Coolness experienced today, in order:

1. the sense of accomplishment achieved through finding free and legal parking on the streets of Manhattan (after circling blocks for 45 minutes)
2. getting a tasty lunch at a cafe in Chelsea (savory crepe! ham & cheese croissant! hot chocolate with whipped cream and chocolate syrup!)
3. climbing the big climbing wall at the Chelsea Piers for several hours and getting all the way up a challenging 5.9 level climb (challenging for me, anyway - only the second 5.9 I’ve ever completed)
4. walking around Manhattan for a few hours and stopping in Mxyplyzyk, Other Music, The Strand (where I bought bargain-priced books by Paul Auster and Angela Carter that I didn’t own yet) and the Virgin Megastore
5. warm drinks at one of the omnipresent Starbucks because it was getting quite cold and windy around 8pm
6. spazzing out like stupid New Jerseyans at a club down the shore (except it was during the car ride home from NYC) while listening to a Benny Benassi CD:

   Benny Benassi - Satisfaction
   
   
   (You may recognize this from a Burger King TV commercial from last year - the actual video is totally NSFW, but so over the top and sexually charged that I can’t help but laugh. In a phrase: chicks in bikinis with power tools - or just listen to the song.

7. getting home and purchasing tickets for Coachella… because I’ll be heading out to California just in time for that three-day festival of musical loveliness
8. eating some leftover tamarind lentils, putting on a fun eye candy crap movie (X-Men) and maybe getting to sleep early

LibraryThing has this funky “view all your covers” feature.

So I fired that up and then did a little screengrab of the complete page. The books that don’t have covers (out of print or foreign books) don’t get included, but still - you can see the covers of something close to 900 books in one image. It’s pretty sweet.

Check out an image of the covers.

(You’ll have to click to enlarge to full screen size, btw.)

I’m not a big breakfast person; I’ve really had to push myself to eat breakfast every day for the last few months (because, as we’ve all been taught, it really is important). I just don’t find myself waking up in the morning and craving anything that’s a typical breakfast food. That’s not to say I don’t like breakfast foods; I love having an omelette or pancakes or French toast—for dinner. That’s fun. And one of the benefits of living in NJ where diners are plentiful and breakfast can be ordered any time of the day (seriously - most diners around here are of the 24-hour variety).

A month or so ago, one of the breakfast food offerings in our company cafeteria was oatmeal pancakes. They actually looked really nice—dense and moist—so I got them. Yummy. Very much so. I was on a mission to find a recipe so I could make them at home myself. I found a few on the various recipe sites and tried them out one weekend.

It was a Goldilocks scenario: one batch was WAY too sweet and they ended up burning before they were cooked through because of the über-high sugar content (I was using low heat) while another required soaking of the oats and other nonsense beforehand which turned it into a 3 hour process to make some friggin’ pancakes. So I adapted the following from the recipes I found to create a pleasing final product that’s not too terribly sweet. And unlike your garden-variety buttermilk pancakes, these reheat quite well because they’re all kinds of moist and lovely.

You will need:

1 1/3 cups water
1/2 cup old-fashioned oats (the kind that come in the cylindrical container with the pilgrim on them or your personal fave) 5 tablespoons butter
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1/3 cup toasted wheat germ or ground flaxseed (extra fiber-tastic)
2 eggs
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/2 cups diced apples or pears (blueberries ended up a little too wet for my liking, but they could work, too)

Note: I suppose you could use raisins instead of fresh fruit, too, and do a sort of oatmeal raisin pancake instead of an oatmeal raisin cookie. But I would cut back on the sugar if so since raisins pack a lot of sugar and that much combined could be too much and cause the burning.

What to do:

Combine the water, oats, and butter in a medium saucepan and heat over medium-high heat until the mixture comes to a boil. Cook until it’s very thick, stirring constantly (to prevent burning or sticking) for about 5 minutes.

Put the whole mess in a large metal or other heat-proof bowl and let it cool for 15 minutes. Add the flour, sugar, wheat germ/ground flaxseed, eggs, cinnamon, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and fruit, if you’re going that way.

