stand up and thank her
It’s a beautiful day here right in the middle of sun and gloom. The trees are all blossoming, and I’m trying to take it in before the rains come and knock the petals off.
Since the mood is such, I’m watching videos in between revising poems. I can’t stop watching this one for Sufjan Stevens’ Decatur. It was created by Ainsley.
torches of/for totalitarianism
Yesterday, Pro-Tibet demonstrators, Reporters Without Boarders, disrupted the lighting of the Olympic torch in Athens. They were there to protest the Chinese government’s actions in Tibet. While some people were carried away from the podium, one woman doused herself in red paint, and fell down in the middle of the road. It reminds me of Mary Oliver’s poem about Tecumseh:
I would like to paint my body red
go out into the glittering snow to die.
And in other, similar news, many of the world’s top Marathon runners are boycotting the games altogether (including Haile Gebrselassie, world record holder), out of protest for the grave environmental problems in Beijing, or simple fear for their respiratory health.
Does anyone see a Clusterfu#& to the Olympics John Stewart graphic in the near future?
In 1963, David Halberstam, reporting for the New York Times, wrote about Thich Quang Duc, the Buddhist monk from the Linh-Mu Pagoda in Hue, Vietnam, who set himself on fire and burned to death out of protest for the Vietnam War:
I was too shocked to cry, too confused to take notes or ask questions, too bewildered to even think…. As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound…
While I sincerely hope there are no scenes like this during the summer games, I think that these Olympics will draw some much-needed attention to some major issues. My Dad recently wrote about some of the Public Relations implications and the potential problems with advertising and sponsorships. For example, NBC has paid $2.3 billion to broadcast the Athens, Turin, and Beijing Olympics, but China has declared they will ban live broadcasts from Tiananmen Square. No one is commenting. My Dad ponders:
Wonder what happens if someone has to clear a body or two from the track
before the start of the 4×4 relay?
It’s a troubling question that I think will become more prominent in the next few weeks and months.
Also, I stole the title of my blog today, Torches of Totalitarianism, from Bill Sledzik, Public Relations Professor at Kent State University.
it’s no real pleasure in life
Today is Flannery O’Connor’s birthday. She is my favorite writer of all time, though I can’t pinpoint the exact reason why, exactly, except to say that she was a champion for truth in art, regardless of whose truth it is or if truth exists at all.
I was trying to find a good quote from one of my favorite stories, but I simply can’t decide on one. Instead, I’ll leave with this pearl:
When in Rome, do as you done in Milledgeville.
szia
In 1895, my mother’s grandfather hopped a westbound train out of Hungary and then finally a steam ship across the Atlantic. When SÁNDOR arrived on Ellis Island, his surname (maybe Pete, Pettji, Pethe, Petheö, Petheô, Pethö, Pethô, Petö, Petô) was changed to Petty, and his first name became Alex. Alex settled in mountains of West Virginia and a few years later sent for his wife, Virginia (whose name probably was not Virginia in Hungary, but because there is no similar name, nor a record how it was changed, she will always have this English name) and their first son, RÓBERT (Robert). A few years after that, my grandfather, John (JÁNOS), was born.
I was born in 1980, and mostly that part of my past (other than some foods) was absent from the way I formed my understanding of my cultural and biological history. As I’ve spoken about many times, however, I’ve always been drawn to West Virginia, and as the years pass, even more so to Hungary. I’m not really sure I have the language for it yet, but I think I am on the track to figuring at least some of it out.
Which brings me to next year.
After a very, very difficult personal decision, I have decided to put off the PhD for right now in lieu of a different kind of adventure.
Next year I will be living in Hungary, land of the Magyars, locked in the Carpathian Basin, boarded by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Magyar Köztársaság, first to get a little sassy with the Soviets during the Revolution of 1956, opening its border with Austria in 1989, accelerating the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. Hungary. Home to what is widely believed by Europeans to be the most beautiful capital in the world, Budapest, and where I will most likely be living, Szeged, the city of sunshine.
I don’t know enough about Hungary yet, but I’m going to use my time (when I’m not teaching English) to learn about this part of my history. The people. The language. Hopefully, I will be able to find what I’ve been looking for since finishing my MFA—a meaningful experience to write.
Szia. (it means hello and goodbye and sounds like how we say “see ya”)
no work. total pleasure.
On Sunday morning, there is nothing better than waking up, reaching over for the remote, and watching Nigella Lawson. It’s well known that I have a severe slight obsession with the food network. It feeds my need for measurements, times, recipes, menus, planning, etc. But Nigella is the best. She’s a warm afternoon. Blushed cheeks. Dimmed eyelids.
