coming home

When we're driving, in the dark,
on the long road
to Provincetown, which lies empty
for miles, when we're weary,
when the buildings
and the scrub pines lose
their familiar look,
I imagine us rising
from the speeding car,
I imagine us seeing
everything from another place -- the top
of one of the pale dunes
or the deep and nameless fields of the sea --
and what we see is the world
that cannot cherish us
but which we cherish,
and what we see is our life
moving like that,
along the dark edges
of everything -- the headlights
like lanterns
sweeping the blackness --
believing in a thousand
fragile and unprovable things,
looking out for sorrow,
slowing down for happiness,
making all the right turns
right down to the thumping
barriers to the sea,
the swirling waves,
the narrow streets, the houses,
the past, the future,
the doorway that belongs
to you and me.

-Mary Oliver


For Tuesday.

El Jefe Poster for the DC show.


Sunday night I went to see my favorite band play the Black Cat. They're breaking up and this is their last tour. (I think I first saw them in 2002 at the Middle East in Cambridge, a show at which my friend Evildave jumped on stage to help A.Z. sing 'Bring It On Golden Pond'. )

It was so emotional. Everyone - musicians, fans - was crying. They played like they wanted to wear out their instruments before they got to their last tour stop.

They played all our favorite songs.

I haven't been able to listen to any other music since then.

Update on the headphone saga...

I think I'm going with the Grados.

speakers push the air

With the work I'm doing on this soundtrack project, I've begun to feel the need for some serious headphones.

I've found a few that look promising:



The Sennheiser HD-280.


The Grado SR80.


The Panasonic RP-DH1200.

This acquisition might have to be via the interwebs - I have no idea where to find these to try out in Baltimore. (Other than the Bose Triports I tried on at Best Buy - super comfy, but I want to keep looking. )

grazia

*red velvet cake
*seriously beautiful weather
*quality time with people I care about
*some nice new summer clothes
*perfection in a light, flavorful lunch - Soup's On in Hampden.
*finding my sunglasses
*seeing another Verdi opera
*600 thread count sheets
*getting an A in my genetics class
*my Mother's Day card getting to Massachusetts in time (phew)
*Dayna + Kevin's happy news

on time

Time can be told in the opening of a flower,
Trumpet of dawn, flugelhorn of the sun
Sinking down. Noiseless explosions
Greet an attentive eye. And the ear

Is a flower, too, a welcome home for echoes,
Kisses, and cackles. Cauldron of starlight,
Tincture and blaring cry, whatever brushes
Your senses unlatches a doorway

Scoured by salt, vanishing as you plunder
The coffers of sleep. So you will know
What it means to be utterly free, floating

Without a hope, floating in hope, a medium
Fit for the being you have become, given
The bed you have made, the race you won.

-Phillis Levin



This issue (May 14th) is absolutely fantastic through and through. And perfectly timed.

passing the bar

Congratulations Mike, from one of your fans in Baltimore.

charm city scooter rally

It starts today.

retail therapy.

peridot earrings, courtesy of d.

More shopping to come this week. Really, it's the only way to get through getting older.

April 2007 - the books.

How To Cook A Tart, N. Killham
The Accidental Tourist, A. Tyler
Acquired Tastes, P. Mayle
The Stone Diaries, C. Shields
A Suitable Boy, V. Seth*


Two light and fluffy books (first and third), two depressing books (second and fourth), and finished with one of the longest novels ever published in the English language. I've always had an aversion to the ultra-long novel, they have such a stigma for being sisyphean (cue in everything I've ever heard about Middlemarch and Ulysses.) Having conquered this one nicely nullifies that. I'm all for dismantling self-imposed limitations.

By the way, the How to Cook a Tart book was written by a Washington Post food writer. While the plot goes round the bend at the end, the decadent food descriptions are well done and fun. Also, she mentions Sutton Place Gourmet, the former name of my current favorite posh food store, Balducci's.

the difference.

I continue to be conflicted about not trying out for the Charm City Roller Girls. On one hand, I love the idea. The comraderie. The (most likely) fascinating social circle. Plus, I may not have the semi-required sleeves of tatoos, but I do currently have the multicolored hair for it.

On the other hand, I've already broken my nose once, and I think the second time around's results won't be as benevolent.