Cook ‘em up. I like smaller pancakes, so I used a smaller ice cream scoop to dole out the batter, but about 1/3 to 1/2 cup of batter for each pancake is fine. Spread the batter out a bit (since it is thick). Cook the pancakes until they’re golden brown and cooked through, about 4 minutes per side (YMMV depending on size and spread).

Eat. They don’t even need syrup, really, because there’s sugar and fruit inside and the oatmeal makes them moist. But you might want syrup, so who am I to tell you that you can’t have it?

I’m calling this volume 1 because I can’t imagine that I won’t do some sort of post like this in the future - a summary of stuff that’s been helping me occupy my time lately. So here goes:

White Dwarf : a fairly addictive (simple) Flash game. You gather green circles with the white circle, while avoiding the red circles. Blue circles bank green circles and are OK.

Project Prostitute: utterly NSFW warning. So this person had the idea to ask random people to draw prostitutes. It’s spread and people are submitting their own illustrations to the site. Some are raunchy, some are wrong, some are funny, some are surprisingly lovely. When I’m not laughing at the stick figure renditions (I guess some people really can’t draw) I can even recognize this for what is really is: a supremely interesting sociological project/experiment capturing how people view sex workers… some with disdain, some with disgust, some with degradation, but some with sadness and even a certain kind of admiration. Interesting to say the very least, once you get past the surface.

A Selection of Perfect Ads: These things inspire me. I’m sad that way.

The Hype Machine: It’s been a few months since a friend told me about this site. At first, I looked and wasn’t all that impressed with the look and feel so I didn’t return for a while. What was I thinking? I mean, really - a music blog aggregator that lets you search for freely and legally shared mp3s from bloggers who are reviewing music and introducing you to new music you might not stumble across in your daily travels? How on earth could that be cool or useful?

Yeah, I was a bit slow on the uptake, but I’m pretty officially addicted (thanks, Kofi!) You know how you can go to Wikipedia or IMDb and look for one fact or actor and end up going on a fantastic voyage for 45 minutes, adding books to your Amazon wishlist and DVDs to your Netflix queue? (Or is that just me?) Well, the Hype Machine does the same thing but with music. Search for an artist or a song and then see how your trip unfolds as you discover them on a lists bands someone saw this year, along with another band who made their list of top albums of 2007, then listen to an mp3 from that band, link through to a post about who they’re touring with… etc. etc.

CHA MA GU DAO: “(ancient tea and horse trail) is a contemporary tea house offering 250 of the world’s finest teas, herbal and fruit infusions.” OMG. Best new place ever. Located in nearby Montclair, NJ - a teahouse from the heavens. Tons of teas and tea blends and tisanes to choose from, and cookies made with tea to boot (the lemongrass-ginger cookies were the favorite of the variety my friend and I tried). Perfect for an afternoon or evening of tea and conversation and cookies. And you can order the teas online, too - ship a bit of Jersey home to you?

I want this. I also want to buy it for two people I know. I like giving people books.

Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity by David Lynch

In this “unexpected delight,” filmmaker David Lynch describes his personal methods of capturing and working with ideas, and the immense creative benefits he has experienced from the practice of meditation.

Now in a beautiful paperback edition, David Lynch’s Catching the Big Fish provides a rare window into the internationally acclaimed filmmaker’s methods as an artist, his personal working style, and the immense creative benefits he has experienced from the practice of meditation.

Catching the Big Fish comes as a revelation to the legion of fans who have longed to better understand Lynch’s personal vision. And it is equally compelling to those who wonder how they can nurture their own creativity.

I also like the cover. That font is gorgeous.

I am not, by any means, a philatelist. However, I do get excited when the USPS drops some coolness into our US stamps. I bought a few sheets of the commemorative Audrey Hepburn stamp when that was out a few years ago and made sure I saved them to use on my holiday cards.

In 2008, the good ‘ol USPS is giving me a reason to break out the notecards and stationary again with these kick-ass Eames stamps:

Just lovely.

The Eames chair (second row, last column) is so sweet. My parents have one - old-school, from the 70s. It still sits in their living room, complete with the ottoman. I hope to acquire this chair. Perhaps when they decide it’s time to move to a sunnier clime and sort of scale down their house and possessions, I will make my move and kindly offer to take this chair so they don’t have to transport it to [Arizona? Florida?]

