Pratie Place

Vegan Fight Song (This Ae Nicht)

2012-01-30T05:55:00.003-05:00

I'm thinking of moving my whole Skylark Productions album collection over to Bandcamp.com because the site is such a pleasure to use. However, it remains to be seen if it's as good for the viewer (potential buyer) as it is for me, the installer of music.

Here's part of my trip down memory lane: Lisa Pickel (one of the wonderful singers in the Solstice Assembly, a vocal ensemble I directed in the late 1980s and into the 1990s) wrote this parody of the fine Young Tradition song "This Ae Nicht." Since my son is currently starving himself on some even stricter variety of a vegan diet, this one is for him. Our rendition is a little out of tune, but very enthusiastic! If you click on into the site, you'll see a lot of our music. Let me know how it works for you.

Vegan Fight Song (This Ae Nicht) by Solstice Assembly, New Hope Harmony, The Band of Ages

Routenote Direct: musicians, have you tried it?

2012-01-27T15:35:00.002-05:00

Courting Disaster by ChapelHillFiddler

If you click on that little arrow, you will hear songs from the cd Beth Holmgren and Jane Peppler (me) did in 1991 when she still lived in San Diego and we didn't know if we'd ever live close enough to have tea together. Routenote Direct is an interesting way to bypass itunes and Amazon - you can buy tracks directly from their site. If you give it a try, please let me know what you think. Thanks!

Hector: Jethro the donkey's side-kick

2012-01-17T14:41:00.002-05:00

Picture from Hector's first escape. We figured out he's sucking in his gut and slipping through a gap in the fence (Marco watched with binoculars while Ez led Jethro away - we watched Hector rev into high gear to get back to the herd, ie Jethro).

As I was told by the guy who sold Hector to me, he does not "get it" about being led - I had to pull him all the way around the block. But if I take Jethro for a walk Hector trots alongside quite happily. Most of the time.

Because he only stays with us "most of the time," I have to put the halter on him. These pictures are from when I was taking a rest from hauling him around the neighborhood. Don't laugh.

Pratie Heads 30-year anniversary St Patrick's Day concert: March 17, 2012

2012-01-16T22:22:00.005-05:00

Bob Vasile and I gave our first concert together March 17, 1982. I don't know how much longer we'll be doing this - you never know - so come to our anniversary concert if you're in the area! Saturday, March 17, 2012, at 7:30 pm so you have time to go out carousing afterwards.

We're holding it at the Shared Visions Retreat Center 3717 Murphy School Road, Durham NC, where we taught at Danny Gotham's PicknBow folk music weekend this past summer. The weekend was a blast and we really enjoyed playing in the old-fashioned, newly refurbished auditorium in the school Jay Miller bought and brought back to life.

Tickets are $8 in advance via PayPal or $10 at the door. We will probably give away some free cds.

Nu, a daygeh? from Cabaret Warsaw

2012-01-16T08:51:00.002-05:00

Peysach Burstein sang this song first - he called himself, among other things, a "coupletist" - meaning he sang comical songs with extemporized rhyming verses. Sometimes couplets were topical, about issues of the time (like a Jay Leno monologue, maybe).

It's hard to translate this refrain. I used several different possibilities in the captions. Maybe Alfred E. Neuman's "What, me worry?" would be best.

OK, one more: "Sex Appeal," from Mappamundi's upcoming cd...

2012-01-14T08:21:00.005-05:00

This was one of the first songs I fell for in our Warsaw Cabaret project. Above, us playing it in public for the first time (way too fast I guess)...

Below: it was a hit in the 1930s both in its original Polish-language version, performed here in the 1937 movie "Piętro wyżej" (Upstairs) by Eugeniusz Bodo, a big Polish movie star, in drag, playing Mae West...

and by Menashe Oppenheim, who sang it in Yiddish.

My band Mappamundi begins recording "Cabaret Warsaw" next week.

2012-01-14T08:09:00.003-05:00

It was last summer my friend Beth, chair of the Slavic languages department at Duke University and my singing partner since the 1970s, suggested we make a cd with our world music band Mappamundi of music played in Warsaw cabarets and kleynkunst theaters between the world wars, when many of the composers, lyricists, and performers were Jews, some assimilated and working in Polish language in nightclubs like Qui Pro Quo, others developing a Yiddish-language equivalent in little hole-in-the-wall experimental theaters like Azazel.

It's no easy thing, creating a whole repertoire from scratch. To give it some focus, we decided to have a try-out concert at Beth's house in the fall and that's when my friend Paul Deblinger shot this video. You can see more of the songs at our youtube channel. We also spent hours preparing captions which Beth's husband projected on the wall over our heads so people would get the jokes...

Next weekend we'll go into the Rubber Room and try to record at least the rhythm tracks for the cd we'll be calling "Cabaret Warsaw: Yiddish and Polish hits of the 1930s."

Adventures in animal handling.

2012-01-12T18:37:00.002-05:00

This was like one of those SAT questions about the fox, the goose, the snake, and the river, and you have to get them all across. Or whatever.

Jethro the big donkey and Julius the dog both needed a walk. Hector the small donkey did not need a walk, he hasn't learned that he should go forward when he's wearing his haltar and a lead line. So I thought I'd take Jethro and Julius on a walk, they do ok together, and I'd leave Hector home.

I put Jethro into his halter and walked him down to my son's house; I hitched him to a tree and started up the stairs to get my son's dog Julius.

In less than a minute, Hector the small donkey had (somehow) slipped out of his paddock, run up and down the straightaway a couple times at top speed.

By the time I came out of my son's house with the dog, Hector had come down the hill to join Jethro. Hector hasn't been separated from Jethro since he arrived a few weeks ago, and evidently wasn't going to put up with it.

Hence I learn that Hector could have gotten out of the paddock at any time over these past weeks, he just didn't choose to, because he wanted to be with Jethro.

Now I have a dog on a lead, VERY eager for a walk, I have a large donkey tied to a tree, and I have a small donkey hanging out next to the big donkey. What to do.

I tied the dog to a different tree and went to get Hector's halter and lead line. Hector and Julius the dog do NOT get along because Julius has been herding the donkeys at night when we let him out - he runs them in huge circles over and over, barking and nipping at them. Even when Jethro got tired of it and landed a solid hoof-thunk on the dog's head, he wasn't discouraged.

So I leave the dog tied to the tree, whimpering in dismay and astonishment, and take the two donkeys off for a walk. How horrible! Hector doesn't want to walk, so he lags behind, which annoys Jethro, who circles around me to bite Hector. If he gets behind Hector, things go better - then he nips at Hector, who then hustles along. When they're next to each other, Hector stops, and if he gets bitten from the front, he goes 0 mph.

I hauled them around the block, hauled them back into the pen, and then took the dog for a walk. I wonder if there might have been a better way to do this?

Suvganiyot (Hannukah doughnuts)

2011-12-28T12:31:00.002-05:00

This is an old recipe that's been honed to perfection. It feeds about four people who are eating nothing else for dinner. Last night I made a triple recipe, but about five people we expected didn't come, so I dumped the left-over donut batter into a greased cake pan and baked it - it became a lovely loaf of orange yeast bread which I cut up and sent home with the guests. No waste! Except for all that oil...

1996 Sufganiyot - BEST EVER

1 tablespoon yeast (fast rise will be safer)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 cup flour
1 cup water
1/4 cup orange juice concentrate (do not dilute)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons oil
1 egg
around 2 cups flour (or a little less)

Mix first four ingredients and stir fifty times to make a "sponge." Let rise in a bowl covered with a kitchen towel for an hour or more (more is better).

Add the rest of the ingredients and beat vigorously. This makes a very wet dough. Do not fear: you will not be rolling it out. Wet is good. Let it rise for another hour or more.

Heat two quarts of cooking oil (have a little more at the ready just in case) to 350 degrees in an electric frying pan or deep-fat fryer. Tear up some brown paper bags on which you'll drain the donuts.

Make cinnamon sugar (about a cup of confectioners sugar and as much cinnamon as your crew likes). Put it in a medium-sized paper bag. If your bag has holes in it you're going to be sorry.

OK, time to begin. With a big spoon dip out some of your gooey dough and drop it into the hot oil. It will behave like spider man, stretching all over the place. Make weird shapes, it's fun. Don't make the doughnuts too big or they won't cook well in the middle. Don't crowd the frying pan or the temperature will get too low.

The doughnuts will soon bob up to the surface and you'll want to turn them over fairly soon, using a slotted spoon or tongs. You'll turn them several times before they're done - which is when they are a pretty dark brown on both sides. Try one and see.

As some get taken out of the pan, put in more. Don't crowd them.

Drain them on the paper bags. When they're somewhat cooled, pop them into the cinnamon sugar bag and shake. Put on a plate or directly into the mouths of the avidly waiting consumers.

Do NOT make these unless you have a lot of people around to eat them - and to help you clean up. Makes 28 doughnuts, enough for four people who are eating nothing else for dinner or 6 people who are only moderately piggy.

How to make the best latkes

2011-12-27T07:30:00.007-05:00

We had family Hanukah last night, I cooked latkes. Every cook thinks she makes the best latkes and I'm no exception... a few nights ago I was part of a Hanukah celebration at a local retirement community and at the dinner following, the ladies at my table were grumbling about the latkes as made by the kitchen staff. I had the wonderful fantasy of the lot of them - more than two dozen Jewish mothers - descending on the kitchen en masse to tell them how to make proper latkes. Of course, this would have degenerated into a free-for-all as they all disagreed with each other. Graters would have been flying.

Latkes

10 medium baking potatoes
2 large onions
2 eggs
1/4 cup flour, bread crumbs, or matsoh meal
salt
lots of oil
sour cream and applesauce for topping

The worst part is grating the potatoes. There have been many bloody knuckles in my past but this year for the first time I used the grating attachment of my food processor. Voila! Salvation.

