To the sigh of the string, see Pandar's shot float off;
To the slap of the string on the stave, float on
Over the strip for a beat, a beat, and then
Carry a tunnel the width of a lipstick through Quist's neck.
--Christopher Logue, All Day Permanent Red: The First Battle Scenes of Homer's Iliad Rewritten

AND A BELATED HOLY THURSDAY GREETING TO YOU, TOO.

Worth checking every day.

BREAK FAST: KITCHEN ADVENTURES. Some stuff I tried, to celebrate Easter.

Lemon-roasted Cornish hen: I used: a lemon, a small yellow onion, a small Cornish hen, some fresh rosemary, s & p, lots of butter.

Set oven to 425, 450, or thereabouts. Peel the onion. Cut a wedge of lemon and a wedge of onion--these two together get stuffed into the hen, so you want pieces which will fit. Then wash the hen and pat dry. Take out the giblets if they're in there. Stuff the cavity with the lemon, onion, and a few branches of rosemary. Squeeze the rest of the lemon over the hen and add salt and freshly-ground pepper.

Grab a handful of nice soft butter. Just rub that all over the hen. You want it slathered.

Then the hen in its baking dish goes in the oven. Roast it for... you know, however long it takes. I think with my oven it took about 20-30 mins, but yours might cook faster or slower. Check and baste the hen every ten minutes or so. It's done when the juices run clear.

The verdict: Yum! This was a completely predictable and tasty dish--you really taste every flavor. Totally enjoyable. My one thought was maybe more onion next time--roughly chop the other half of the onion and add it to the dish halfway through cooking?

When you're done feeding, throw the squozen lemon halves, the hen carcass, some whole peppercorns, a bit of salt, and some more rosemary branches into a pot. Just cover them with water. Bring to a boil, then cook uncovered for about an hour. Strain, and now you have a lemony hen stock, for your soups, pastas, etc.

Wild mushroom egg roll things: I used: assorted wild mushrooms; egg roll wrappers; olive oil; fresco asiago cheese; salt; various spices.

I covered a baking tray with parchment paper and set the oven to, I think, 450. I laid out some wrappers on the tray.

I scattered cut-up mushrooms on the wrappers, and cut the fresco asiago into kind of like Lincoln logs. Each wrapper got one Lincoln log, and a pinch of salt. I used different spice combinations: plain; cayenne; chopped fresh rosemary; cayenne-cumin-curry powder-powdered ginger-tiny hint of cinnamon; and cayenne-ginger.

Then I did my best to roll 'em up and seal them, keeping my fingers wet. I'm terrible at this! I managed to make various mushroom packages, but I don't think you could really call them "rolls."

Then those got rubbed with olive oil, and into the oven they went! They cooked for about 11-12 minutes; I checked on them at the nine-minute mark but they were only just starting to brown. You want them brown, but not burnt, with the skin starting to blister a bit.

Once they'd cooled, I tried the rolls and made some more. These were fairly satisfying, but I don't think I got the wrapper-to-stuffing ratio right--the rolls were either bulging or slightly empty, especially since the mushrooms reduce a bit in size as they cook.

The best flavor combination by far was pretty much anything with the ginger. I'd use fresh ginger if I did this again. Ginger and wild mushrooms... totally delicious.

If those wrappers are still workable tonight, I'll make wonton cigarettes with cinnamon and a pinch of cayenne, for dessert. I'll let you know if that works!

FLOWERS IN THE DUSTBIN:

Green and beautiful low-income housing? This sounds like an oxymoron. The usual standard for housing for the poor has been cheap and functional. But only this year came Intervale Green, a low-income apartment building in the South Bronx that might just be a model for developers. ...

Welcome to Intervale Green Apartments. Quietly but clearly it engages in a dialogue with the old psychology and social policies that say the poor don't need beauty--just basics. But Biberman understands that beautiful places change people's attitudes, reduce stress, improve productivity, and also give people hope.

more (I forget where I found this)

Too frail and puny to play with the other boys, Caldwell spends his solitary days sitting high up in his favorite tree. There, hidden behind a veil of Spanish moss, he takes from his pocket an old Bull Durham sack in which he keeps the mementos of rural Southern boyhood/sensitive division: a frog's skull, a cameo with half the face sliced off, and the pennies that closed his grandfather's eyes.