She opened the show with this statement: I often think it’s such a pity that dessert is served at the end of the meal. But obviously I’m going to have to pace myself.
Now she’s scouring the shops of London for specialty sugar pansies and daisies to decorate her cupcakes.
Here is a short Nigella phrase and sentence list from today’s episode (please read with perfect English accent).
At home, I am a one-woman cupcake factory
I can test them without marring their beauty.
Time for the peaches to be disrobed.
Edible bouquet
There is not an occasion in life where I can’t make a cupcake to celebrate it
Complete vanilla gorgeousness here
And with joy in your heart, give a dash of red, red, sauce.
No work and total pleasure
And since it’s warm and Spring in Georgia, I think I’ll make this peach melba tonight.
Here is the recipe if you want to join me:
Peach Melba
Peaches:
3 cups water
3 1/2 cups sugar
1 vanilla pod, split lengthwise
2 tablespoons lemon juice
8 peachesRaspberry sauce:
3 cups raspberries
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 tablespoon lemon juiceTo serve:
1 large tub vanilla icePut the water, sugar, lemon juice, and vanilla pod into a wide saucepan and heat gently to dissolve the sugar. Bring the pan to the boil and let it bubble away for about 5 minutes, then turn the heat down to a fast simmer.
Cut the peaches in half, and if the stones come out easily then remove them, if not then you can get them out later. Poach the peach halves in the sugar syrup for about 2 to 3 minutes on each side depending on the ripeness of the fruit. Test the cut side with the sharp point of a knife to see if they are soft, and then remove them to a plate with a slotted spoon.
When all the peaches are poached, peel off their skins and let them cool (then you can remove any remaining stones). If you are making them a day in advance then let the poaching syrup cool and then pour into a dish with the peaches. Otherwise just bag up the syrup and freeze it for the next time you poach peaches.
To make the raspberry sauce, liquidize the raspberries, confectioners’ sugar, and lemon juice in a blender or a food processor. Sieve to remove the pits and pour the puree into a jug.
To assemble the Peach Melba, allow 2 peach halves per person and sit them on each plate alongside a scoop or 2 of ice cream. Spoon the raspberry sauce over each.
i fold
In my email today:
Dear Jessica,
It’s time for baby’s first check-up — and the recording of his weight, length, and head circumference. You will be asked to fill out forms and give a history of your pregnancy and delivery, including any problems. Write down your questions as you think of them so you can ask the doctor about any concerns.
Okay American Baby. You win. I give up. Please stop emailing me and sending me formula, diapers, and parenting videos. Yes, I got the 2 -hour DVD that you sent me on my new baby’s health and parenting tips. But please, you don’t know who you’re dealing with. I have a extremely overactive imagination. And when I returned home to find the DVD and the email that said, “Your Baby is 1 Week Old!”– I really started to think–Do I have a baby? My GOD do I have a baby somewhere out there with a little rolled-sleeve oxford and mismatched hipster tie?
So please, American Baby, I fold. You win. Really. Enough now.
vampire weekend
I feel bad saying this, as I know the current weather quagmire up in my Ohio, but spring is really waking up here in Georgia. I had the best run outside today. The air was quickly warming and everyone seemed to notice it. It doesn’t get much better, especially listening to this:
color, coal, cold
Today I participated in a great American tradition—driving the long, national nightmare that is 77N all the way from Georgia to Akron, Ohio. Well, that’s not fair, I was on 85N for a few miles. And the sun stuck around for that leg, at least.
Despite the rain, and the fact that I was in the car for 11 hours alone trying not to fall victim to daydreams, whimsy, or rage, the trip was more beautiful than I had pieced together from previous trips to Athens or Hilton Head.
In the morning, I left a warming peach state where the roads are lined in pines. By early afternoon I had passed through two states, two Appalachian mountain tunnels, and miles of steep grade rise and fall where the sides of the roads are lined with emergency pull off chutes for big rigs. It is really, truly America in this part of the country. Raw. Unpretentious. Mostly unnoticed.
And perhaps my sentimentality is due to the long hours at the wheel, or trying to find some way to engage with my long dead family who traveled from Hungary to West Virginia to work in the mines, who knew the language of hard work and counted hours in the day by whistles of coal trains.
And Ohio too—how snow has a fragrance, even through car windows, for someone who has been in the south for just long enough to forget it. And the slap of muddy rain. A state of red barns and valleys and bikes left to rust in the winter drizzle.
Maybe you can tell a history in this movement from south to north, or north to south, or the old sagging range out the windows. And maybe I’m just delirious today, but I’m sure there’s meaning in it somewhere.