After you've grated them, salt them liberally, toss them with the salt, and set them in a drainer over a pot for at least half an hour. More is better. They'll turn reddish and a whole lot of watery goo will drip into the pot.

While you're waiting, dice the onions (or chop them in the food processor). Put a couple tablespoons of oil in a big frying pan and saute the onions until soft.

Now take small handfuls of the grated potatoes and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze the rest of the liquid out of them. You will be amazed how much there is! The more you squeeze out the better.

I fire up two large frying pans with enough oil in them to cover the bottom generously. While the oil heats up, mix the sauteed onions, potatoes, eggs, and flour thoroughly.

I use a very large fork to take a golfball-sized blob of the mixture and put it in the oil, mashing it flat. We like the lacy parts around the edges so be sure they're lacy and flat. Fill both pans. You will not have good latkes unless you keep adding oil when the latkes suck it up. Don't even think about skimping. If you are dieting, don't eat latkes.

I cook them on the first side till I see the edges are getting crispy and then flip them. I like them very dark and crispy. Your mileage may vary.

I put a large flat pan in the oven at 300 degrees and lob the latkes onto the pan until people are ready to eat.

The big question is, how many people will this serve? It's always hard to decide how many latkes to make. Last night we counted: we got thirty latkes from this recipe. So that's 3 latkes per potato. Four people ate this recipe almost completely, but maybe they shouldn't have.

Sour cream and applesauce are the traditional toppings but I (a convert) prefer mozzarella cheese. Sshhh.

By the way, some people translate "latke" as "potato pancake" but that makes me shudder. It reminds me of that ghastly Manischewitz latke mix which makes limp flabby pancakes that are like wallpaper paste inside. No, no, nooooo!

.

Applesauce raisin walnut cake

2011-12-25T15:29:00.002-05:00

Here's the cake I baked yesterday for today's expedition to the hospital. I used to make this in high school! It's like fruit cake for people (like me) who hate all those weird red and green things in ordinary fruit cake.

I iced it with cream-cheese icing today but I prefer it with nothing on top. Better the next day.

Applesauce raisin walnut cake

3 cups flour
1-1/2 cups raisins
1-1/2 cups walnuts
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1-1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon cloves
3/4 cup butter
1-1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1-1/4 cup applesauce

Stir the dry ingredients (including the walnuts) together. Put the raisins in the applesauce and heat for 90 seconds in the microwave. Cream the butter and eggs; whip in the eggs one by one. Stir it all together and bake at 350 degrees in a (buttered and floured) tube pan for as much as an hour - until a toothpick comes out clean if you stab it.

Chocolate buttermilk pie

2011-12-25T15:08:00.003-05:00

Here are two great recipes for chocolate buttermilk pie. The first is the one I made for Mitzvah Day. I made it yesterday because it's firmer on the second day.

Chocolate buttermilk pie

2 squares unsweetened chocolate
1/3 cup cocoa
4 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups milk
1-1/2 cups buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
5 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons butter
cooked pie shell
optional: whipped cream

Stir together cornstarch, cocoa, salt, and sugar in a non-stick pot. Add a little bit of the milk and mix to a thick paste. Gradually add the rest of the milk, stirring constantly. Cook over low heat, stirring frequently, until the mixture thickens completely (this takes quite a while unless you warm the milk before you begin).

Meanwhile, crush the unsweetened chocolate into powder/small chunks(I use a food processor); add it to the pot and keep stirring. When the mixture is beginning to thicken, add the buttermilk gradually. Keep stirring.

Separate four eggs (three would be enough actually). When the cornstarch-chocolate mixture is thick, add a bit of it to the yolks in a smaller bowl, stir, and then stir the yolks into the pot.

Last, add the vanilla and butter and when it's all stirred together, let it cool a bit and then dump it into the cooked pie shell and chill, covered.

Note: you can make meringue from the egg whites and put it on top if you don't have another use for them. I prefer whipped cream, myself.

Here's the other recipe, it's great too.

Chocolate pie #2

2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 egg yolks
2 cups milk 2
1 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) semi-sweet chocolate chips
whipped cream
Cooked pie shell

Combine sugar, cornstarch and salt in non-stick pot. Add milk as above (first a little bit to make a paste, then the rest gradually while stirring). When mixture is getting quite hot, add buttermilk gradually, stirring all the while.

Let mixture come to a boil; stir for one more minute. Add butter, vanilla, and chocolate chips; stir until chips are melted and mixture is well blended. Take off heat and cool slightly; dump into pre-baked pie shell. Refrigerate overnight or until chilled and firm. Top with whipped cream.

Mitzvah Day, December 25, 2011, part two.

2011-12-25T14:42:00.006-05:00

Then Ez and I drove to the Durham JCC, where Mitzvah Day was beginning. There were around 450 Jews there getting deployed to various homeless shelters, blanket making activities, etc. Ez and I went to Ronald McDonald room in the Duke Hospital pediatric ward.

Volunteers had provided turkey, green bean casserole, stuffing, etc. I baked a cake and two pies and other people had baked goodies as well. I was elated to sit at the dessert table and ply people with treats: only the sickest children stay on the ward over Christmas so these were some worn-out, worried parents. I'm not saying a piece of buttermilk chocolate pie lifted their spirits, but at least it lifted their blood sugar.

By the time we left, we'd doled out an amazing amount of food, not just to families but to nurses all over the place, even the PICU, nurses who'd given up their Christmas to be with the kids. There's no amount of chocolate that is enough thanks for the work nurses do! Ezra felt like Santa Claus bringing big plates to the nurses who couldn't leave their stations.

Mitzvah Day, December 25, 2011, part one.

2011-12-25T14:34:00.004-05:00

As agreed, my neighbor from across the railroad tracks came this morning to get Superman for his daughter Darrah (who had told Santa Claus, "All I want is a pony just like Superman"). Mitzi had purchased a gigantic bow for him, doesn't he look preposterous?

Darrah's mother had bought Superman an eye-catching pink halter, but it turned out to be quite loose, so Ez went and got some cheese balls for my neighbor to use to lure Superman back if he slipped out of the halter. (This converted the man from "0" {not food} to "1" {food}, so Superman would pay attention.)

Here they are, going down the hill toward the railroad tracks. Not long after I got a call from Darrah herself to say thank you. I'm glad Superman has gone to somebody who'll dote on him.

Jethro the donkey gets a Hanukkah present

2011-12-24T07:26:00.005-05:00

Tuesday, this brainstorm: Darrah, the little girl who lives across the railroad tracks from me, really really loves Superman, while I don't like him at all. Nobody here likes him. Why should he spend his life without love? So I called Darrah's dad and offered him Superman for free. He was flabbergasted: just the previous day Darrah sat on Santa Claus's knee and said, "all I want for Christmas is a pony just like Superman."

He began setting up fencing - he told me later: "I got it up without either of the kids noticing! Even though Darrah was home sick from school! I fixed it so she was mad at me and didn't want to come outside!" My friend Mitzi got Superman a huge red bow for his mane and my neighbor will be coming in the dark Christmas morning - "Darrah is going to faint with excitement." A mitzvah.

Meanwhile, having Superman meant I hadn't gotten Jethro a companion he would really like: another donkey. I thought long and hard and then searched Craigslist until I found a listing for a "small jack" in Rocky Mount. Next day I drove up and visited him. He was living next to a tiny brick house with his mom, some geese, a few dogs, some free-range goats, a draft horse, and five or six guinea hens.

His leg was hurt recently when he dropped down to wallow ("you know how they do" said his owner) while in a "Living Nativity Scene" -- he got himself scratched under the manger -- but the injury is healing nicely. I handed over the cash. (Hannah mused that the donkeys in unreal Nativity Scenes rarely wallow.)

Then I asked my friends on Facebook to help name him. 48 comments later (!) I chose the name Hector suggested by a high school chum.

His owner delivered him Thursday morning. Hector is pretty friendly to strangers but has never been anywhere so doesn't "get it" about being led. He had to be kind of shoved along till he caught sight of Jethro, eating breakfast.

I liked the idea of a "small Jack" because I wanted a guy considerably smaller than Jethro (since Jethro is such a neurotic coward and I didn't want him feeling threatened), yet not as small as a dwarf (mini) donkey.

Hector is perfect - he's a cross between a small white standard mom and a mini white dad (that must have been a sight to see); the owner was hoping for a white baby but "man plans and God laughs." I guess that's why Hector (who's nine months old but full grown) was so inexpensive.

I imagined he'd be a trembling ball of nerves, but he marched right up to the fence and started pulling Jethro's breakfast hay out of the bathtub through the netting.

Jethro was astonished but his attention being divided (breakfast occupies his mind most of the day, especially when it's in front of him) couldn't decide what he thought. When I brought Hector into the pen, they sniffed each other carefully and then Hector chowed down while Jethro hid behind a tree and watched.

Eventually they decided everything was fine.

I wish I'd had a night-vision video camera last night: when I let Ezra's dog Julius out for romp, he streaked over to the donkey enclosure and commenced to herding the two of them frantically in huge circles. He barked and he raced 90 miles an hour while they loped, flank to flank, their hooves striking the ground with loud dusty thuds. I could see all six eyes shining in the light of my headlamp. Round and round they went.

Eventually the donkeys got tired of it and stood together watching the dog bark; then Jethro lowered his head and charged after Julius. It wasn't a fair match, because Julius can run out of the enclosure when he's being closed in on; also, his turning radius is MUCH tighter.

Report on large-screen e-readers or tablet computers for reading sheet music from a music stand. Grrrrr.

2011-12-08T06:13:00.008-05:00

A few months ago I saw an article about the Borromeo String Quartet reading from their laptop computers onstage. The setup seemed awfully unwieldy - but! Happy the musician who can mash a foot pedal to turn a page instead of having to snake a hand to whip it across (not easy when you're holding a bow).