It beats paying $4000 to purchase one from the MoMA Design Store.

Since my personal library holdings recently crossed the 1,000 book threshold, I decided that it might be time to slow down the acquisition of new books and re-read some of the good ones that I haven’t touched in a while.*

I decided to start this re-reading with Paul Auster’s Moon Palace. I vividly remembered the beginning and had (as it turns out) a good grasp on the general story, though I’d forgotten some of the finer details. On the basis of this very positive recollection (and my enjoyment of Paul Auster’s work as a whole) I got it for a friend for Christmas since I thought he’d really enjoy it, too.

And having re-read it, two good things have happened. One, I enjoyed it tremendously this time around as well and, two, I’ll have it fresh in my mind if there is book discussion to be had. I even have Post-it® note flags marking certain sections of the book, two of which I will share here, with some set-up but not too much exposition.

The main character has found employment with a cranky, blind, paraplegic man; he works as his companion, reading to him, pushing his wheelchair around the Upper West Side of Manhattan, etc. One of his tasks is to describe their surroundings as accurately as possible while they walk. At this point in the story, he’s realized how difficult this task is:

Instead of doing it merely to discharge an obligation, I began to consider it as a spiritual exercise, a process of training myself to look at the world as if I were discovering it for the first time. What do you see? And if you see, how do you put it into words? The world enters us through our eyes, but we cannot make sense of it until it descends into our mouths. I began to appreciate how great that distance was, to understand how far a thing must travel in order to get from the one place to the other. In actual terms, it was no more than two or three inches, but considering how many accidents and losses could occur along the way, it might just as well have been a journey from the earth to the moon.

Then there’s a sort of story within a story - a narrative that the protagonist hears from another character. He’s just mentioned that the circumstances of their respective stories are similar, and that he understands the other man better than he perhaps thought he could/would:

… my situation had been far less desperate than his. When a man feels he has come to the end of his rope, it is perfectly natural that he should want to scream. The air bunches in his lungs, and he cannot breathe unless he pushes it out of him, unless he howls it forth with all his strength. Otherwise, he will choke on his own breath, the very sky will smother him.

It’s always gratifying to me to come across words or thoughts in a book that I can truly understand. Both of these bits fit the bill. I have struggled with the inadequacy of words for describing certain things and thought about how our individual perceptions of objects or feelings can never be accurately communicated to another person; we’re only ever talking in approximations since your vision of “robin’s egg blue” is going to be different from what I see in my mind’s eye. Even if we’re both looking at the same exact color swatch, there’s no way to tell that we’re perceiving that color the same way. The same goes for getting the description back out to someone.

It’s frustrating but wonderful at the same time; it’s a bit of semiotics. We’d like to think we understand one another or the people with whom we “click” or consider to be close to us, but on the most fundamental level, we never truly can because words are only signs—broad representations of ideas and thoughts. We can only ever approximate. I think the effort, though, is what forges relationships - how much time and energy we are willing to put into the attempt to bridge that gap.

And the screaming thing? I get it. For me, if often comes down to the choice between a scream or hysterical crying. I usually opt for the latter (suburbia is not hot on primal scream therapy), but the sensation is the same. Yes, the air bunches in my lungs and I feel like I’ll choke on my own breath if I don’t get it the hell out of me.

So. A good book. I might officially be on a Paul Auster kick after this because I can re-read “Book of Illusions”, “Mr. Vertigo” or “The New York Trilogy.” Yippee!

