Girl Detective

For my sister Ruthie: Thanksgiving deserves a repeat of one of my favorite easy recipes. It turns out perfectly for me every time. Blend, pour, bake, cool, ta-da!

1 15-oz. can pumpkin
1 1/2 c. milk, or 1 13-oz. can evaporated milk
1/2 c. biscuit/pancake mix or 1/2 c. flour plus 3/4 tsp. baking powder
1 c. sugar
2 Tbl. butter, melted then cooled
2 large eggs, beaten
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground cloves

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9-inch glass or Pyrex pie plate.

Place all ingredients in blender; blend for 2 minutes. Pour mixture into pie plate and bake for about an hour, or till center is set and tester comes out clean. Cool. Serve with vanilla or ginger ice cream, or vanilla or maple whipped cream.

It’s November 5:

Remember, remember the fifth of November,
The gunpowder, treason and plot,
I know of no reason
Why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.

Fawkes was a member of a group that tried to blow up Parliament. They didn’t succeed. He was caught and came to a bad end.

There’s a brief Guy Fawkes interlude in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman finale, issue #75, and attributes the doggerel to Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Fawkes is a theme in one of my favorite graphic novels, V for Vendetta, as well as the name for Dumbledore’s phoenix in the Harry Potter series. Fawkes was also possibly the historical antecedent for the word “guy.” More here from Wikipedia.

While many sources state that ensure and insure can be used interchangeably, I disagree. I concur with the Chicago Manual of Style, (quoted at JSU):

assure/ensure/insure – “Ensure is the general term meaning to make sure that something will (or won’t) happen. In best usage, insure is reserved for underwriting financial risk. So we ensure that we can get time off for a vacation, and insure our car against an accident on the trip. We ensure events and insure things. But we assure people that their concerns are being addressed.” (Chicago, 213)

In two recent books, The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Three Cups of Tea, the authors and editors have used “insure” to mean “make certain will happen.” I think ensure better captures this meaning:

I assure you, gentle reader, I wish publishers would ensure the accuracy of their text by consulting the Chicago Manual of Style, since insuring something implies that a policy has been paid for.

#69 in my 2007 movie challenge was Pedro Almodovar’s Volver. It’s a dark, funny meditation on the support that women give and get when times get tough. Penelope Cruz is lovely, tough, and vulnerable as Raimunda, and is far better than in any American film I’ve seen. Throughout, there is heightened style, deliberate use of color, and steady tension that gave homage to Hitchcock. The look, coupled with Almodovar’s sympathetic female characters, and bittersweet drama, made this one of my favorite recent films.

Nine years ago today, G. Grod and I stumbled blearily across Market Street in Philly to get our first cups of coffee as a married couple. There we found my sisters Ruthie and Sydney, and Syd’s best friend Buffy and her husband Ace. It was a wonderful impromptu morning-after celebration. Thanks for being there, everyone, especially you, G.

#65 in my 2007 movie challenge was Nancy Drew. In spite of middling reviews, I felt I had to see it. What kind of girl-detective cred would I have if I didn’t?

The attractive Emma Roberts (daughter of Eric and niece of Julia) plays Nancy, a small-town girl who helps the police solve crime and catch bad guys in small-town River Heights. As in the books, she has a blue roadster, a boyfriend named Ned, and friends named Bess and George. Her father is Carson Drew, played (rather Oedipally in my mind) by Tate Donovan, whose hairline looked suspiciously tidy to me. Nancy and her Dad move to California. While Nancy promised Dad to give up sleuthing, her curious nature can’t rest. She begins to investigate the mysterious death of the previous owner of the house they’re renting. Hijinks ensue; truth, justice, and single mothers triumph in the end.

What I liked: the iconic pencil drawings that framed the film with Nancy in various sleuthing poses. These nicely evoked the hardcover books as well as the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys television show of my youth. The books had a cameo on Nancy’s shelves, and their titles were used in passing to refer to an actress’s movies. The soundtrack was surprisingly good, and Roberts’s retro wardrobe was dreamy. Nancy was a clever, resourceful heroine, and thus a good role model for girls. Ned was a thoughtful, sincere guy, and their pairing was sweet, if strangely prim. Bruce Willis had a clever cameo.

What didn’t work: The film’s tone veered way over the line of goofy all the way into bizarre. It often seemed like the filmmakers didn’t know which tone to pick, so they threw a bunch in to see what would work best. The shrill, round boy who became her sidekick brought Jar Jar Binks to my mind, and his two-dimensional sister and her friend were no better. I suspect the imbalance was because the film was aimed at ‘tweens, but about a girl who must be at least sixteen, since she can drive. The mystery and the characters were very simple. I think the film would have been more successful if it had attempted to satisfy an older audience.