The players above have their laptops horizontal - that allows for easier navigation and larger display size, but only shows half a page at a time.

Some musicians turn their laptops sideways and use vertical format, in which case a whole page displays but the keyboard is hard to use! Here is an expensive velcro gizmo you can buy to keep your computer from falling off the music stand. An ugly solution.

... and if you don't want the laptop computer to go crashing to the floor, you might want to invest in this $199.99 heavy duty music stand...

Last week I tried a laptop balanced precariously on a music stand. In some ways it was wonderful - since all our music is in Sibelius files organized by folders and alphabetically, any piece could be found instantly, forestalling tedious minutes of flipping through piles. But I was afraid the computer would fall over. Not having a $200 music stand, I thought instead I might invest the money in a big tablet computer or e-reader instead.

However, "big" these days seems to mean a 9.7" or 10.1" screen (measured on the diagonal). A regular size piece of paper, 8-1/2" x 11", is 15.5" diagonal, considerably larger.

Here's a picture of pianist Sam Haywood playing from an iPad (9.7") using a bluetooth foot pedal. Fine for a pianist, who sits close to the music, but too small for the violinist, who's using paper music.

I looked at a friend's iPod - at 9.7" diagonal, fine for him to read music from his lap (he is a vocalist) but way too small for me. Then I tried a tablet computer with a 10.1" diagonal - still too small, especially for two people sharing a stand.

In case your eyes are better than mine, or if you're a pianist, you may have considered the Amazon Kindle DX as an alternative to the iPad; it's available now (mid-December 2011) for $379.00. It weighs slightly over a pound and is 9.7" diagonally, same size as the iPad. There are more than 3,500 reviews. Common complaints:

Fragility - quite a few say the protective case sold with the unit will itself crack the screen! Also, the tiny tiny keyboard was deemed by many to be the worst ever.

"The frame/screen is just not strong enough to support its own weight without the customer holding it with two hands or in the center."
Evidently the device itself, software development, and support, are being phased out completely.

"It seems they want to just be done with the DX with no plans for a new version."

"Why do they still sell it to me for that high price if it is abandoned ?"

"Now, for the biggest problem I have with this device: it is apparently no longer being supported. There have been several updates for the 6" third-generation models, but nothing of note for the DX. The rumour was that this is due in part to the fact that the DX has half as much RAM as its 6" counterparts."
You can't organize your files in folders and you can't organize them alphabetically.

"Amazon, what are you thinking? We had folders on our PCs and MACs back in the 80's, more than TWENTY years ago."

"Still no folders. An organization nightmare three times bigger than that of the K2 (which itself had increased the same problem on the K1): the possibility of storing 3500 books but only being able to sort them by author, title, and most recent first. ... you can organize your books by genre or whatever you like, so that's a big help. However, for some strange reason, unless you resort to fixes like putting symbols before the collection names when in "view by collections" it is impossible to alphabetize them."
Can't turn off sleep mode.

"If you are using the Kindle to display a textbook you may have it on a page that contains problems you must solve, and if it takes you longer than 10 minutes the Kindle goes into sleep mode. It would be rather annoying to have to wake it up to do each problem."
E-ink, while praised by most, would not work for us when we perform in dimly-lit venues.

"Surprise! The screen is too dim to be functional. It is ... impossible to read in the dark."

"Apparently previous versions you could adjust the brightness but not on the newest one. I'm guessing they wanted to increase battery life. Not much point if you can't use it."
Wonky behavior

"The DX often restarted by itself. I would in the middle of some book and the DX would completely reset itself. Resetting a DK can take uo to 10 minutes or more. The pages also did not advance quickly."

"The screen periodically locks up and requires a reset. Recently the screen locked and resetting it did not work. The Kindle was 20 days out of warranty when this happened. When I contacted Amazon, they walked me through their "advanced trouble shooting" procedures. This involved pushing and holding the power switch for 20 seconds. When that didn't work they told me that was the extent of trouble shooting."

Next I looked at the Freehand Systems MusicPad Pro Plus, originally $1,199.00, then $859.00, now $500. It's the right size - at 13.3" x 9.9" it probably displays the music full-sized - but it's two inches thick and weighs over four pounds! Reviewers wrote:

"I love the concept, but hate the execution... I have a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and I'm somwhat of a computer geek and gadget freak, so my tolerance is pretty high for things that are not idiot proof... in converting all of my Word files to the proprietary .fh files, I had to open and print each of my document via the freehand printer driver, then re-name each file and add my tags. ... Freehand should be ashamed to put this on the market without some way to batch convert ... with a measly 35 Megs of usable internal memory ... less than 1/2 of my songs fit on the internal memory..."

"Since I have purchased the MusicPad Pro the company has all but totally abandoned the product. Without any warning they turned off the forum ... there is absolutely NO support nor ongoing development for this product.... The system has been left to run its course, sell as many existing systems as they can, and let it die."

"Their customer service response when I asked about it was: 'I am really sorry, but we no longer service the MPP.' ."

"Since day 1 the battery would not hold a charge for more than 30 minutes. I sent it back to Freehand and they supposedly replaced it but the second battery did exactly the same thing."

"The software kept crashing, the printer drivers did not install. The software, when it it did run, is extremely lagging and outdated. ... When I told [the service rep] it was crashing every time I tried to open the software, he said, 'Then just return it,' and hung up!"

So both of those devices are being phased out. So where are the NEW large-format readers? I saw two that looked wonderful, however...

1. In June of last year, geek.com reported that the Plastic Logic Que E-Reader was probably being killed; its purchasers received an email saying "We need to let you know that since your unit will not ship on June 24 as planned, our automated ordering system has automatically canceled your order."

"Billed as an e-reader for business users, the Que had an 8.5 x 11-inch touchscreen display and the ability to handle Microsoft Word files, PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets, digital books, PDFs, magazines and newspapers. The device could also synchronize with Microsoft Outlook to display e-mails and calendar." Wow, finally a full-sized display. The unit was going to be $650 ($800 with Wi-Fi and 3G).
A month later Plastic Logic announced: "We recognize the market has dramatically changed ... it no longer makes sense for us to move forward with our first-generation electronic reading product,"

Now, according to geek.com, the unit has been reformulated. The newer version, Plastic Logic 100 eReader, will be only 10.7" diagonal, still too small for me. It supposedly "pushes" 960 x 1280 pixels, has a touch screen and 4GB of storage, is less than 8mm thick and weighs about one pound. "The Plastic Logic e-Reader has been many years in development and might finally see the light of day this November. It was originally slated to only cost 12,000 rubles (around $400) but has dramatically increased to almost 25,000." $800?!!

If only it existed, the Skiff Reader would have been what I wanted! In January 2010, it was widely lauded: "...a quarter inch thick, it packs a 1600 x 1200 11.5-inch touchscreen (finger and stylus) that, as you can see from the above screenshot, should do much better justice to magazine and newspaper layouts than we've yet seen from an e-ink-based reader. ... Skiff includes ... just over 3GB for content, with SD card expansion, and there's a 3.5mm headphone jack for tunes and, hopefully, text-to-speech. Content can be side-loaded over a mini USB jack or delivered via WiFi but, more importantly, 3G is also on offer thanks to Sprint."

However, a few months later techcrunch.com reported: "The Skiff newsreader that made waves at last CES is dead, abandoned by News Corp. who bought the e-reader software but not the device from Hearst. ... Outsized, ugly and backed by Hearst and Sprint, it was a project doomed to failure ... Listen: the US belongs to iPad."

I note that the skiffreader website is for sale. That seems pretty definitive.

Though I realize this is the ultimate First World Problem, it still annoys me. Technologizer.com was wrong when it opined: "Plastic Logic and Skiff both set out to make much more powerful readers than the Kindle, which turned out to be a fatally flawed strategy: An e-reader that’s much fancier and pricier than a Kindle starts to look like an unsatisfactory iPad competitor." There IS a market for a larger screen, surely not only among musicians and the visually impaired!

Menticia and I make Spanish tortilla

2011-12-04T07:25:00.002-05:00

Menticia was amused to see how different a Spanish tortilla is from our usual Mexican tortillas. I would recommend making this with a buddy, the way we did - slicing potatoes 1/8" thick is tedious and the frying pan is so heavy with all the slop in it that trying to hold a plate over it with one hand while flipping the pan with the other hand sounds impossible.

It does seem ridiculously extravagant to fry the potatoes (only until they're translucent and soft, you don't want to brown them) in SO MUCH oil, but there you have it, that's how it's done.

This was consumed avidly by all and I'll be able to use the drained-off oil to make another Spanish tortilla this week. It will also be a perfect Hannukah food, another version of a latke.

Spanish Tortilla

2 cups olive oil
2 pounds potatoes sliced 1/8" & tossed with 2 ts salt
1 large onion, chopped
chopped parsley
1/8 teaspoon(s) ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 large eggs, beaten

In large nonstick frying pan, heat 2 cups olive oil over medium-high heat (until a test potato slice sizzles).

Slide in all the potatoes and onion; cook, stirring occasionally, until tender (might be as much as 25 minutes).

Take off heat and drain over a bowl (save oil).

Slide drained, cooked potatoes gently into another bowl. Add parsley, black pepper, and salt. Add eggs. Stir gently.

In 10" non-stick skillet, get 1-2 tablespoons of the oil quite hot. Gently add potato-egg mixture to skillet, spreading evenly and pressing down with spatula.

Reduce heat and cook, covered, until egg on the sides of skillet is slightly brown and mixture starts to set (about 10 minutes).

Flip omelet onto large flat plate. Heat frying pan with a bit more oil, slide the tortilla back into pan. Cook for a few more minutes. Good at room temperature.