I can ponder this more at this season's opener. How can you not be entranced by that flyer? Well played.

the isabella stewart gardner museum.

the museum of stones

This is your museum of stones, assembled in matchbox and tin,
collected from roadside, culvert, and viaduct,
battlefield, threshing floor, basilica, abattoir,
stones loosened by tanks in the streets
of a city whose earliest map was drawn in ink on linen,
schoolyard stones in the hand of a corpse,
pebble from Apollinaire's oui,
stone of the mind within us
carried from one silence to another,
stone of cromlech and cairn, schist and shale, hornblende,
agate, marble, millstones, and ruins of choirs and churchyards,
chalk, marl, and mudstone from temples and tombs,
stone from the silvery grass near the scaffold,
stone from the tunnel lined with bones,
lava of the city's entombment,
chipped from lighthouse, cell wall, scriptorium,
paving stones from the hands of those who rose against the army,
stones where the bells had fallen, where the bridges were blown,
those that had flown through windows and weighted petitions,
feldspar, rose quartz, slate, blueschrist, gneiss, and chert,
fragments of an abbey at dusk, sandstone toe
of a Buddha mortared at Bamiyan,
stone from the hill of three crosses and a crypt,
from a chimney where storks cried like human children,
stones newly fallen from stars, a stillness of stones, a heart,
altar and boundary stone, marker and vessel, first cast, lode, and hail,
bridge stone and others to pave and shut up with,
stone apple, stone basil, beech, berry, stone brake,
stone bramble, stone fern, lichen, liverwort, pippin, and root,
concretion of the body, as blind as cold as deaf,
all earth a quarry, all life a labor, stone-faced, stone drunk
with hope that this assemblage, taken together, would become
a shrine or holy place, an ossuary, immovable and sacred,
like the stone that marked the path of the sun as it entered the human dawn.

-Carolyn Forche

politics and pipettes

Indeed.

As Noel put it, it's like the bitch-ifying slime running under New York City in Ghostbusters. Things have just been uncomfortably off. And I can only hope the worst has passed.

the joys of research

Unexpected findings, such as rats....giggling.



Thanks, CuteOverload.

for mah peeps

You have to see this. Be sure to click on the slide show.

sympathy for the tummy

I am no restaurant critic. The pleasure of food defies a pinpointing description far too often for me. Frank Bruni can sleep at night, I'm not after his day job.

At the same time, I can't deny the small triumph of a dish that transcends mere sustenance to become, perhaps, the highlight of the evening. And the small satisfaction that comes from your lucky guess as to what might be the best thing on the menu.

So, here are some of my very favorite items, from some of the places I'm happy to frequent.

Some are places you suffer through abominable service to get to the food (Mezze, Taste). Others are spots where the atmosphere is part of the fun (Henninger's, Golden West, Pazo). And still others you likely don't notice anything, except the Ode to Joy your tastebuds are singing.

But all are dishes I adore.

Akbar - tamarind chicken, lamb pasanda
Attman's - rare roast beef
Blue Moon - cinnamon bun and eggs Benny
Bob's Noodle 66 - oyster pancake
Brewer's Art - rosemary garlic fries
Charles Theatre - the classic combination of popcorn and Junior Mints
Dipasquales - tuna diavolo
Dangerously Delicious - cherry pie (mixed berry running a close second)
Dukem - kitfo and lamb wot
Five Guys - little cheeseburger
Golden West Cafe - whole wheat blackberry pancakes, and Rose's cake (n.b. - the version with chocolate cake & mocha icing. An important distinction.)
Henningers - pan fried oysters with Pernod sauce
Helmand - kaddo borwani and kabouli
Jack's Bistro - smoked gouda grits
La Cazuela - plantains...in all their glory
Mama's on the Half Shell - raw oyster selection and diver scallops
Mezze - grilled mushroom
Nacho Mama's - ribs (best delivery in the [relative] 'hood)
Pazo - fish with pomegranite sauce
Petit Louis - cheese plate, but everything here is good
Salt - pecan-crusted venison with cherry foie gras spaetzle and ginger butter brussel sprouts
Samos - souvlaki
Sotto Sopra - lamb with gorgonzola risotto (a special- if you see it, order it)
Sushi Sono - rolls - some of the absolute best sushi I've ever had.
Tapas Teatro - the olive and cornichon amuse bouche
Taste - grilled Caesar
Teavolve - bubble tea
Thai Arroy - tom yum
Tio Pepe - sole with hollandaise



Feel free to comment...I'd like to hears others' suggestions or opinions.

March 2007 - the books.

Baltimore Noir, L. Lippman (ed.) *
Fierce People, D. Wittenborn (surprising - a dark horse *)
The Memory Palace of Isabella Stewart Gardner, P. Vigderman *
Never Let Me Go, K. Ishiguro *
Speaking With The Angel, N. Hornby (ed.) *
The Dante Club, M. Pearl
Snow Flower And The Secret Fan, L. See
The Shadow Of The Wind, C.R. Zafon *
The Lake of Dead Languages, C. Goodman
Possession, A. S. Byatt *

I've starred the ones I particularly enjoyed.

conversational snippet

"Italian ham, English roast beef, German mustard, Swiss cheese, Jewish rye --

It's Europe in my mouth!"

-the sammich aficianado