I’ve never been able to figure it out. Have appreciated those who know their own identity. Who celebrate the intactness of their heritage, the chosen-ness of their people, the tribal identification of their spices. How wonderful, right? But I’ve admired more those who have the courage to set sail. Not the ones who misunderstand indigenous recipes and make everything beige and sweet. But those who bring together the best of multiple ways—and live it.
Posts
I told her, when she googled my old address, to take note of a sad little shrub in front of the house, because I wanted to tell her about its glory days and the brief moment in my life when I had some gardening skills.
Mira wrote about having a grudge against optimism in a recent essay that has left me wandering lost in my own mind. See, I agree with just about everything she wrote. I largely agree with her worldview. But I am a persistent optimist. I am an optimist in the face of considerable clear evidence that optimism is irrational.
Today Mom, Victoria, and I went to Part 2 of the de Young Museum’s big exhibition of art on loan from the Musee d’Orsay, entitled “Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne, and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay.” It was much the same as Part I: an amazing exhibition but too damned crowded to be enjoyable. […]
People ask me about which Mac to buy often enough that I thought I might as well post here a recent reply I wrote to a friend who is looking at a career change from corporate programming to consulting, possibly, or another corporate gig, or who knows what.
We all have computer problems, and that doesn’t stop with Mac, but it sure gets easier. I find myself telling one friend after another to switch to Mac. Sometimes the objection is, “but I absolutely have to have Windows for my job” because of some Windows-only application or another. If that’s the case, then you […]
I’m excited to announce a new blog, “kaddish in two-part harmony.” If you’ve been following my blog lately, you’ll know that I’ve embarked upon a collaborative project with Mira Z. Amiras that we’re calling “kaddish in two-part harmony.” This whole thing started when I happened upon a blog posting Mira had written about Kaddish, the […]
Mira, Where is the place that you get lost? Is it the stopped horn bit? The fourteen notes with a distant, pinched, buzzy sound, and then the normal horn tone returns? Then there’s a phrase, then a restatement of the second big line of the piece, then the climb to the ending? I’m doing musicology […]
While I was running along Skyline with Kjersten tonight, I got to thinking about how I’m actually thinking about taking a pheasant-hunting lesson in November. To kill animals for the sake of my animal. I am perplexed.
a kaddish in two-part harmony – I wasn’t in the mood to make yesterday’s Kaddish, but honoring my promise to keep a ritual brought blessings I couldn’t have thought to desire