Books are, let’s face it, better than everything else. If we played cultural Fantasy Boxing League, and made books go fifteen rounds in the ring against the best that any other art form had to offer, then books would win pretty much every time. Go on try it. The Magic Flute versus Middlemarch? Middlemarch in six. The Last Supper versus Crime and Punishment? Fyodor on points. See? I mean, I don’t know how scientific this is, but it feels like the novels are walking it. You might get the occasional exception – Blonde on Blonde might mash up The Old Curiosity Shop, say, and I wouldn’t give much for Pale Fire’s chances against Citizen Kane. And every now and then you’d get a shock, because that happens in sport, so Back to the Future 3 might land a lucky punch on Rabbit, Run; but I’m still backing literature twenty-nine times out of thirty.

- Nick Hornby, The Polysyllabic Spree

Will a time ever come when I am not so completely dependent on thoughts I first had in childhood to furnish the feedstock for my comparisons and analogies and sense of the parallel rhythms of microhistory? Will I reach a point where there will be a good chance, I mean more than fifty-fifty chance, that any random idea popping back into the foreground of my consciousness will be an idea that first came to me when I was an adult, rather than one I had as a child? Will the universe of all possible things I could be reminded of ever be mostly an adult universe? I hope so–indeed, if I could locate the precise moment in my past when I conclusively became an adult, a few simple calculations would determine how many years it will be before I reach this new stage of life: the end of the rule of nostalgia, the beginning of my true Majority.

- Nicholson Baker, The Mezzanine

On Thursday I went to see the Sweedish version of “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” As the owner of the theater said in his curtain speech (yes, the Arts Cinema nearby features an old man who does a curtain speech before every show, it’s adorable) the U.S. version will probably take this adult thriller and turn it into a PG-13 mystery romp for boys.

Without spoiling people who haven’t read the novels, I thought it was a good adaptation of the book. They cut a lot of things, but they had to, and I thought most of the cuts made sense. There were several times I was nodding along, filling in what they left out, agreeing with the cuts. My favorite review of the book is to simply tell people that: “Shit goes down.” And the Sweedish version shied away from none of it. I couldn’t get anyone to come with me that hadn’t read the book, but I wonder what their take on it would be. It almost served, to me, as an abridged companion piece to the book. So much of the nuance was lost in the translation to a movie. A lot of the details are what made the book so much fun. (Granted the book is overly detailed at times, down to precise shopping lists, email addresses, etc)

Also, I suppose to relationship between Erika and Mikael was cut for time? And don’t worry – this isn’t a spoiler for anything – they added elements from the second book to the movie, and I’m not entirely sure why. I guess, in the movie there’s so much less on Lisbeth’s internal monologue, so the flash backs sought to provide some of that?

Also I still want to go to Sweeden, who’s with me?

Here’s the thing – just like everyone else I have a bit of a Martha Stewart aesthetic desire. In theory – my life would look like this.

or

(from Design Is Mine)

But in reality, I fear that I wouldn’t actually be able to live like this. That one perfect dress on that bare white wall? Yeah right. Even if I started living in the beautiful dining room with the beautiful yellow side -board it would only be a matter of time before the clutter that follows me around would start to accumulate. I know myself well enough to know it’s an unrealistic desire. I may like minimalist design in theory, but it would never work for me in practice.

Which is why it was heart-warming to open the Design Issue of New York Magazine yesterday and find this couple.

Now these are people living like I live – granted they are doing it in a slightly more upscale pretentious way. But still.

This looks like the the inside of my head.

So the moral of today’s story, apparently there’s a chance for my design aesthetic if I mix it with a side of pretentious hipster. Interesting.

Tags: design, pretty

“The smell of pantries, the sense of empty afternoons, the feel of things as they rained across our skin, things as facts and passions, the feel of pain, loss, disappointment, breathless delight….this is the space reserved for irony, sympathy and fond amusement, the means by which we rescue ourselves from the past.”

Don DeLillo, White Noise

My professor asked me if I had read much Don DeLillo. When I responded, who? He laughed and told me only one the best living American novelists. So I started reading White Noise.

“We know more about what Huey Long represented and the emptiness at the core of American political culture from reading Robert Penn Warren than from contemporary journalistic accounts of Long’s reign. We know more about human pride, purpose, and obsession from Moby-Dick than from any contemporaneous account of the Nantucket whaler that was actually struck and sunk by a whale in the nineteenth-century incident on which Melville based his book. And we know how much of an affront the Spanish Civil War was to the human spirit when we stare at Picasso’s Guernica than when we read a more deliberate, fact-based account. I am not comparing anything I’ve done to any of the above; please, please do not presume that because I cite someone else’s art, I claim anything similar for anything I’ve done. But I cite the above because it makes the answer to your question obvious: Picasso said art is the lie that allows us to see the truth. That is it exactly.”