Dixie Draft Horse, Mule and Carriage Auction, Troutman NC November 2011

2011-11-25T20:32:00.011-05:00

Twice a year (the weekend after Thanksgiving and the last weekend in March) a tremendous crowd gathers to buy and sell horses, mules, not nearly enough donkeys, tack, carriages, and rusty stuff. About seven auctioneers at a time are gabbling away (sometimes they seem to be speaking in tongues, sometimes they sound like Porky Pig) and selling things - sometimes for much more than they seem to be worth (I saw two 'flying pigs' on sticks go for $25 each) and sometimes much less (a brand new crib with a brand new mattress went for $1.00). I am now the proud owner of a whole pallet-load of miscellaneous fencing (some is rusty) which I got for $10.

I should explain that where you see a lot of people, that's where the auctioneers are (they get driven up and down the rows standing in the back of golf carts while the assistants hold up the often arcane items for sale). Where there are just a few people, either those few are waiting for the auctioneer to get to their desired items, or they are just chewing the fat and resting between exhausting sessions of waving their numbers in the air and buying stuff. Or perhaps they had just finished chewing the fat: there were enough greasy delights being gobbled down to send almost anyone into a catatonic digestive stupor.

[Hannah]: Caitlin Moran on relationships

2011-10-31T15:37:00.001-05:00

"You can always tell when a woman is with the wrong man, because she has so much to say about the fact that nothing's happening.

"When women find the right person, on the other hand, they just .. disappear for six months, and then resurface, eyes shiny, and usually about six pounds heavier.

"'So what's he like?' you will say....

"...but she will be oddly quiet. 'It's just...good,' she will say. 'I'm really happy.'"

[Hannah]: Caitlin Moran on a Bad Bra

2011-10-31T15:32:00.002-05:00

The relief of taking off a bad bra is immeasurable.... Bad bra removal is a measure of your friendships. If you would feel comfortable in going round to someone's house at the end of a long day, and saying, 'I'm just going to take my bra off,' you know you are intimate friends.

Of course, on occasion, bad bra removal has to happen in a more urgent location. I have seen women taking bras off in cabs on their way back from clubs; women taking off bras in cabs that are still outside clubs.

I once saw it happen at a bus stop, outside Bar Rumba on Camden High Street.

I understood.

[Hannah]: British journalist Caitlin Moran on the library

2011-10-31T15:28:00.001-05:00

A library in the middle of a community is a cross between an emergency exit, a life-raft and a festival. They are cathedrals of the mind; hospitals of the soul; theme parks of the imagination. On a cold, rainy island, they are the only sheltered public spaces where you are not a consumer, but a citizen instead. A human with a brain and a heart and a desire to be uplifted, rather than a customer with a credit card and an inchoate “need” for “stuff”.

A mall – the shops – are places where your money makes the wealthier wealthy. But a library is where the wealthy’s taxes pay for you to become a little more extraordinary instead. A satisfying reversal. A balancing of the power.

Jethro fulfills his mission in life.

2011-10-07T14:21:00.004-05:00

If it is true that America is becoming a third-world country, I am finally in the vanguard. For the last few days I've been strapping Jethro the donkey into his pack-saddle (which I repaired using tarp tie-downs to tighten the straps under his belly) and using bungee cords to secure my chainsaw to the pack saddle - I also put a long piece of chain in a backpack. Then I take Jethro off into the woods with his heavy burden (he doesn't notice it at all), use the chain to hobble him to a tree, and he chows down while I cut down sweet-gum trees. Then we reverse the process and come home. He loves having a job. I love not lugging the chainsaw.

Jethro usually has happy ears when I've got him lugging stuff through the woods, whether it's rocks, water, or a chainsaw. Happy donkey ears: parallel and laid at an angle back from the head. That means he isn't afraid of anything and isn't waiting for something better to happen. It's the donkey version of "be here now."

A visit to my favorite hay farmer Roger Tate and his 40,000 chickens

2011-10-06T06:24:00.004-05:00

I go to Mebane with my little truck every once in a while to strap down 18 bales of orchard grass for my donkey Jethro and Superman, his pet miniature horse. Unless he's too busy, I quiz my farmer friend Roger Tate, third (or fourth) generation owner of Roger Tate's Harmony Hill Farm in Efland, NC, sometimes about the state of farming today ...

... for instance, about weather and his amusement that fellow farmers deny climate change (yesterday he told me MANY of them think Al Gore invented climate change so he could make millions of dollars) - and sometimes about his kids and his wondering if his daughter will be the next generation managing the Tate Farm. Sometimes he tells me about his wife and her Community Supported Agriculture project (she's made a Harmony Hill CSA Facebook page). You sign up and get a box of their home-grown produce every month.

Yesterday he took me to see his chicken houses, newly certified organic. We became the object of intense inspection by tens of thousands of chicken eyes when we drove up - we can see them milling around in there behind the chicken wire. A chain drags the organic chicken food down the length of the house in a trough - a truck comes and dumps a mountain of the stuff into Roger's silos. His chicken feed costs $28,000 A MONTH!! There is a pipe of water with a zillion red nipples in it that runs along just over the chickens' heads. There are outdoor areas at the end of each of the chicken houses where the girls can mill around and play volleyball.

He recently joined Braswell, out of Georgia, which supplies Whole Foods throughout the Southeast. Some day he'd like to be able to be a direct provider but there are a lot of problems that would have to be solved first.

He's gotten out of the "broiler business" - there've been serious bankruptcies and the industry is suffering because farmers can't afford to raise chickens for the prices they receive. He was shaking his head in pleased surprise at McDonalds and Walmart both requiring major improvements in the way the food (flora and fauna both) they buy is grown and prepared. "These are interesting times to be a farmer."

He said it used to be automatically recommended that cows be bred in the spring for most economical management. However, the last few seasons he tried that, disaster ensued - half his cows remained "open" (not pregnant) which means no calves and no milk. It turns out the incredibly hot springs we now have (due to Al Gore making millions of dollars off global warming) make the bulls temporarily sterile! So now the operation must be shifted to the fall.

You really have to be brave to be a farmer. He lost 30% of his hay crop this year due to the vagaries of weather, "but that's about typical." I find it amazing any farmer has the courage to stay in business. Ever seen those bumper stickers that say No farms, no food - you can get one for free from the American Farmland Trust and make a donation to help preserve local farms and farmland.

He told me in amazement about his visit to the place newborn chicks are sexed (after all, if you are supplying layers to farmers, you don't want to be sending roosters). Most of the chicken-sexers are from the far east (he forgot what country), and they are treated quite well because it's a tough job and nobody else seems to be good at it...

... They sit there as the chicks go by and pop the chicks into the "male" or the "female" holes nest to their stations, and there's a vacuum tube that sends the little chicks to the correct boxes down below, where they arrive very fluffy and surprised, but unharmed. (I've bought chicks through the mail in these little boxes - you'd think they'd be traumatized when they arrive at the post office, but they seem just fine - that's to say, no more traumatized than YOU would be if you were everybody's favorite dinner.)

Lastly: my son sent me a link to Cud, a short movie about a farmer who's gone organic and is raising grass-fed cows. He isn't happy unless he's on his land, about 365 days a year (he estimates roughly), having his first cup of coffee in his field in the dark early dawn and a bottle of wine (does he drink that whole bottle himself??) in the same place when the sun's gone down.

I hope you think every once in a while that, until we're living on processed seaweed, we rely unthinkingly on these guys to keep doing what they do.

Thanks for the hay, Roger!

Give the customers what they want.

2011-10-05T06:37:00.002-05:00

I saw this great quote from the MIPCOM media conference: "When consumers tell you what they want, give it to them. Figure out a way to give it to them, because they will figure out a way to get it."

My family's full of ingenious people; we're constantly searching for things that are hard to find, and if we don't find them we make them ourselves, so somebody lost a sale.

I started sewing again because there was so little variety in clothes being offered for sale in stores. And - what is this stupidity of "color trends"? Each year everybody is supposed to buy all new clothes so they can wear the same color?

One year I poked my head inside a clothing store and there were racks and racks of clothes all made of denim - another year, chartreuse! If I buy, it's at used clothes stores where the "colors of the year" of many different years are all presented at one time.
How about a lonnggg swivel arm for a big flatscreen tv? Had to make one. A movable shallow tv stand for a flatscreen tv? Had to make one.
Nicely fitting halter for a donkey? Had to take an old horse halter apart and stitch it back up.
Now let's talk about Netflix and all the movies and tv shows it does NOT have for its streaming customers. Somebody I know will do illegal downloads for me of shows which are not available to me legally. Who (besides me) benefits from this?
Furniture for people whose homes are not gigantic! Most furniture stores are presenting merchandise for supposed customers who live in a very different world than we do! Those giant fat sofas would take up all the floor space! So we don't buy them. The coffee tables are similarly gigantic - so instead of buying one, I got a friend to help me weld a smaller frame together.
Why can't you buy a solar chicken coop fan? My son and a friend cobbled one together. Sale lost!
Why can't you buy windows with big panes? That was my only requirement when I was looking for windows for the house we were about to build, but they couldn't be found so I built 33 windows myself in the carport.

What have you searched for and not been able to find? What did you do instead?

Brush goats: another example of something that doesn't work as advertised.

2011-08-12T21:49:00.003-05:00

Picture: Ralph and Stanley sticking their snouts into the sweet feed.

It was my friend Paul that first told me I should get goats to eat all the weeds on the new 18 acres I bought last year, 18 acres that were logged six years ago and then abandoned, so as far as the eye can see there are trashy piles of broken trees and bushes (left behind by the lousy careless loggers) and weeds and little pine trees growing by the thousands through the piles of sticks and tree trunks. No tractor or bush-hog could handle this mess.

I ignored Paul's suggestion - I'd tried a goat a couple years ago when a friend said "Just take this goat, if you don't like her you can bring her back," and my son loved her and named her Dulcinea, and she was very fat, like she'd swallowed a large watermelon which was now lodged sideways in her gut, but she made a nervous wreck out of me because she didn't mind electricity and escaped regularly under the electric fence, twitching a bit but unconcerned, and I didn't want Jethro getting the idea that electricity is not so bad. So I took her back where she came from.

