fought hard against her honesty, Carpenter's singing always allowed for the transference of longing and desire.

And that's exactly what "I'll be Home for Christmas," my favorite song from this time of year, requires. First recorded in 1943 by Bing Crosby with the John Scott Trotter Orchestra, the lyrics first were intended as a kind of war-time fantasy, as if dreamed by a soldier stuck overseas and dreaming of home and hearth. The ultimate line of the song, after all, is a sad one: "If only in my dreams."

As with her other Christmas recordings, Carpenter's version was infinitely more complex.

Listen to her sing this Christmas ballad and you can hear a weary business traveler shoving past delays at O'Hare. You can sense a mother rushing back to her kids who count on her. And you can detect a lover desperate for a warm bed with someone in it.

All at once.

And although it's been nearly 25 years since Carpenter's death (at the age of 32), the recording will forever come with a certain sadness. Sometimes, it can feel like she's singing about a home where someone is missing for good.

Frankly, the impact of the song all depends on one's mood of the moment -- and at what point the listener is in their life. That was Carpenter's brilliance -- that coupling of certitude and pliability, that unique combination of eroticism and maternal comfort.

This is a song that revolves around a promise. And Carpenter's voice had the unmistakable sound of one who always kept her promises.

When I was single and lonely, this singer and this Christmas song evoked the home I wanted and the person I wanted in it with me. Now she -- and it -- make me think about the nature of my home and its place in my priorities. The world of the song is both a confirmation of what we have, and yet, given the frantic way life goes at this time of year, also an elusive dream.
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