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I've been reading this amazing book about the history of automata from ancient times to the present. This is the first time that my research has felt a bit like paging through the Sotheby's catalogue, but I'm not about to complain. In addition to little, pearl-studded mice that run around in circles when you pull their tails, and caged birds that sing every hour on the hour, there are even more impressive feats of baroque engineering that I've discovered: a flute player, a speaking figure, and -- most famous of all -- Vaucanson's duck. This duck is a composite of model and machine: it's attached to a gigantic mechanism of gears and levers that's larger than a washing machine. It toured Europe in the middle of the eighteenth century, and was famous for approximating the motions of an honest-to-goodness duck: eating, drinking, preening, and even pooping. Apparently there are over four hundred moving parts in just one of its wings. When people found out that the duck wasn't actually digesting the food it ate, but was producing pre-fab waste that had been stuffed into it before the show, a huge outcry erupted. The idea that an automaton could mimic animal life entirely was plausible enough at the time -- few were entirely sold on materialism's mechanical explanations for the principles of life, but plenty considered it a possibility -- that it was an offense to the concept of the materialist body to produce an imperfect mechanical model.
My favorite contraption from this remarkable collection of automata, however, isn't the duck. Instead, it's a fake eagle someone made to lead his hot air balloon into uncharted territory. The description finishes with the comment, "Gentlemen with hunting-dogs are requested not to bring them, as experience has shown that these animals can be dangerous to the eagle, which imitates nature to perfection."
It's a bit hard to get over, as an American, how old everything is here in England. Unlike Berlin, where even the neoclassical buildings are only fifty or sixty years old, the pubs here can be 17th century, and the houses, 18th or early 19th. My awe has waned a bit since the proprietor of the Lord Nelson pub told me that, built in 1637, his pub was older than the Mayflower -- he was wrong! the Mayflower sailed in 1620 -- but I'm still impressed by the stolid walls and squat houses leaning into each other along the rows of London's streets. This isn't a city that believes in condos with single-word names like 'Dwell'. Which is not to say that it's a city without gentrification; to the contrary, I can't imagine a place where it's easier to burn money. My small purchases of a power drill, cleaning supplies, and paint samples have been surprisingly expensive.
Speaking of paint, we're going to repaint the living room of our place, and we're currently in the process of choosing the color. At present, the room is a shocking shade of periwinkle blue, but mercifully there's a mirror-shaped swath of white paint where the mirror above the fireplace used to be. That's where we've been testing paint colors, and so the space looks like it's got a bad case of the cream-colored measles. Whenever I have to choose paint -- and to be honest, this is only the second time in my entire life I've done it; the first was when I decided to paint the kitchen in my first Hyde Park apartment, and I chose something like 'San Francisco bay blue,' with 'baby-eyed blue' coming a close second -- I'm completely astonished by all the names. They're even more ridiculous and finely distinguished than the names for shades of clothing, which are themselves often laughable. You've got to wonder whether there's a computer, a robot, or a human with better-than-average sensibilities choosing J Crew's 'toasted chestnut' and 'fawn'. But even more impressive are names like 'nutmeg cream', 'pale hessian', and 'crumpled linen'. This isn't even taking into account my favorite detail of paint-choosing in England: there are entire lines of colors which reproduce Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian shades, so you can paint your period home to be historically accurate. Seriously: there are paint chips that say Edwardian at the top. This is called the Heritage Collection. Can you imagine the American equivalent? Antebellum, WPA, Red Scare, Free Love -- how would we periodize it?
Not much other news of note. It's pretty much been all house stuff, all the time. We did, however, have our first meal at the new place. Boiled eggs and toast. Boxes served in place of a table.
Greetings from the UK! I arrived on Monday morning, early -- we were woken on the plane for breakfast at 5 am London time -- and the last four days have been a whirlwind of box-moving, paint-considering, floor-examining, roofer-calling, van-loading, nap-demanding goodness. All for a worthwhile cause, I hasten to add. We're living in Bloomsbury, in central London, just a stone's throw from UCL and a short walk from the British Library. The previous residents left the place in good shape, but there are a few peculiar details: a forgotten photograph of a child in a Harvard sweatshirt (manifest educational destiny!) and, far odder, a red light in the foyer and bedroom. Presumably the red light bulbs were just put in empty sockets at the last minute, but the effect at night is pretty impressive; the place looks like a bordello. Which it isn't, just for the record.
The not-bordello remains relatively empty. Actually, it's full of boxes, but we haven't unpacked any of them yet. We've been collecting Tom's belongings from various lofts and attics. Between the hardware stores and the van rental place, there isn't a whole lot of interest to report, but as soon as we get the right kind of light bulbs and the futon gets delivered, I'll probably have more adventures to share.