When Menticia's dad said, in Mexico we would clear this land with goats, I reconsidered. I figured, the goats would eat weeds all summer and I would give them to Menticia's family for barbeque when the season was over.

Paul and I went goat-shopping one day and in Sanford I fell for two little goats. Literally little, they're "pygmy" goats. They couldn't make a dent in my weed mess, so the next day I bought two bigger (La Mancha) goats, and now there are the four of them.

Turns out the stories about goats eating everything are lies. These goats are finicky eaters and don't like much of anything that's growing on my land. After weeks of frowning at them eschewing (ie not chewing) my weeds, here are two working theories:

1. They were raised on Purina goat chow and think weeds = too much work. They like treats. (Can't blame them, I myself prefer cookies to kale.)

2. After years of deer eating everything that's tasty on this property, it's the not-tasty stuff which is thriving. Deer and goats probably prefer the same weeds and both obviously disdain that which I have the most of.

We had a showdown this week. I had them fenced in with a lot of little sweetgums. Sweetgum trees are kind of pretty but I loathe them because they sprout like weeds, grow back vigorously from stumps, even grow new trees from their roots, and nothing likes to eat them. I was determined the goats would eat these sweetgums. Just to make sure they weren't poisonous, I looked them up online and found they were nutritious! But the goats went on a hunger strike. I held out for a day and then gave in and moved them. That, though, is the last straw.

The pilot project is a failure. Ralph and Stanley, the La Manchas, are going to make a fine feast for Menticia's family. I'm going to try and convince my neighbor to take the pygmies, Moe and Larry.

Philadelphia: country's worst place to research family history

2011-07-26T10:19:00.005-05:00

This is a geeky post, but I'm beyond furious with the rapacious tactics of Philadelphia government in holding their historic records hostage.

Philadelphia is the worst place for genealogy I have ever seen.

The Historic Society of Pennsylvania charges you $8 to walk in the door and is open half a day, four days a week. The Germantown Historical Society is open only a few hours on two days a week and charges you $10 to walk in the door.

Philadelphia City Archives: The website says "Welcome to the City of Philadelphia" but the miserably uncooperative Philadelphia Archives is a hell-hole offering ruined, scratched, unreadable microfilms and surly employees who try not to notice when somebody is trying to get their attention. I believe they hate their customers.

The deeds, wills, etc. are barely indexed at all - last time I went, you had to pull a (scratchy) microfilm for your letter of the alphabet and search through virtually unreadable white-on-black handwritten lists of people in un-alphabetical order. In contrast, nearby Montgomery County has properly indexed and digitized all its records and you can search the index and print out the documents yourself in a matter of minutes.

But back to the Philadelphia Archives: there are not enough microfilm machines and "The free readers have been retired from public service." You pay to sit down at a reader AND pay to print: $2.00 per page.

You pay exorbitantly every time you turn around. They demand $20.00 for a one-page late 19th century marriage record even when you look it up and print it yourself. Other places, this would cost 50 cents.

The unfriendly and unhelpful staff does not answer emails. They often do not even answer the phone.

Traffic = atrocious. Parking and hotels: appallingly expensive.

If you are willing to pay the gigantic price (the aforesaid marriage record would cost me $45 if I asked them to print the single page and send it to me), it takes six months. They suggest patience.

My suggestion if you are unlucky enough to have ancestors in Philadelphia: do as much of your research as you can without going there. Pay for online databases, rent films at the FRIENDLY and HELPFUL local Family History Centers, look for records any other place you can and only as a last resort visit the City of no Brotherly Love.

End of rant.

[Hannah]: On the young, 1819

2011-07-25T17:45:00.002-05:00

"The young are generally ambitious, and willing to submit to all labors and sacrifices to gain public opinion ... and they are generally benevolent, from sentiment, and disposed to serve mankind for the consciousness of doing it ... but they feel neglect and ill success very sensibly, and after failing in some of their generous purposes...they sink into a love of themselves and indifference to all mankind besides."

-The North American Review and Miscellaneous Journal, 1819

[Hannah]: On Philadelphia Merchants, 1750s

2011-07-06T18:15:00.001-05:00

"They breakfasted at eight or half-past; and by nine were in their counting houses, laying out the business of the day; at ten they were on their wharves, with their aprons around their waists, rolling hogsheads of rum and molasses; at twelve, at market, flying about as dirty and diligent as porters; at two back again to the rolling, heaving, hallooing, and scribbling. At four they went home to dress for dinner; at seven, to the play; at eleven, to supper, with a crew of lusty Bacchanals who would smoke cigars, gulp down brandy, and sing, roar, and shout in the thickening clouds they created like so may merry devils, till three in the morning."

- quoted from a contemporary foreign traveler in Charles Rappleye, Robert Morris

In which we visit a flock swap, then drive to Sanford NC and buy pygmy goats

2011-07-02T15:45:00.004-05:00

I've been looking for suitable goats for a couple of weeks. Today a friend and I went to the "flock swap" at Burlington Tractor Supply. There were no goats. But it was a splendid NC event.

So I was going to give up and go home but my friend Paul had his fancy phone and we looked on Craigs List and there was a guy selling goats in Sanford (an hour away) so we went down there and I bought two pygmy goats. The dad and his son were in business together. One of the goats was the dad's goats and one was the kid's, so they split the profits.

I'd made a goat cage out of cattle panels and cable ties and used a rachet tie-down to secure it in the back of my truck. The goats settled right down for the ride home.

We off-loaded the cage by the side of our driveway and Paul, my son Ezra, and I fell into kind of a stupor feeding leaves to the goats. We were there a long time doing not much of anything. In our defense, it was quite a hot day.

Then, since the goat halters were too big for these pygmy goats, I carried them one by one to their new home. When I got back from carrying the first one and dumping it into its pen, the second one had (surprise) escaped and I chased him for a while and then carried him over and they commenced to chewing. However, they are far too small to make much of a dent in the weed population.

What were they thinking? Horrible album covers redux, the fabulous 1970s.

2011-06-21T05:26:00.002-05:00

Walter Olson turned me on to this delightful post chock-full of other fabulous 70s album art: How To Be a Retronaut.

How to use a donkey to carry water.

2011-06-19T13:46:00.006-05:00

Last fall I bought 18 land-locked scraggly logged acres, and they are coming up in a ton of brush, so naturally my thoughts turn to goats. I don't like goats -- when I had one for a week it gave me a nervous breakdown and I took it back! But I think I've struck a deal with Menticia's dad - he'll find me a couple of cheap goats, I'll shift them around this overgrown property all summer and fall (using cattle panels for a movable pen), and then I'll give them back and Menticia's friends and relatives will have a grand barbecue.

But how to get water to these goats?

Hannah pointed out: I have a very underemployed beast of burden. So I bought a couple of water jugs at Walmart and moved their spigots from the top to the bottom using this handful of widgets I found at Home Depot.

Yes, I did check before I left the store to make sure I could get my hand into the screw-top opening. But no, I didn't consider that my forearm wouldn't fit. So I had to cut holes in the top of the containers in order to screw in the spigots.

I bought a set of four tie-down rachets and took them apart. I used two of the rachets to repair my sawbuck pack saddle (its leather was cracked and moldy and its buckles were rusted). Then there were a lot of hooks left so I tied the hooks to the ends of two lengths of rope and used the rope to hang the water panniers from the saddle.

Then it was time to go get Jethro. I'd added a hitching ring to the side of my house. Using cheese balls (they are like spherical cheese doodles and we had a huge bucket of them brought to our last pot-luck dinner by a guy who doesn't cook - none of us eat them but the donkey and horse love them) I convinced him to stand still while I hung the water panniers off his saddle and filled them with water (using a Y-splitter for the hose so the two sides would fill at an equal rate). Jethro hates water but he loves cheese balls more so there was no trouble.

Then we were off down the road with his 7-gallon containers sloshing. He did not like the sloshing sound but, again, cheese balls made all things good.

Since there are no goats yet, I just dumped the water at the end of the driveway. I need to figure out how to make these spigots gush faster - Jethro and I both got bored waiting for the containers to empty.

As always, Jethro considers the command "STOP!" to be optional. I will have to tie him up when it's time to dump the water into the goats' trough or he'll be off.

Fudge cake recipes and diet secrets on the same page

2011-06-17T06:26:00.002-05:00

Today's Groupon offers your choice of America hobbies: eat pizza and giant burgers, or get suddenly slimmer. Or maybe both!

The worst airline in America: USAirways

2011-05-26T07:55:00.004-05:00

My darling brother bought first-class tickets for my son and me so we could go visit him. First class! A personal first. Sadly, they were on the despicable US Airways. And even more sadly, they were connecting flights.

First flight: 45 minutes late. We get to Philadelphia and run and barely get on our connecting flight on time.

Second flight: it is announced to the seat-belted passengers that there is a very minor maintenance issue and we will be delayed a very few minutes. This lie gets repeated until we have been sitting in our seats on the tarmac for TWO HOURS.

Yesterday, coming home:

First flight: As of ten minutes before the flight, the departure board lists the flight as on time. However, the plane is absent. Gate attendant announces: "There is a slight delay in the plane's arrival, however, we will arrive at our destination on time and everybody will make their connections."

By the time we leave, we are an hour late. We arrive in Charlotte ten minutes before the second flight is supposed to take off. However, by the time we de-plane, the second flight has taken off ON TIME despite the fact that probably twenty (or more) of its passengers were in the airport just minutes away. So everybody missed that connection. And in fact everybody on our airplane missed their connections.

