Good Friends Are Like Good Soup

I've been really into soup lately. Above are some ingredients from the latest experiment. I followed this recipe, minus the marjoram, savory and cream, plus salt, pepper and a little cayenne pepper. Having homemade chicken broth in the fridge was a plus. While Emily liked this one, I think my last was better, made from a farmer's market squash, a potato, celery and carrots from the garden, with homemade croutons.

Here are a few more pictures from last weekend's Cape Cod Adventure. The big dunes were in Hyannis. Running down that hill was the best thing I've done since the last time I jumped in a leaf pile.This last one is the sunset from Race Point, past Provincetown. It's at the tip of the Cape or the top of the fist, if you're using the bent arm analogy.


As far as tunes go, Emily and I recently remembered this song by Souls of Mischief and how friggin' awesome it is.

Dispatches from Cummaquid

I'm in Cape Cod with friends this weekend. Today I cooked, ate, drank and played with the kitty. Highlights included clams (dug up by my buddies this morning), stuffed and baked heirloom tomatoes, grape nut custard and pumpkin ice cream.



















'Maters, 'mater stuffing (all local!), zinnias, the crew, E Smith and clams, Bernadette the free purebred.

The Spree, Jay-Z and Internet Freedom

1. Death of Auto-Tune

Jay-Z's new Blueprint 3 is rocking my world. My world, and that of most Americans I'm sure. Along with friends like Rihanna, Kanye, Drake and Kid Cudi, Z hates on auto-tune, a method of real-time pitch correction in audio recording, and reminds everyone that he is the Frank Sinatra of hip hop, in case we've forgotten in the 2 years since American Gangster came out and Jay-Z announced his retiremnt.

I find it very interesting that Kanye is on the record, given that his last album 808s and Heartbreak included no rapping and all singing, exclusively through an auto-tune device. Apparently T-Pain helped him out with that decision. I thought it sucked but it still went platiunum and debuted at number one on Billboard. Whatevs America. You love on your auto-tune. I'm with Jay-Z on this one.

In "Death of Auto-Tune", Jay Z says straight up, "Y'all niggas singing too much. Get back to rap, you T-Painin' too much." Ooooh shit Kanye! And you were cool with that?

You can stream Blueprint 3 here and imagine you're in the club with Shorty while you process income or move shit around in Excel spreadsheets.

2. Man Hunt '09 Gets a Rocky Start

My late summer dude hiatus has morphed into Man Hunt 2009 with rockin' roommate Veronica as my partner in crime. We launched the operation last Thursday at a Southern Comfort sponsored *free* Polyphonic Spree show at Paradise. I've been listening to the Spree half-heartedly since high school but I really understand now that listening to them is just dumb. You have to see them. Watching 22 people play and sing Nirvana's "Lithium" fulfilled my awesome-show-moment-quota for at least a coule months, even if they didn't have confetti cannons, a prop the Dallas-based band has been known to bust out in particularly jubilant singalongs. Maybe it didn't fit with the SoCo image. We managed to get up front and center for the "Have a Day", "Soldier Girl" encore, and lip synching the words with the fabulous faux-hawked gay man in front of me really put the icing on the cake. Still, while V-Ron ran into a couple dudes she knew, no real potential mates were identified.

The next night we were a little more agro. We busted out some dresses and trekked to Davis Square for the Macrotones and Love in Stockholm at Johnny D's. The Macrotones were great. A ten piece Afrofunk band, they've got great presence. Budos is one of their biggest influences so naturally I loved them. Allston-based headliner Love in Stockholm really surprised me. I hadn't been that impressed with their songs on My Space but they really tear it up on stage, in suits, ties and fedoras, no less. If you can imagine a grittier Adam Levine (lead singer of Maroon 5), with tight pants, no ass, a skinny tie, fedora and lots of jumping up and down, you'll have Love in Stockholm front man Charlie Rockwell.

3. Net Neutrality
If you're like me and you aren't really confident enough in your understanding of net neutrality to blab about it at a cocktail party, watch this helpful video. Thank you Melanie for bringing that to my attention with this e-mail note, "Did you hear about the FCC and Net Neutrality!?!? Fuck yea. Open Access to Information on the net prevails, bitches!"

And I'll leave you with this wheat pasting from Jamaica Plain:

Oil on canvas

(a poem about the rhythm of art galleries)


Oil on canvas.
Graphite on paper.
Courtesy of Geoffrey and Melinda Hotchkiss.
b. London, 1961
I wonder if this is the artist's boyfriend. If someone paints a fullsize nude portrait of you and you breakup, does your partner get to burn the piece? Do you?
Silver gelatin print.
b. Michigan, 1943
b. Antwerp, 1980
Oil on linen.
Mixed media on wood.
I like that one.
I could do that.
I want to make art like that.
I need more time to make art. I need things to make art about.

Acrylic on newspaper.
Cute boy with a beard. He's carrying a moleskine,
Just like mine
Oil on canvas.
Art student? Grad student. Looks older. I'm gonna say sculptor. Big, rough hands. Nice.

Woodblock print.
Courtesy of John and Ginger Friedman.
Feathers, sequins, acrylic on cardboard.
I wonder if he saw me gawking. I'm gonna marry an artsy boy. It has to happen.
Cast bronze.
Graphite on paper.
Oil on canvas.

September, busy busy

A lot has happened since the last post so I'll start with an update: work at the coffee shop is fun. Good people. Good music. All the good bread is definitely gonna make me fat. I always end up bringing some home so holla if you want a loaf. I just began interning at Corporate Accountability International, doing video work. On the side, I'm looking to get involved in Mass Powershift's Fall campaign, courtesy of Dan Abrams- my awesome former intern. Film Camp in Waldoboro, Maine was excellent. The guys (and girl) at Wicked Delicate are some fun, smart cookies and they've got some culinary prowess. We had lobster, blueberry pancakes and other Maine-tinted loveliness. I felt bad about the shoddy lemon meringue that John Carroll and I brought and even worse when they tried to tell me it was good. Unfortunately the beautiful topping (see photo) didn't make up for the fact that the filling looked and tasted like rubber cement. The next one will be better! This other photo is from inside the john at Swallow's Rise Farm, the site of WD Film School. The place is like a museum, with treasures in every nook and cranny. Highlights included a stuffed turkey, a framed photograph of Mr. Rogers, elementary school art projects and magazine advertisements from the 50's as decor.

In other news, all my veggies got the blight. But, while they all looked like they had plague for awhile, everything is producing again, or for the first time in the case of the patty pan squash. I've been waiting on those suckers for months.

Being busy and on my feet a lot has been a good distraction. Still, I struggle with feeling like an 80 year old woman, between the back pain, fear if loneliness and my intense need to feed other people. Are there other 24 year olds who cook and then feel sad when they've got no one to feed? I can only hope that I'm aging in reverse and at 40 I'll forget what it feels like to hurt.

I've been thinking a lot about the value of idleness. More on that soon.