David Simon on His New HBO Series, ‘Treme’ — New York Magazine.

Thanks to a certain Professor of Pop Culture, I’ve seen the first two episodes of Treme, and it’s good. Really good.

I know the problem is the pitch for the show is basically – David Simon + New Orleans musicians – which doesn’t sound patricianly compelling or even interesting. And that’s part of the problem, I’ve seen the first episode and I’m at a loss for how to further describe or pitch the show to other people. Since it’s David Simon, the first 17 minutes roll by without a hint of plot or exposition. And while things happen in the ensuing minutes, I’d still be hard pressed to tell you where the next eight episodes will lead – except that I get the sense things will really start to gear up.

Here’s the other thing, you won’t care. It’s good. Beautiful, moving and funny. Seriously, read the New York Magazine profile on David Simon and really try to watch this tonight on HBO. You won’t regret it.

Tags: david simon, fiction, programs: treme, tv

“I’m melting! melting! Oh, what a world! What a world! Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness? ” – The Wizard of Oz

I actually don’t care much for peeps. But my friend Chloe is a big fan, and so when I saw the idea for Peep Krispie Treats on Serious Eats, I decided I should give it a try while the peeps were cheap.

I’m not sure why the recipe encouraged you not to mix the peeps while melting, but you know. I tried to keep them separate. Ultimately, they turned out sort of greenish in color, and you can taste all the crystallized sugar from the peeps. Bottom line, if you’re a peeps fan melt yourself some peeps and make some krispies.

Tags: baking, dessert

Maybe you’ve seen the promos for Undercover Boss calling it the #1 New Show. Maybe you’ve seen the ratings. I’ve been mocking those promos mercilessly.  I couldn’t believe CBS chose to give this show the post-Superbowl slot.

Then last night I got sucked into an episode at the gym. I found myself feeling the same way about Undercover Boss as I do about Extreme Home Makeover, it’s emotionally manipulative. And yet, while I can see how the show is carefully manipulating me, I can’t resist it. Every time I try and cynically steer myself against the manipulation, I find that there’s a lump in my throat and the tears aren’t far behind. I’ts probably no coincidence these shows are succeeding on Sunday nights.  Their effect is only strong while I’m held as a captive audience though (normally other people controlling the TV – like at the gym) it’s not as though I seek out the shows from week to week. But am I the only one who can’t escape the emotional manipulation of shows like Undercover Boss and Extreme Home Makeover? Anyone else?

Tags: cbs, tv

Fiction is one of the few experiences where loneliness can be both confronted and relieved. Drugs, movies where stuff blows up, loud parties — all these chase away loneliness by making me forget my name’s Dave and I live in a one-by-one box of bone no other party can penetrate or know. Fiction, poetry, music, really deep serious sex, and, in various ways, religion — these are the places (for me) where loneliness is countenanced, stared down, transfigured, treated.

- David Foster Wallace

Tags: david foster wallace, fiction, loneliness, quotes

The first time I attempted making doughnuts from scratch, they were fine, but not life-changing. Deep down, I knew that home made doughnuts just out of the fryer should be knocking my socks off. They should be, as the name of the recipe from Joy the Baker implies, Oh! My! God! Doughnuts. There were many things I did wrong that first time – I don’t think the yeast foamed long enough, I lacked a real rolling pin and so I had to improvise, and those are just the things I remember off the top of my head.

So when spring break rolled around, I decided to approach my dedicated baking partner and give this recipe another shot. Oh boy, am I glad we did. In truth while the process takes a bit of time to allow for the rising, the dough is really straightforward. We both couldn’t believe it was pretty much, put all the ingredients in the mixer and well, mix.

Here are the doughnut holes – puffed up from the second rising. Then it was the painless process of frying the doughnuts, dipping them in glaze and decorating them with sprinkles. As Kelly said, “this is a dangerous thing to know how to do.” If one were more of a morning person, you might be able to pull off getting out of bed at 9am, mixing the dough, returning to bed for a few hours, then getting up again to fry and having warm doughnuts waiting at brunch for your loved ones. If one was such an inclined morning person. In truth, you need to make these for a cadre of your favorite people, because eating them all is damn near impossible, and they don’t keep well.

Or more accurately, they keep fine. But once the doughnuts have melted in your mouth straight out of the fryer – there is no going back.

Tags: baking