Nobody apologized. And because they deemed this an "air traffic problem," "no amenities are provided" was the smug answer at the US Airways service desk. Not even meal vouchers. Can't they hire people who can at least pretend to care that they've made a royal mess of your day(s)?

Middle of the night, Charlotte airport. They say cheerily, "but we have wait-listed you on the 10:40 pm flight to RDU." How cynical can they be? There were more than thirty people on that waiting list!

They offered a flight out this morning, when my son had to be at work. They did not offer any other alternatives and again, no apologies. The only person who seemed sympathetic was the nice young woman who was washing the bathroom sinks.

We called an amazingly generous friend who came to PICK US UP 2.5 hours away from home. We were in bed by 2 am. Feeling totally abandoned by an uncaring system.

The last time I flew, the flight to RDU from JFK was cancelled at the last minute, with no options offered until the next afternoon. I spent the night on the airport linoleum floor with many other stranded would-be passengers, listening to the floor zambonis rumbling around to the loathesome strains of the LOUD 24-hour Justin Bieber soundtrack.

Is it part of the airlines' ethos now that they don't even apologize? Are they so stingy that when they strand their (first-tie) first class passengers they don't even spare a few shekels for meal vouchers? I hate air travel.

Should you go to your fortieth high school reunion?

2011-05-17T09:26:00.005-05:00

Yes, time flies, this year is the fortieth anniversary of the Horace Greeley Class of 1971 graduation. Though I haven't been in touch with more than three of "us" in those decades, somehow an enterprising classmate pieced together a facebook group and has been pulling us in. I recognize (some of) the names but can't put them to the teenagers they once were. I was in a fog through most of high school - all the questions I never asked anybody, questions I never asked myself! Was my group of "friends" as random as it now seems?

Why was I afraid of so many of my classmates? Some I remember only as tough girls who sat on the sinks and stalls in the bathroom smoking - seemingly all day - so that I tried to avoid going there EVER. Others seemed so cold or superior, I knew I wasn't good enough for them, so I never tried talking to them. Maybe I was completely wrong about them! So many I passed in the hallways hundreds of times but never looked in the eye...

I think I want to go precisely because of that long-ago fog. I want to look at these people with my adult eyes and see whether I can connect them to any foggy memories. And I wonder if it will be as enchanting experience as my college reunions have been. Will it feel like Brigadoon? (With the Holiday Inn setting, it's unlikely.)

Perhaps we're old enough not to go on crash diets to convince each other we will be eternally young... perhaps we're old enough not to try and impress each other with our accomplishments because, looking at the growing list of classmates who have died already, just being above ground is a pretty good thing all on its own.

I am already shy and scared and getting ready to skulk in the corner. But I'm not too shy to go. Chappaqua, ahoy! July 10...

PicknBow folkmusic retreat weekend in Durham NC: The Pratie Heads will be teaching at a summer folk music workshop retreat in Durham, June 24-26 2011

2011-05-13T12:42:00.006-05:00

I don't know if any of you are local enough to take this in, but my musical partner Bob Vasile and I are going to be part of a music school weekend June 24-26, 2011. I'll be teaching singing and fiddle; Bob will be teaching open-tuning on the guitar and bouzouki/cittern/mandolin lessons. Danny will be teaching guitar, ukelele, and more...

Here are the details: PicknBow folksong and folkmusic summer workshops. PicknBow weekend is Danny Gotham's idea: he thought there should be an economical local opportunity for singers and guitarists (ukelele and bouzouki and fiddle... players) to spend a weekend making music!

To register, call Danny at (919)967.4934 or e-mail him at steelstringer@gmail.com.

There will be classes and jams and meals together and informal singing circles and performances starting Friday evening June 24 and ending late afternoon on Sunday.

There'll be classes geared to beginning players, players who want to experiment with open-tuning on their guitars, classes for people who play but are scared to sing, classes in harmony singing and "Songs for Non-Singers." And more. The singers and the instrumentalists will learn some songs together, jeez, it can be like Beethoven's seventh symphony!

I'm looking forward to working in the newly refurbished Murphey School, Durham NC, which is just a couple miles from my house. It's a lovely old space that's been redone with AIR-CONDITIONING.

You can download the brochure: Summer music workshop, PicknBow, Durham NC

Chairs at the Armadillo Grill

2011-05-09T06:24:00.000-05:00

"Mothering Sunday" - best Mother's Day song ever

2011-05-07T05:57:00.002-05:00

Re-posted from 2009. This is my favorite song for a mother, ever, no question. My mother was long dead when I recorded it, but I thought about her anyway:

Mothering Sunday

It gives me chills just thinking about it. I recorded it with Jacqueline Schwab and Robbie Link on "Sedgefield Fair."

In the 19th century, changes in land policy in England made it impossible for many families to keep their children at home. The boys were sent away to work on faraway farms and the girls were sent out to be servants.

Often they had to go a long way from home to find jobs, and they worked six days a week, so there was not time to walk home, visit, and walk back to the place of employment in time. One of the few times a family could hope to be together was "Mothering Sunday." The kids would come home and fuss over their mom - bake her pancakes - and this song is about that day.

Mothering Sunday
George Hare Leonard

It is the day of all the year,
Of all the year the one day,
When I shall see my mother dear
And bring her cheer,
A-mothering on Sunday.

So I'll put on my Sunday coat,
And in my hat a feather,
And get the lines I writ by rote,
With many a note,
That I've a-strung together.

And now to fetch my wheaten cake
To fetch it from the baker,
He promised me, for mother's sake,
The best he'd bake
For me to fetch and take her.

The boys will all come home from town
Not one will miss that one day;
And every maid will bustle down
To show her gown,
A-mothering on Sunday.

It is the day of all the year,
Of all the year the one day;
And here come I, my mother dear,
And bring you cheer,
A-mothering on Sunday.

Yitskhok Zhelanek, where did you go?

2011-04-17T22:21:00.005-05:00

It's a long story, but as part of a cd project focusing on Polish and Yiddish language theater, revue, vaudeville, tangos, kleynkunst, I spent a month trying to wheedle a copy of this book (along with three other similar ones) out of the National Library in Jerusalem. Like the others, this one is a random collection of song texts and monologues famous in the mid-1930s in Warsaw.

I was kind of crushed after paying so much for the book (which only cost a few groshen when it came out) that there were no tunes, just words. I felt punched in the solar plexus when I saw somewhere near the end of the book:

A C H T U N G! (Attention!)
If you want to learn the melodies to these songs, come to Yitskhok and he'll teach them to you.

Yitskhok is my guy. Or rather, I'm him, I'm the one who puts together little books and offers to teach people the tunes. This book was only about five inches high. Did he print it in his basement? Did he make this wonderful picture? What happened to him? Warsaw, in the 1930s. Yitskhok, did you run? There are lots of songs from those days making fun of America or worrying about what it would be like to leave home for parts unknown. Yitskhok, did you make it to Miami Beach, by some miracle... or are your bones in a pit in the forest?

I want to go to Yitskhok and have him teach me the tunes. Failing that, I want to know his children and grandchildren, though probably he never got to have any. In fact, I'm afraid he's really completely lost. Hard to know; hard to look up people from their Yiddish names. Often the name is quite, quite different in its English or Polish equivalent. I don't know how to look for him. Maybe he became Isaac Zelanek, or spelled his name with some of those odd Polish letters... or maybe he just got murdered in a gas chamber before he could ever have a family and maybe nobody who knew Itskhok, who sold the cheapest songs (as he boasted elsewhere in this book) survived to remember him.

I'm thrilled with the Google docs spreadsheet program

2011-04-05T07:42:00.003-05:00

Most of my other obsessions have been utterly cast aside in favor of the cd project that Beth, my band buddy (and professor of slavic languages at Duke), has proposed: a collection of songs composed and performed in Warsaw, Poland, between the World Wars, some in Polish and some in Yiddish, almost all Jewish. I'm going to the archives at YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and at the New York Public Library later this month to work on this project of forgotten people and "shlagers" (hits) and wanted a way to organize the information I have already. I asked Ezra if Google spreadsheet program would work for me and he got me started (basically by going to my gmail account and clicking "Documents" in a row I never noticed at the top of the page)

I've been putting the "forgotten" musicians into Wikipedia (I'm up to almost four dozen now) and so I was able to dump that information into separate Google docs which I then link to the cells in this spreadsheet. The hyperlinks make it easy to keep track of the data. And I can access it from anywhere! This way I can see what I haven't got yet. I just need to figure out if I can also store a "to do" list for each musician in this same spreadsheet.

Leo Fuchs: like Michael Jackson but in 1937

2011-04-02T14:39:00.002-05:00

Leo Fuchs, who amazed and delighted us last night in the dvd short "Ikh vil zayn a boarder" (I want to be a boarder), was a fine singer, a phenomenal dancer and not afraid to make a fool of himself. He was breakdancing and moonwalking in a top hat. When he wears his clothes properly he looks like Fred Astaire. And all in Yiddish, imagine.

How many people does it take to find one darn phone number?

2011-03-31T13:00:00.005-05:00

I turned the page of my calendar to take a peek and, surprise, the Pratie Heads have a gig April 3, that's this Sunday: the first-ever brunch opening of Jessee's coffeehouse in Carrboro. (It's the building on a little spit of land, a narrow triangle next to Carrburrito's.) I called Bob to remind him. Then it occurred to me we hadn't talked to the people there for quite a while and wondered, is it still on?

So, since I was in town for my Yiddish lesson, I swung by Bob's house and a drummer friend of his was there too. We thought we'd call Jessee's. So of course we fired up his computer, but the internet was down. So we are at a loss.

I say, "Wait, didn't people used to look up phone numbers in a "Phone Book"?" Bob and Doug stare at me like uh, what? I patiently explain, the phone book, it was big and you looked in it and there were all the phone numbers.

So Bob reluctantly wanders off to see if he can find a phone book, and yes, he eventually finds one, but no, Jessee's is not in it.