It’s the 75th anniversary of Philadelphia Eagles football, so the Eagles were wearing new and different uniforms today, in an homage to Philadelphia and its Swedish heritage–?

First, the yellow and blue jerseys were ugly. Second, I had a hard time remembering which team was the Eagles since the colors were so different from their usual ones. Third, isn’t Pennsylvania’s heritage German, since the “Dutch” got misunderstood from “Deutsche”? Finally, did anyone else think it odd to see a bunch of mostly African-American guys running around in the colors of the Swedish flag?

My husband G. Grod is an Eagles fan, and the season has gone rather badly until today. A few quotes from the game that amused me:

Before halftime: “The Eagles have played almost perfectly up to this point.”

On Brian Westbrook: “He’s like a Ferrari in traffic.” and “Maybe he needs to skip training every week.” (He was out of team practice this week for a knee injury.)

The Eagles’ first win of the season was decisive, at 56-21. G. is in a very good mood.

Anthony Lane gushes over Leica cameras at the New Yorker, while Scott Beale from Laughing Squid anoints the Fuji Finepix F50SE as his favorite digital point-and-shoot model, ahead of the Leica-lensed Panasonic Lumix. (Links from Arts and Letters Daily and Boing Boing, respectively)

Yay or nay? The orange and green one got hard for me to read. I wanted more contrast so I thought I’d try on a new look for fall.

Thanks, SFP! (at Pages Turned)

Here are a few female friends who I think rock

Becca

Rock Hack rocks both literally and figuratively

Sars at Tomato Nation

Lisa at The Rage Diaries

Dawn at Avenging Sybil

Camille at Book Moot

In “The Biology of Imagination” at Entelechy (link via Arts and Letters Daily), Simon Baron-Cohen argues that our capacity for imagination is based in biology:

So, what has all this got to do with the original question of whether the capacity for human imagination is, at its core, biological? For Leslie, the capacity for meta-representation involves a special module in the brain, which humans have and that possibly no other species possesses. In the vast majority of the population, this module functions well. It can be seen in the normal infant at 14 months old who can introduce pretence into their play; seen in the normal 4 year old child who can employ mind-reading in their relationships and thus appreciate different points of view; or seen in the adult novelist who can imagine all sorts of scenarios that exist nowhere except in her own imagination, and in the imagination of her reader.

But sometimes this module can fail to develop in the normal way. A child might be delayed in developing this special piece of hardware: meta-representation. The consequence would be that they find it hard to mind-read others. This appears to be the case in children with Asperger Syndrome. They have degrees of difficulty with mind-reading.v Or they may never develop meta-representation, such that they are effectively ‘mind-blind’. This appears to be the case in children with severe or extreme (classic) autism. Given that classic autism and Asperger Syndrome are both sub-groups on what is today recognized as the ‘autistic spectrum’, and that this spectrum appears to be caused by genetic factors affecting brain development, the inference from this is that the capacity for meta-representation itself may depend on genes that can build the relevant brain structures, that allow us to imagine other people’s worlds.

Biology, though, is not the entire story. The content of imagination, Baron-Cohen concludes, is primarily cultural. As always, it seems the answer is not either nature or nurture, but both/and.

M, who blogs at Mental Multivitamin, has a wonderful, thought-provoking entry about choosing a positive focus. She avoids the usual saccharine sentiments. Her entry brought Denis Leary’s pithy quote to mind: “Life sucks. Get a helmet.” I was all the more impressed when I read his wife’s book, and learned he wrote that after the extremely premature birth of his first son. Life is hard; the key is not to get mired in ruts, and most certainly not to decorate them.

Thanks, M., for the always helpful reminder that perception is a variable thing. In honor of that, I wanted to say a quick thanks for a handful of things that make the rough stuff more surmountable. In no particular order, a list of 10 (that goes to 11):

1. My husband, who makes me a kick-ass cappuccino almost every morning, and who empties the dishwasher before I get up, so I don’t have to.

2. My friends, new and old, virtual and non-, who are supportive and generous.

3. My family, who I appreciate more, and more of whom I appreciate, as I grow older.

4. Olay Regenerist products.

5. Maybelline’s Define a Lash mascara. The pretty green tube houses a great, everyday product.

6. Sonia Kashuk eyeliners and lipstick. Good quality and colors, cheap!

7. The Loft Literary Center. I wouldn’t be a writer without it.

8. My sons. By turns maddening and inspiring. Oh, how they make me learn. I’m glad for that, even though sometimes growth=pain.

9. Good books, television and movies.

10. My public library.

11. My grocery cooperative.

I am just back from a twelve-day trip, and resumption of daily life has been less than smooth. I struggled to get Drake, Guppy and myself dressed and out the door this morning. Only at lunchtime did I realize that Drake had missed breakfast. We eventually all got where we needed to be.