_________________________________

* Mind you, that didn’t stop me from ordering a used copy of “Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon”. The book’s premise is that “television heroine Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, has been an unlikely source of language change. In his book [the author] tells how this unconventional teen challenged linguistic taboos and introduced new words and phrases in nearly every show.” Furthemore, on PBS’s “Do You Speak American?” website, they featured the following excerpt:

Buffy has introduced new slang terms and phrases in nearly every episode, many of them formed in the usual ways, some of them at the crest of new formative tendencies… Besides contributing items to the slang lexicon, slayer slang intensifies current formative practices in slang: it glories in them, certainly, but it also constitutes, by exaggerating them, a critique of those practices. For instance, the writers acknowledge that slang increasingly trades on references to popular culture by shifting proper names into other parts of speech, both verbs and adjectives. Thus Xander asks in Puppet Show (5 May 1997), “Does anyone feel like we’ve been Keyser Sozed?” after the character in The Usual Suspects when he means ‘tricked, manipulated’. Afraid that Halloween will get out of hand, Xander remarks in Halloween (27 October 1997), “Halloween quiet? I figured it would have been a big ole vamp Scareapolooza,” from the alternative rock festival Lollapalooza; similarly he argues in The Wish (8 December 1998), “Look, you wanna do Guiltapalooza, fine, but I’m done with that.”

I’ve been rock-climbing (indoors, at a rock gym) every week since mid-September. That’s going on five months now, and it’s been a huge part of my physical fitness “makeover.” In terms of keeping me interested and challenged, it’s great, and it is hard work. However, I’ve progressed moderately well for someone who goes only once a week, is missing three bones in her left wrist and wasn’t ever Miss Athletic to begin with.

So today was a pretty OK climbing day. I didn’t conquer anything super difficult, but I tried some climbs that were a bit more technical and different from what I’ve done thus far (thusly was I informed by my friend who invited me to join this crazy world’o'climbing). I kept trying, rather doggedly, thinking that there had to be something I was overlooking or missing that was making them more difficult.

Nope. They were just difficult for me. My hands got tired. And that’s OK. End result?
I have some markings. Something to show for my efforts. Perhaps even a sort of tribal initiation sign.

I’ve got me some raw hands.

It’s hard to take a steady photo of your right hand when you’re right-handed. The left hand is not as adept at keeping a camera still. However, you can still see the shiny new blister on my pinky finger, the pink spots on my palms and fingers where callouses have been building for several moons (and soreness persists), and the bit of abraded skin on my index finger. There’s lots more excitement under that Band-Aid and on my other hand, but why give it all away?

Just don’t let anyone say I don’t give a 110% when I set out to conquer something!

Even if I don’t quite get there by the end of one attempt, there’s always next time.

(No, this is not a post about yogurt. Though I am having some right now, after midnight, since I didn’t eat much today. I failed to notice, however, that the yogurt I selected was not only “probiotic” but also “light”, so it’s quite nasty as it contains aspartame. I cannot abide artificial sweeteners. Truly. The taste, the aftertaste. Gah.)

One of the benefits of living so close to Manhattan is that there are so many cool cultural things going on relatively close by. Sadly, I haven’t really been taking advantage of too many of these cultural events and things since they’re usually more enjoyable with company (you know, so you can be all pompous, superior and smarmy in a nice exclusive group of 2 or 3 people) and not everyone is up for a spur-of-the-moment jaunt into NYC to look at paintings or whatever.

But I got to enjoy some culture today, yes indeed. My company provides all employees with a “culture card” at the beginning of every calendar year which entitles us to free admission and discounts at several great museums in the major metro areas where we have offices - New York and San Francisco, for starters. My friend from work told me about the movie screenings at MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) for which we also get free admission. So this afternoon, after a series of text messages, I met up with her and her boyfriend and we went off to MoMA to check out the new exhibits and catch this evening’s screening.

Currently, the special exhibit in the main atrium is sculpture by Martin Puryear. It’s pretty amazing stuff. I’ll post some pictures (thumbnails) below since a link to the exhibition page will probably go dead once the exhibit is over (on January 14). From left to right, you see “Ad Astra”, “Greed’s Trophy” and “Desire.”

I especially enjoyed his artist’s statement. I wrote down a portion in my Moleskine reporter’s notebook (small, purse size) but just found the whole thing on the site:

“But coherence is not the same as resolution.” I love that.