So then Doug pulls out his "Smart Phone" and asks it, but for some reason it isn't speaking to him today.

We talk about Bob's house being in the Bermuda Triangle of telecommunications. I query rhetorically, "Do I actually have to drive home and look this up?"

Then Doug's phone has a moment of lucidity. We find Jessee's website, but somehow he can't manage to locate the phone number on the little screen. (Note to web designers: now that people are staring at your work on postage-stamp-sized screens, do not be coy with the important information.)

We do note that the Pratie Heads are not listed on the music list, and that in fact the site says Jessee's is CLOSED on Sunday! Not good.

I try calling my son (HE has a "Smart Phone" too) but he's at work so he can't help. I try calling my friend Paul (HE has a "Smart Phone" too!) but he doesn't answer.

Then the clouds clear from over Doug's "Smart Phone" so he calls his brother, somewhere in the midwest maybe, and the brother's internet is working, so the brother looks up Jessee's, and I write the number down on a "Piece of Paper", with a "Pen," and pass it to Bob and Bob calls and they tell him yes, we're playing this weekend.

There is something wrong with this whole scene.

Some chicken, some neck: Arthur Szyk caricature (found)

2011-03-22T06:14:00.004-05:00

An older lady in my Yiddish book club passed along to me four boxes of her father's music. This was no ordinary collection of piano sheet music - he was a composer and orchestra leader in Russia and the boxes are full of his hand-written manuscript arrangements of everything from Glinka to "Khasene in dem yidishn geto" by David Beigelman. And on the back of a picture of an English setter, this:

Of course my son got out his smart phone and asked it about Arthur Szyk. He found the Arthur Szyk website and ordered Szyk's illuminated haggadah...

Then we wondered what "Some Necks" meant. A Facebook friend enlightened me: it's from a famous speech by Winston Churchill to the Canadian Parliament December 31, 1941.

"But [the French] generals misled [the French nation]. When I warned them that Britain would fight on alone whatever they did, their generals told their Prime Minister and his divided Cabinet, 'In three weeks England will have her neck wrung like a chicken.' Some chicken; some neck."

Interesting find in a dusty box.

2011-03-16T09:16:00.000-05:00

I started this one before going to visit Hannah, who has sunk up to her uppermost hair follicles in History as her PhD orals approach. I knew she was trying to finish a book (or two) every day so I took my hand-stitching with me. Finished piecing on the plane coming home, pretty much; finished hand-quilting last night at the dinner table. I don't love the border at all but I like the interior portion. Thanks to Ezra for climbing on a chair and holding this up for me.

Uncle Shlomo's Pushcart: a big fancy place to lay eggs.

2011-03-15T09:05:00.002-05:00

The previous day she laid one on the bottom of the cart, right on the plywood, so I gave her some straw.

In which St. Joseph's Indian School sends me the most manipulative, guilt-inducing solicitation ever

2011-03-11T10:47:00.004-05:00

You had to see it to believe it.

Clockwise from upper left:

"Dreams of Hope" mailing envelope (big and thick). FOUR FREE GIFTS ENCLOSED!
Two pages of expensive, shiny metallic stickers, one with my address on its many labels;
Dreams of Hope for the Children donation request form, specifying: Please detach and return one or more of the Gift Certificates with your donation:
- Gift Certificate! To: A Lakota Child $8 to help provide you meals.
- Gift Certificate! To: A Lakota Child $12 to help provide you bedding and linens.
- Gift Certificate! To: A Lakota Child $15 to help provide you clothing.
Certificate of Appreciation made out to me personally, "in recognition of your generosity to St. Joseph's Indian School and the Lakota children whose lives will be happier and futures will be brighter."
Two, count them, TWO notepads;
Most horrifyingly: an actual dreamcatcher, feathers and all!

The page I'm supposed to return has a checkmark for "I can't help the children now, but I'm enclosing $5 to cover the expense of sending my dreamcatcher gift." I wish they had spent that $5 on a meal, instead.

My son looked up this charity: not surprisingly, it flunks the general standards for percentage of funds actually paid out to the supposed recipients, and its CEO makes a very hefty salary. And I'm not really into missionary schools. So I'm not going to be sending them money. But I feel very guilty. Are you satisfied, director Fr. Stephen Huffstetter, SCJ?

.

Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas concert, Chapel Hill

2011-03-05T06:37:00.005-05:00

I rarely go to live events but this one was too good to pass up. Alasdair Fraser is an amazing fiddler. I have his first album, made almost 30 years ago, with just him in that highland getup in an oval cameo on the cover, accompanied by what I identified at the time (being more of a snob back then) as a fairly cheesy ceilidh-style backup band.

He's made thirteen more recordings since then, with various partners. I loved his work with pianist Paul Machlis and treasure their recordings Skyedance and The Road North. Other pairings left me kind of cold - old-time guitarist and stickler Jody Stecher didn't do much for me backing Fraser ...

... but Natalie Haas is a goddess.

Fraser told the packed audience last night he first met Natalie when she was 11, at one of his Valley of the Moon fiddle camps. He made his first album with her in 2004 and they tour together a great deal.

Haas - a Juillard graduate who's toured with Mark O'Connor, and with fellow goddess, fiddler Natalie MacMaster, and who teachers at the Berklee School of Music - sparkled and glowed last night, young and gorgeous and strong, sitting on her throne in center stage. I loved her throne, a raised platform with a raised piano bench on it, bringing her head closer to the level of Fraser's. She couldn't speak a word (no mic) but Fraser, who had no lack of things to say (he's a good storyteller) communicated with her delightedly as he fiddled round the throne. He had a wireless mic and she plugged in from below so there were no mic stands in the way, what a great use of technology!

This detail from a 1780 David Allan painting called Highland Wedding at Blair Atholl was presented to me in the 1980s by my beloved mentor, Royal Scottish Country Dancemaster Carl Wittman, when I was first playing for him. He loved a period sound for his dances and hated ceilidh bands (think "rollicking" and you know what that word, pronounced K-lee, implies). This picture was his proof that Scottish reels and jigs and strathspeys do NOT need the involvement of an accordion.

Once in a while I've had the opportunity to fiddle with a cellist. The great thing is: the bows. Speaking together, conversing in the ancient and magical language of bows, breathing and scraping and wailing together the way only bows can. Bows are way cool.

Fraser asked us rhetorically last night: "Scraping hair from a horse's tail across cat guts - who ever thought that one up?" Fraser and Haas are both black-belt-masters of the bow - they can sound like half of the world's most wonderful string quartet as they suddenly draw down from wildness to silence. They decelerate their bows in perfect tandem and then milk the silence - wait for it, wait for it... - the audience is still as stone, we hold our breath together, drinking it that bold momentary silence.

I should also mention they have wonderful instruments and that the sound in the Community Church of Chapel Hill concert, co-sponsored by Pinecone, the Piedmont Council of Traditional Music was magnificent. The church used to have dreadful acoustics but they've done something marvellous to it and now it would be a wonderful place to hold a chamber music concert series.

The applause all night was deafening and we jumped to our feet to give them a standing ovation when they were finished. They dallied coming back to us - wait for it, wait for it - then loped back on stage and finished with some reels with the help of their opening act The Shamrockers. Fraser even got his sedentary audience on their feet and tried to teach the rapturous crowd to dance. There were plenty of country dancers and cloggers among us and as the musicians played the night down there were great dancers, young and old(ish), at the front of the hall and even on stage. Wonderful!

[Hannah]: Sweet Potato, Chicken and Kale soup

2011-03-01T13:12:00.002-05:00

Another recipe I'm putting on the blog because I don't want to forget. From my friend Alice.

Saute a lot of ginger in a dutch oven with a lot of garlic and a lot of onion.

Slice in some bite-size chunks of sweet potato. I used 4 very small sweet potatoes.

Add a pound of sliced chicken breast, also bite size pieces, and cook for a bit.

Add some greens. I used Trader Joe's Kale/Spinach/Greens mix but any hearty winter greens will do.

Fill the pot with 4-6 cups of chicken stock and simmer for 25 minutes or until the sweet potatoes and greens are tender.

Then add whatever mysterious seasonings you prefer to make the soup flavor more complex. (I used home made chicken broth so it doesn't have anything in it to begin with). I used soy sauce and tiny amounts of vinegar, porcini salt, hoisin sauce.

And voila! Amazing, healthy, hearty winter soup!

Brain cancer parents and their post traumatic stress...

2011-02-08T08:46:00.002-05:00

This article was circulated on my moms-of-kids-with-brain-cancer list. It leads with a mother saying: "I feel fragile and vulnerable... I feel that I can't let my guard down and have to be prepared for anything at any time ... it's always there." and goes on to say:

[These] feelings sound similar to those of people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition not traditionally associated with healthy adults untouched by armed combat, natural disasters or violent crime. But like others who struggle with PTSD, parents of children with cancer may face a lifelong fear of the enemy: invisible, insidious and potentially invincible.

Well, we cancer moms know this already but it was reassuring to see it in print.

Excerpts from
PTSD shows up in parents of kids with cancer
Suzanne Leigh, San Francisco Chronicle, February 7, 2011
In a 2005 study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, researchers from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia found that of 171 mothers and fathers of young patients undergoing treatment for cancer, all but one had post-traumatic stress, a disorder described as "closely related but not as severe as full-blown PTSD."

Although PTS does not meet all the criteria established by the American Psychiatric Association for a diagnosis of PTSD, some clinicians use the terms interchangeably.

Among those symptoms listed ... are intense fear, helplessness or horror; recurrent nightmares and flashbacks; irritability, anger outbursts, heightened startle response; and avoidance of events, people or places associated with the trauma.

"Fear of recurrence is a universal never-ending worry for parents." Moreover, studies have demonstrated that the toxicity of chemotherapy and radiation can cause secondary cancers and heart disease several years after treatment.