Even if you're not moving right now, you still might want to consider making these cookies from the Tartine cookbook, or even just going whole hog and buying the cookbook. Baking provided welcome relief from the grumps I was feeling after wrapping nearly every piece of my kitchen in paper. I used back issues of the LRB (big page size) and Cooks (good paper stock), plus the pile of J Crew and Victoria's Secret catalogs I've amassed. This makes for a pretty awesome combo, and it means that when I unpack, my silverware will be wrapped in pictures of fuchsia bras. Score!
Ok, down to the details.
Chocolate-Oatmeal-Walnut Cookies
(yield: 24 3-inch cookies)
12 oz. bittersweet chocolate (you can use a bar or chips)
2 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
2 c. old-fashioned rolled oats
1 c. unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 3/4 c. sugar
4 tsp. blackstrap or other dark molasses
2 lg. eggs
2 tbsp. milk
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. salt
1 c. walnuts, coarsely chopped
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick liner.
Coarsely chop the chocolate into 1/4 - 1/2 inch pieces. A serrated knife works well. Chill in the freezer until needed. (Or just get yourself some Ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate chips and cut this step out altogether.)
In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and oats. Set aside. Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium-high speed until light and creamy. Slowly add the sugar and mix on medium speed until light in color and fluffy. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Add the molasses and beat until well combined. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition before adding the next egg. Beat in the milk, vanilla, and salt and then stop the mixer again and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the flour mixture and beat on low speed until well incorporated. Stop the mixer, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and fold in the chocolate chunks and the walnuts with the spatula.
Have ready a small bowl of water. Scoop the dough onto the prepared baking sheet. An ice-cream scoop works well (about 3 1/2 oz. or 100 g. for each scoop). A spoon is also perfectly suitable. Dip your fingers into the water and press out each scoop into a thin, flat 3-inch circle.
Bake until the edges of the cookies are lightly browned but the centers remain pale, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack and let cool. They will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 weeks.
Gwyneth Paltrow teaches us how to roast a chicken! And de-bone it! She's been to the farmers' market and has some 'sweet English peas' and 'gorg'* carrots! Watch the Youtube video here.
This video comes from her lifestyle website, which I've just discovered thanks to the fug girls. It's called GOOP (I know not what the acronym stands for, but maybe her initials?) and its tagline is 'nourish the inner aspect.'
Oh, inner aspect.
When I spent a summer working in the basement of The Paris Review, answering phones, sending rejection slips to the stories sent from prison, and generally doing unglamorous things -- the building was arranged in a literal hierarchy, so that George was on the second floor, the honest-to-goodness editors were on the ground floor, and the interns and lackeys were in the basement with the hundred-year-old roaches -- George was very taken with Gwyneth. One morning he came down into the office, dressed in his seersucker (as he almost always was that summer), and with a sort of distant, distracted expression said, "I met Gwyneth in the elevator last night. I was just captivated. I didn't want the ride to end." He had been at a Radiohead concert in Madison Square Garden, and was in a VIP elevator, and had been so charmed with her manners (but more than that, one imagines, her appearance) that he claimed to have spent the rest of the night feverishly unable to sleep. This is the man who famously hired Jane Fonda as an intern in the early days, and made his way not only through the professions (football, boxing, traveling, writing, editing) but also through the ladies of the beau monde. By this time George was in his seventies and was a devoted family man, but even so, he was smitten.
That was an amazing summer. I'd pick up the phone and Vonnegut would be on the line, all gravely-voiced. The parties were what made working in a basement totally worth it: we'd all assemble in George's apartment, with the view of the East River, the pool table, and an endless supply of gin, and I'd get to meet my heroes. Anthony Hecht, Robert Pinksy, Colin Greenwood. Good times.
*this is a very Californian thing, to shorten words like this
So I was going to write a post about the anticipatory nostalgia you feel when you're about to leave a place; everything starts to look especially beautiful or poignant, the hot dogs begin to have a certain appeal, and you almost think about going to a baseball game, just for the hell of it. I've been walking around my neighborhood and thinking about how much I'll miss my Saturday pilgrimage to Intelligentsia for coffee and Reckless to browse the new arrivals. And the farmers' market in the playground of the nearby school, and the cashiers at Treasure Island, my local grocery store. Even though it doesn't have signs that list the contents of the aisles, and even though I wouldn't buy meat there in a thousand years, it's where I shop. I've even been feeling occasional surges of fondness (a clear sign that my emotions are at a high pitch right now) for all of the perfectly tan joggers who pass me on the lakeshore path. Who's going to motivate me to run faster in England? Kevin Spacey might be in Regents Park, and he might make me run faster, but he isn't there to jog...