In another gallery, there were etchings by Lucian Freud, a section on contemporary Latin American art, and then their regular photography collection which is always nice to see - some Diane Arbus, etc. We also checked out “Multiplex: Directions in Art, 1970 to Now” - some more modern modern art. I think MoMA has been getting some flack over the last few years for not showcasing much contemporary or postmodern art and clinging to “modern art”: art produced between 1870 and 1970. I was born in 1978; 1970 is still modern in my book. However, anything that requires us to talk about the 19th century is not as modern as we’d like to see, I think. The Multiplex exhibit had some truly interesting pieces, but also some that make it far too easy to make fun of PoMo/contemporary art, e.g. a TV running a video that was quite honestly what you’d see if you played a damaged blank VHS tape. A black screen with occasional bursts of “static.” And that was it.

Perhaps if I’d stood there long enough, something would’ve appeared to me from within the white noise of it, or I would’ve ended up meditating on how the black yet staticky screen represents the emptiness and downfall of the modern visual media (TV, film) — or at least invented something to say so I wouldn’t have to admit that I really thought it was “meh.” I guess I’m not as cultured as I thought.

Then it was time for the screening. There are three theatres in MoMa. They don’t allow food or drink, and they don’t sell any either (n.b.) The movie they were screening tonight was “Fahrenheit 451″ directed by Francois Truffaut, based on the book by Ray Bradbury. I’d seen it before, but it was a long time ago, so I just remembered the plot and that there was a scene on a bridge of some sort and some running.

While there were some moments that elicited laughter simply because of their dated technology (SFX-wise), it was still relevant to the audience. There were murmurs during parts that were overt commentaries on Communism/Socialism, and bitter laughter when the critical eye of the camera was focused on the culture’s obsession with television and media… which seems all the more creepy given the popularity of reality TV and people buying larger and larger television sets (the wall screens in the movie are quite similar).

There’s a great scene where Montag’s wife is watching the government programming and is excited because she’s been selected to be an “actress” on a popular program. She sits down in front of the TV screen and the actors on her TV speak to one another, then turn pointedly to the camera and ask her (by name) what she thinks of a question they’re debating (about a guest list for a dinner party). She can’t muster a response (overwhelmed at her “fame”); they pause their conversation long enough for a response and then tell her she’s absolutely right (despite her sputtering silence/lack of response).

Has you ever run into anyone in real life who is a total champion of a “character” on a reality TV show and will get into arguments with other people about whose contestant is more worthy of winning (particularly in reality TV that does not involve audience voting via 800-number or SMS)? It’s not exactly the same thing, but in terms of pointless emotional investment in completely banal matters, and false interaction with the media, it’s pretty damn close.

I don’t know why I let myself look at NOTCOT.

Almost every day, I find an object of desire or lust. Because, like many Americans, I lust after objects, a.k.a. material things. (What!? Why you lookin’ all cross-eyed?) Today, this made me wish I’d started a fund back in the day, say, with a share of Google stock, and had held onto it until now so I could pay off debts and just go shopping like the crazy girl I am.

Um, hi. A silver scissor cuff bracelet - it does actually open, providing a different look. Right now, it doesn’t look like it’s available yet; it’s part of a forthcoming collection from an Italian designer. But damn. And I bet it will be out of my price range. Sadness washes over me.

One thing I could afford would be this unnecessarily huge birthday candle. The site provides an image of the candle alongside a champagne flute and a layer cake to give you a sense of scale. Incredibly ridiculous.

And how about the Negativity Refuse Bag? The gimmick there is that it’s printed with instructions on how to rid yourself of negativity or inner demons. You place the offending items (say, things that remind you of an ex or a bad habit) into the bag and throw it away. Yes, you could do that with an ordinary trash bag, but this has more flair. I’d consider buying a few if I had any friends who were serial daters who got totally attached to people and then ended up burning everything associated with that person when it was over. It would be a nice companion to the “let’s watch a DVD and eat some ice cream” combo.

There’s also a ring that’s carved to the shape of your loved ones’ facial profile. Those start at $580 (I’m guessing that’s for the basic stainless steel ring, not the platinum). They say, “Take your loved one’s profile with you everywhere you go- who could want more?” That might not be the right way to spin it, but I get what they’re aiming for.

I’m going through the items I’ve marked in Google Reader (I subscribe to the NOTCOT.org RSS feed) and there’s just too much coolness. Too much. I am overwhelmed. I will now let that wash over me.