Caldwell would be content to spend the rest of the book thumbing through these talismans, and Gonad Manque, who has no sense of plot, would be equally content to go on writing about them. But it's That Summer, a season unique to the South, when Something Terrible Happens.

Suddenly Caldwell's woodsy retreat is invaded by inhabitants of the outside world. When "they" come, his sensitivity receives a jolt. Perched in his tree, he watches copulating couples, escaped prisoners committing sodomy, a seven-foot black named Raoul staring at a dead fish, an old crone burying a jewelry box containing the other half of the cameo, a weeping stranger castrating himself, and the town idiot masturbating over a crushed flamingo.
--Florence King, "The Gay Confederation," Southern Ladies and Gentlemen

RADIO SILENCE UNTIL EASTER MONDAY, but I'll leave you with Amy Welborn's post rounding up blogs and stuff by people entering the Catholic Church this Easter!

...Plus, more somberly, a post from Amy's comments, about some reasons people fall away from the Church after conversion.

CULTURES OF DEATH:

Senate Republicans are now privately threatening to derail the confirmation of key Obama administration nominees for top legal positions by linking the votes to suppressing critical torture memos from the Bush era.

more (via Mark Shea)

GO DOWN, MOSES: Okay, the symbolism here is pretty intense, regardless of my other opinions of the President:

This year's Passover is then infused with additional meaning, being marked by the first African-American president of the United States, who will be hosting a the first ever Seder at the White House.

more--and the rest of the post is definitely worth reading as well.

WHY CAN'T WE HAVE A FOOD SAFETY POSTMODERNIZATION ACT? No, but for real, Walter Olson breaks down how a proposed bill would push small/artisanal farmers out of the field:

...Patrick, and the other writers linked just above, warn that the law may drive out of business local farmers and artisanal, small-scale producers of berries, herbs, cheese, and countless other wares, even when there is in fact nothing unsafe in their methods of production. Many informal makers of ethnically or culturally distinctive food items will go off-books or simply fall by the wayside, overwhelmed by the reporting and batch-tracking paperwork. Many foreign producers who ship in less-than-mass quantities will give up on the U.S. market rather than try to comply with challenging standards that differ drastically from those imposed by European markets or their own countries of origin, which in turn will mean that many interesting and safe specialty foods will simply no longer be available for purchase, at least legally.

much, much more, with delicious and nutritious artisanal links. Comments thread is shortish but substantive so far as well.

RAGGED THOTS (aka Robert A. George) is in Colorado at the Conference on World Affairs, talking about the future of the Republican Party and also comic books. I was a total shank and failed to post this before his first panel, on Monday, but he's got a few panels left before the conference ends--he's a cool dude and he wants your thoughts (or thots?), so you should drop him a line....

"Will you speak falsely for God,
and speak deceitfully for him?
Will you show partiality toward him,
will you plead the case for God?
Will it be well with you when he searches you out?
Or can you deceive him, as one deceives a man?
He will surely rebuke you
if in secret you show partiality.
Will not his majesty terrify you,
and the dread of him fall upon you?
Your maxims are proverbs of ashes,
your defenses are defenses of clay."
--Job rebuking his "comforters," Job 13:7-12

I'M DREAMING OF A BLACK MARKET, JUST LIKE THE FREE ONES THAT WE NEED:

...O'Brien, the first and only homeless person to belong to the Harvard Square Business Association, said he is tired of fighting City Hall.

His story is a long, involved one that includes getting arrested twice, obtaining various permits, and being moved onto subway grates by the Cambridge superintendent of streets, only to have the MBTA say he couldn't set up on its property. When he tried to open a book business in a nearby church, he found he couldn't get liability insurance. When he tried to get a tax identification number, he said, "they wanted all sorts of paperwork" that he couldn't provide, especially since he had a half-dozen other homeless people working for him on commission. Now his peddler's permit has lapsed, and he said he has grown weary of filling out forms.

"It's the paperwork that killed me," O'Brien said. Decades of living on the streets have weathered his face beyond his 55 years. He says he ran a similar business in New York and was never hassled.

more (via Hit & Run)

The Institute for Justice, here.