But in amidst the bloom of nostalgia and fondness, things have gone a bit -- as the British might say -- tits up. There's some sort of major difficulty getting my visa letter, I can't find anyone to take my apartment, Facebook keeps suggesting that I might want to friend an ex (I think I already tried that, Facebook, but thanks), and I can't find my favorite sandals. Waah, right? I agree that I should get over myself. And that's what I'm trying to do, with the assistance of the occasional ice cream cone and dose of loud music.
Back to moving and how it feels: it's a pleasantly predictable blend of happy and sad, sort of a pre-fab mixture not unlike the sensation a romantic comedy aims to deliver (though, mind you, I don't see my move to London as part of a romantic comedy). Perhaps a comedy, definitely a romance, but not a rom com. But the compressed emotion of being about to leave a place takes everything that place was and wasn't -- everything it lived up to and fell short of -- and compresses the combination of hope and actuality in which actuality calibrates hope into a heady moment of being about to go. You're about to plunge forth into the not-yet-determined Future, but the bills aren't in the mailbox, the roof isn't leaking, you haven't had trouble finding a clothes dryer, and you haven't become inured to the lack of good coffee in London yet. It's the moment where you just get to inhabit the hope (combined, in my case, with some fear of being sent home if I don't get a visa). It's what travel produces in miniature, and it's part of what makes travel so heady, I think. I'll miss Chicago and all of the people and things that make it dear to me, of course, but I'm ready to go, and I'm excited to be going.
I remember feeling shocked the first time I saw ads projected in a subway tunnel, still images arranged so that they produced a moving image. When the El slowed, I got a look at just how many pictures of the Honda Accord were projected onto the wall: lots. I was reminded of this when I was walking up the jetway in Heathrow yesterday upon returning from Berlin. I saw an ad for marriage, I think, or an ad for a bank. Hard to be sure.
There's a particular kind of ad that always seems to appear in jetways, one which involves a repeated image with different captioning. So, for instance, sometime last year I saw these paired diptychs of side-by-side photos of a businessman and a rock star, with respective captions of "normal," "groundbreaking"; "groundbreaking," "normal." I think the ad was for a bank, so presumably they were more on the suit side of things. But advertising in a space like a subway tunnel or a jetway, where passengers are on their journey from a to b, dreaming of buying a sandwich or finally getting to use the bathroom or maybe just idly wondering how long it will take to get into the city or whether they can remember where they've parked their car, seems often to capitalize on fantasies of reinvention. Walking off the plane into Heathrow, behind a French man who looked like Prince but twice the size, who was wearing a gold leather jacket and a gigantic faux-diamond cuff, I passed three images of plastic figures of a bride and groom on top of a wedding cake with the captions: fear, fate, fairy tale. Sure, there are people who think these things about marriage -- probably a rare cross section who think that it's all three -- but because this was about financial managment, why the cake? But of course, marriage and money cross paths again and again. I was just watching this BBC program called "Who Do You Think You Are," which is a delightful mix of geek-out genealogy and celebrity gossip, because it traces the family lines of various stars (Jerry Springer; today, the character Mark from Peep Show). The highpoint of the episode was when Mark goes to visit a distant relative who's got a copy of Mark's great great grandfather's will, in which he writes his wife out of it because of her "intemperance." "I regret to say," he writes, "that to my beloved wife I can leave nothing." He goes on to catalogue her sins. But to get back to the image of the wedding cake as a way to convince weary travelers to use this bank instead of another: what is the idea there? That I'll have a kind of pavlovian response of either fear or fate or fairy tale, understand the multiplicity of views on marriage (much like the multiplicity of views on investing!), and figure out which term (which investment strategy) is right for me? I'm leaving out the other option, which is that I'll desperately want to eat the cake. I think that's the most likely.
Rebecca Mead and others have said earlier and better what I might on the topic, so I won't add anything, but I do think that the chroniclers of late capitalism (yes, that's you, FJ) should be rushing to their typewriters to ask why we're suddenly producing more and more powerful images of permanence at a moment when we're discovering that credit isn't a guarantee. Certain forms of the virtual are failing us, but at the same time we're holding on to them. I suppose what I mean is that I think the resurgence of the desire for stability (whether through marriage or through investment strategies) is about fictions of stability. And of course stability has always been accomplished through fictions, but these seem different.