I have new appreciation for the enforced simplicity of living out of a suitcase. Back home, I am surrounded by too many choices; too many things that call for my attention.

Helen Oxenbury’s Tom and Pippo books are out of print! As a lifelong fan of children’s books, I know I should be accustomed to the out-of-print thing, One of my family’s favorite holiday tales, Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas, has long been out of print even though it was turned into a quite decent holiday special by Jim Hensen. Even so I haven’t become sufficiently inured to learning that a book I want isn’t easy to buy.

The Tom and Pippo books were recommended by a reader, who said that she had an entire collection. Lucky reader! The copies at our library are quite ragged, but they’ll have to suffice for now. I can hope that they come back into print, as sometimes happens with popular authors and illustrators. The simple text coupled with the charming drawings, and the sweet relationship between the boy and his toy monkey should have a wider audience than those of us that comb library shelves and used-book stores.

#59 in my book challenge for the year was Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose. A brief reminder that these mini-reviews are part of my annual book and movie challenges, which I initiated to remind myself of their importance in my life, and to let others know parenthood doesn’t preclude books and movies.

I enjoyed Prose’s novel A Changed Man last year, and was surprised to find her non-fiction book was also a compelling page turner. I had trouble stopping at the end of chapters. Prose harks back to a time when learning literature was done with close readings that largely eschewed the biographical details of the authors. Her approach embraces the study of literature before postmodernism, which came along and shook everything up with its inclusion of Foucoult, Lacan, and the insistence that we look at everything through different “lenses”. Her approach also harks back to a time and an approach that were more about loving literature than taking it apart and tearing it down, as discussed in this article by a professor of English.

Each chapter focuses on an aspect of fiction, such as character, sentences, paragraphs, and more. For each topic, Prose offers many excerpts and analyses of famous works. The book finishes with a list of “Books to be Read Immediately”, though I did miss an index that would have tied each work on that list to where she cited it as an example in the book. I found her writing and the book both accessible and challenging. In the wake of it, I feel both discouraged (how am I ever going to write as well as the writers she named?) and encouraged (nothing for it but to practice).

Interestingly, Prose even took a book I’d recently not enjoyed, Sense and Sensibility, and pointed out a skillfully done aspect of it that made me better appreciate that book. While Prose’s book is directed to writers, it will also be appreciated by those who love literature.

My boys haven’t been napping, I had to pack for a weeklong visit to family, and at the last minute I decided not to take my laptop, hence my lack of recent posts. I flew out with my husband and both boys, then G. Grod returned to work, and I stayed longer so the grandparents could have more time with the kids. While packing, I was daunted by the thought of taking my laptop, various liquids–baby Tylenol, children’s Tylenol, my eye drops, two containers of baby food, and two juice boxes–AND the boys by myself through security, so I left the computer behind. The flight back went mostly well, but Drake’s listening is sporadic, the security guy confiscated the juice boxes, and Drake cannily refuses to wear the monkey backpack/leash we bought. It wasn’t easy.

Before I left, a friend said to me, “Have a good vacation.” I responded that I find family visits different from vacations. While family visits can be enjoyable, they usually don’t have a high enough ratio of relaxation to obligation for me to feel restored enough to call them vacation.

A farmer friend of mine once shared her theory that humans–farmer or not–feel an urgency around the summer solstice that corresponds to the rhythm of the earth to get the crops planted in the ground, and then again at the autumn equinox to gather the harvest before the fall.

Everyone I talk to lately feels harried and overscheduled, and I am no exception. I’m hoping that this means we are simply creatures of the earth, and once the equinox passes, and our harvests (physical or metaphorical) are in, things will feel less hectic.

On our walk back from the park today, I rounded the corner with the boys in the double stroller. I saw two policemen half a block ahead getting out of their car, guns drawn. I paused, then saw another police car pull behind theirs. A third policeman got out, gun drawn, and joined them as they approached a house. I crossed the street and picked up my pace for home.

We’ve had a rash of burglaries in our neighborhood. I heard two stories last week about two different busts, but I’m guessing the burglars remained at large. Perhaps they are no longer.

Drake has been sick, Guppy insists on nursing every two hours and woke for an extra feeding in the middle of last night, I’m trying to get the baby announcement out the door and put together a mix CD for a music group I’m part of. Things in general are a bit crazed. I’ll post as I’m able; please bear with me!

#29 in my movie challenge was Sky High. It borrows liberally and unapologetically from Harry Potter and The Incredibles, the latter of which is a much better movie. Sky High has some funny bits, especially around superhero tropes and father/son dynamics, but the main story is a snooze, and the movie itself is probably better suited to kids than grownups.