THISTLE FARMS BLOG.

For those who are new to our community, Thistle Farms is a non-profit business for women who have survived prostitution, violence and addiction. By hand we make natural bath and body products that are good for us and for the environment. But we are connected not just by what we were or even what we are today, but by our remembrance of what it feels like to be broken. We all remember what it feels like to have been in the ditch, when everything in your life seemed to fall apart. The enduring gift for most of us is that this experience allows your heart to be so open. There is humility and compassion for others because you have learned how human you are. Whatever has brought you to our blog today, we hope you will feel the love and grace that binds this community together through the voices you'll read on these pages.

(that post) (the whole blog)

FEAST OF SAINT MARY OF EGYPT, patroness of penitents.

OrthoWiki on the saint; Wikipedia (with bonus Nalo Hopkinson--I did not know that!); more, plus an icon.

I arose to open to my beloved,
and my hands dripped with myrrh,
my fingers with liquid myrrh,
upon the handles of the bolt.
--Song of Solomon, 5:5

IF YOU STOP PAYING A SURROGATE MOTHER, WHAT HAPPENS TO THE FETUS? I should really make you guys go to MarriageDebate for this stuff, but I thought this would be of interest:

If you're angry about the AIG scandal or Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, check out what's happening to the infertile couples and surrogate mothers involved in a California womb brokerage. It's a familiar tale of vanishing funds and defaulted obligations. But this time, the potential loss is bigger than property. It's pregnancy.

Whose pregnancies are at stake? That's a tricky question. Through in vitro fertilization, a fetus can have two mothers: a genetic one and a gestational one. Last week, for example, we looked at a Japanese case in which a doctor mistakenly put one woman's embryo in another woman's uterus. Weeks later, the second woman was told of the error and aborted the pregnancy. The first woman wasn't told about anything for two and a half months.

That's what can happen when you separate pregnancy into two stages. One woman can abort another's offspring.

And that's not the only way it can happen. Thousands of women have hired themselves out as gestational surrogates. If you're the child's genetic mother, you can put a clause in the contract stipulating under what circumstances the surrogate can abort the pregnancy. But no court will enforce that clause, because you aren't the one who's pregnant. The surrogate is. She can choose abortion unilaterally. All you can do is stop paying her for carrying the child.

But what if it's the other way around? What if you stop paying her first? If you had hired her to sew booties for your kid, she could respond to your nonpayment by halting work on the booties. But her job wasn't to deliver booties. It was to deliver the kid. If she responds by halting work on the thing you've stopped paying for, that thing is your child.

Presumably, if you care enough about the baby to have hired a surrogate, you'll pay what you promised. But what if you don't control the payments? What if you delivered the money to a broker, and the broker lost, stole, or squandered it? You did your part, but the surrogate is no longer being paid. And she has every legal right to end the pregnancy.

That's the scenario unfolding in California.

more

NOT AN APRIL FOOL'S JOKE.... Hey guys, if you tried to go to Saran Malene M's show at Twins Jazz tonight, I really apologize--I had no idea the place was closed! It looked like they lost their liquor license or some similar problem. If I can find info about her next show I will let you know about that. Again, my apologies if you got rained on....

TELEBIBLICAL: So I just watched the first three episodes of Kings off IMDB. Some thoughts. (Keep in mind that if I don't mention something specifically, I probably didn't like it! I was a real hard sell on this one.)

This post is written on the assumption that you a) have seen the episodes or b) don't care about spoilers (including, you know, stuff that isn't in the Bible).

Executive summary: Wow, a show about a contemporary/alternate-universe King David is a terrific idea. I hate what they're doing with Jonathan; the acting is uneven at best (well... no--there's no good acting under age 40); but there's really unexpected subtlety in certain moments of this show. Also, 95% of this post was written after the first episode, which means that the subsequent two pretty much added nothing and subtracted nothing. If you watch Goliath you'll know what the show is like so far.

What I liked: The contrast between the front and the capital. A thing I think a lot about is how isolated it's possible to be from our military. If I hadn't joined a group of right-wing freaks in college, I doubt I would know a single veteran my own age today. That strange disconnect, where the war is happening but it's remote from many citizens--they're not even really on the "home front," they're just at home--is hit pretty intensely in Kings.

The anointing/motor-oil scene. I honestly don't know why this worked for me, but it did; maybe because it captured the sense of surprise from both men, that this really mundane moment had suddenly taken on supreme significance?

David's piano music in the first episode sounds nicely harpish.

The scene on the steps. Harsh and real, and the only time I've actually liked Sebastian Stan's otherwise eyelinerish, CW-style acting as Jack. I first thought the dialogue was annoyingly conflicted between a today's-America worldview ("how God made you") and a more Biblical one, but actually, I think it might be seen as part of Silas's shifting between trust in God and trust in power (as he says later to Rev. Samuels, "Then God can go to Hell").

"We are all your children, Silas." This was a really alien sentiment--a line spoken from within a monarchist worldview, not a lib-dem one. You don't see that often on TV from a sympathetic character.

"Show me you're more than tank. ...That you live for more than our deaths." Taken on its face this is an incredibly maudlin speech. Taken as a speech to God--cast as a speech to enemy soldiers!--it's honestly pretty incredible, and deeply in tune with the Christian faith. Wow. (Judah Halevi: "I love my enemies, for You are one of them.")

Prosperity: David's happiness at trading the port his father died for in order to have peace. I think that's the only thing I really liked about this episode, although the pigeons were fun.

Not so much: I'm not feelin' the butterflies at all. Really, show, butterflies?

I can think of at least fifteen different ways to play the Jonathan/David relationship in a way that would really speak to me. This show has found a sixteenth one which I can't stand. The actual Bible story is much, much more poignant than this cliche. (I might feel slightly different if Stan could sell Jack Benjamin as a military leader, whose care for his troops is basic to his character. He hasn't done that for me so far.)

I'm actually having a hard time articulating what I find wrong with this setup; there's the obvious (setting aside power for love is perhaps the core element of Jonathan's story, and if you start off showing me a whiny, resentful prince, I'll have a hard time buying any future development toward the uncompromising awesomeness of Biblical Jonathan), there's the gay (I'm really over media that gives me Tormented Pretty Gays to feel sorry for, and I feel gross about how popular that image has proven [especially among straight girls], for this show and in general), there's the indifference to faith shown by both Jack and David. Mostly I just think what I said above: The actual Bible does this story a million times better.

Can the show win me over by portraying change in these characters? Yeah, maybe. If they don't have Jack be all unrequited and piny about David (because we all know gay people have no non-eroticized same-sex friendships!), and they sell me on the characters' spiritual growth... maybe. But right now I'm not seeing Jonathan and I'm definitely not seeing David. Can you honestly picture this demi-cute everyboy singing the 51st Psalm?

BLACK AND WHITE AND RED ALL OVER: Comic Art Indigene. The National Museum of the American Indian has an exhibit on Native Americans and comics, up through May 31st. It's... it's scattershot.

There are about three examples of everything the exhibit wants to talk about. Three examples of traditional art forms done with comic-book motifs and themes (the pottery where the deer hunt uses imagery possibly taken from Krazy Kat was pretty awesome); three graffiti-influenced artworks with Indian characters; three contemporary satirical cartoons. You get the picture. It's all interesting, but it's a Tantalus exhibit, withdrawing just when you're starting to want more.

I'm also not sure who the target audience is. When I visited, a teacher was herding a group of little kids through the exhibit--hurrying them past the Indian lesbians to get them to the skateboard with Speedy Gonzales painted on it. The wall captions are really intro-level and kid-friendly, but the scratchy horror comic on the wall is not.

Not a lot of sequential art here; not a lot of comics-specific storytelling techniques, as versus obviously comics-influenced pictorial techniques.

And from the one other review I've read, I got the impression that there are a lot of developments in Indian comics which just got ignored or treated with extreme shallowness, like the growing influence of manga.

All of that said--this is a quick and occasionally provocative exhibit, which I liked a lot. I hope you get that my main complaint is that I wanted more! It's definitely worth the trek down the Mall if you're in the city already. Plus, you know, it's free....

THOSE WHO CAN'T DO, SCHOOL: My God--other than the obvious, is there anything Amy Winehouse can't do?

No, really, anything?