Coping tips for parents

Focus on today and not the future, and on what you can control versus what you cannot.
Recognize depression triggers: anniversaries of a diagnosis, your child's birthday or doctor appointments.
When seeking support, differentiate between those who give it and those who drain your energy.
Reach out to other parents who have a child with a similar diagnosis.
Get involved in an advocacy group for your child's disease.
Set up a website, with an organization such as Caringbridge.com, so that you can control information about your child's health.

Compiled by pediatric oncology social workers at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital

Hannah reads about the insurance biz in London in the 1700s

2011-02-01T07:54:00.002-05:00

Hannah posted this on her facebook wall:

‎"In the feverish London insurance market of the mideighteenth century it was possible to buy insurance against cuckoldry, lying, and even losing at the lottery."

And then pointed out: "Strangely, they had no real notion of risk calculation, so nobody actually took a look at your wife when they offered you the deal."

I have to admit most of our day-to-day posting has moved to facebook, where we can see the faces of the people who read and comment!

[Hannah] No hitting

2011-01-19T23:27:00.004-05:00

At the Amsterdam stock exchange in 1611, it was necessary to announce "verboden om iemand te slaan," it is forbidden to hit anyone. ... It is little wonder that one of the first guides to operating on the floor of any exchange was written in Spanish in 1688 by aa Jewish merchant and dramatist who knew the exchanges in both Amsterdam and Antwerp. It bore the title Confusion de Confusiones.

- Margaret Jacob, Strangers Nowhere in the World

Coconut cocoa oatmeal cookies

2011-01-12T20:18:00.002-05:00

Ezra made this tonight for us to take to Bob and Barb's house (they made a venison roast from a deer Bob shot on our property). Scrumptious, all of it!!

Fudge Coconut Oatmeal Cookies

1/4 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1/4 cup milk
2/3 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup coconut
1-1/2 cups quick oatmeal
salt to taste
1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine first 4 ingredients in large pan, bring to a boil. Boil for a minute, then add all the other ingredients. Stir and drop by spoonfuls on wax paper; chill. Makes about 30.

Google dazes and bores us with empty robotic shouting spammy search results

2011-01-11T07:53:00.007-05:00

Main head: Easy Lizard Pot Pie Recipe
Subhead one: Quick and Easy Lizard Pot Pie Recipe
Subhead two: Quick & Easy Lizard Pot Pie Recipe

Step by step recipe instructions for Quick and Easy Lizard Pot Pie Recipe complete with photographs and reader comments and discussion. Make the best Lizard Pot Pie with this quick and easy recipe. The ultimate comfort food, Lizard pot pies are wonderful, especially on a cold fall or winter day. These Quick and Easy Lizard Pot Pies can be made days in advance and then frozen for later. This is a feel-good meal! It's traditional without a catch but very satisfying, not to mention easy and fast.

This was the google result which finally caused me to snap (actual pot pie ingredient disguised to protect the perpetrator). Life is too short to have to read drek like this. People who put up websites like this defend them: it's the only way to rank high in Google, they say. I say: Then it's high time for something other than google (two alternatives listed below).

So I, uh, Googled the topic and found many cranky fellow sufferers:

Vivek Wadhwa: Google has become a jungle: a tropical paradise for spammers and marketers. Almost every search takes you to websites that want you to click on links that make them money, or to sponsored sites that make Google money. ... When you visit these sites, they take you to the websites of other companies that want to sell you their goods. (The spammers get paid for every click.)

Paul Kedrosky: The entire web is spam when it comes to appliance reviews... Pages and pages of Google results that are just, for practical purposes, advertisements in the loose guise of articles... Content creators are simply using Google against itself, feeding its hungry crawlers the sort of thing that Google loves to consume, to the detriment of search results and utility.

Marco: I've been frustrated as well by Google's apparent defeat by spam. It's not a sudden issue — it's been gradually worsening ... the impact of spam — mostly affiliate marketing and auto-generated splogs — has decimated the usefulness of the "product research" category. It's impossible to do any meaningful product research with Google.

Part of what exacerbates this is the apparent explosion recently of cheap-"content" sites that try to answer every search query ever asked. ... sites like About.com, eHow, and countless clones with .info domain names that promise to address every niche question and informational topic, but whose content lacks all quality and substance. Searching Google is now like asking a question in a crowded flea market of hungry, desperate, sleazy salesmen who all claim to have the answer to every question you ask.

"Hey, anyone know how to wire an outlet?"

"Did you say ‘how to wire an outlet'?"
"I can help you with how to wire an outlet!"
"Here is info on how to wire an outlet!"
"Bargain prices on how to wire an outlet!"
"Guide to wiring outlets in New York, right here!"

Jonathan Christopher: How many times within the past six months have you had to sift through the first page of Google search results, making your way through scraped content and a rabbit hole of affiliate links to finally find the resource you were looking for? ... Advertising is a sneaky world, marketing is a sneaky world, I just want them to stop wasting my time.

Bob Warfield: Google's webmaster guidelines say, "Google will take action against domains that try to rank more highly by just showing scraped or other auto-generated pages that don't add any value to users." Here is the thing, folks: Google profits from at least some of these spammy sites. ... do you really think the brilliant minds at Google can't cut out some of this spam if they really wanted to? ... Google brings them traffic and conveniently monetizes it while they're at it.

Google offers us a Spam Report Form but neither they nor we have the time to empty the ocean with an eyedropper.

Here are two alternative search engines: Blekko.com and duckduckgo.com. I'm going to be giving each of them a try.

One chicken house disaster diagnosed, others pop up in its place.

2011-01-11T06:18:00.004-05:00

We lost a lot of chickens this winter and I finally figured out why: I was trying to keep them warm in their coop by leaving a light on all night (this also keeps them laying eggs in the short-daylight months). But the light inside the coop was shining out on the ground somewhat, fooling the chickens into thinking it wasn't curfew yet - while the Teutonic VSB Electronic Doorkeeper made no exceptions and closed at the correct time. Chickens, by ones and twos, were left outside and eaten in the night. (Ez compares this to the astronauts in sci-fi movies who get shut out of the air-lock and float screaming off into the dark of space.)

Now, however, the door has suddenly stopped working and I don't know enough about it to trouble-shoot. I fear I'll have to send it back to Foy's Pigeon Supplies, whence it came...

And, also now: the chicken-house light circuit is shorting out over and over in wet weather. We replaced the circuit-breaker and on the advice of my long-suffering electrician-music partner Bob I disconnected the addition I'd made to the circuit and that didn't help...

And, also also: recent ice and snow snapped the screws off Jethro's tarp roof, bending its supports into nigh-pretzels. Ez and I went out yesterday and did a rather bogus repair.

Livestock: one step forward and two steps back.

Two favorite cards by Mary Engelbreit

2011-01-10T20:47:00.003-05:00

I don't believe these cards by Engelbreit are still available - one has been in my possession since the 1980s and reminds me of my own gift-giving technique...

The other just came to my housemate Mitzi from a friend sympathizing with the unexpected turn her life has taken...

In which I go to the "Jam Session" held by the Really Terrible Orchestra Of The Triangle (RTOOT)

2011-01-09T20:09:00.012-05:00

It's been 37 years or so since I played in an orchestra; I call myself a refugee from classical music, having run away for maybe these three reasons:

Dislike of being told when to play up-bow and when to play down-bow;
Less than compelling repertoire;
The competitive attitude permeating most violin sections.

However, hankering to play more fiddle (that's to say, more than zero, the amount I play when my bands aren't rehearsing), I decided to check out the Really Terrible Orchestra of the Triangle Jam Session.

Pictured above: the Bond Park Community Center, which is where the orchestra rehearses and which exemplifies the ghastly architecture of Cary. There are 1,000s buildings like this in Cary, with horrible green roofs and beige walls, surrounded with huge swaths of driveways.

Conductor W. Sands Hobgood is at the right in this picture, taken as the group was assembling this afternoon. He is the soft-spoken fellow who created RTOOT and sets the non-competitive, self-deprecating tone of the group (which really isn't that bad at all).

While I don't think RTOOT is a good fit for me, the session today left me very thoughtful - maybe it's time to ease back into classical music in some way - though I'm still very happy playing (and sort of creating) folk music that suits my heart. Maybe it's time to try a string quartet again?

I STILL hate Intuit's Quicken - so I've migrated to Moneydance.

2011-01-08T18:03:00.006-05:00

Three years ago I wrote through clenched teeth about Quicken, detestable software by Intuit when the company notified me that the three years they permit their software to function were soon ending and I now HAD TO "UPGRADE" AND BUY A NEW VERSION if I wanted it to continue working.

Three years ago when I wrote the previous post, I couldn't figure out how to avoid buying the new version. I got Quicken 2008 very reluctantly and found it more bloated and buggy than the Quicken 2005 it replaced, with no new features I wanted to use...

...and Quicken 2005 was, in its day, worse and slower than the older version it replaced.

Quicken is one of the few software programs that just continues to get worse and worse year after year. With little competition (even Microsoft Money is getting its plug pulled this year!) Intuit has had a nigh-monopoly and hence can squeeze its consumers with greedy delight.

Well, I finally snapped and spent several hours yesterday migrating to a new program, Moneydance personal finance software. It's not way cheap ($50, though you can get a 20% discount fairly easily) but it doesn't sundown your software connection to the internet.

I like it - it's fast, intuitive (once you get over your Quicken habits), puts no advertisements on your desktop, and doesn't nag you to buy more stuff.

So if you hate Quicken too, I recommend Moneydance as a worthy replacement. If you have other ideas please leave them in the comments for others who come along grinding their teeth over Intuit Quicken and its avaricious policies.

Bon mot from Jacob Dineson.

2010-12-20T20:48:00.003-05:00

Speaking of the drunken matchmaker (Fishl) and the unhappy lad he has just signed up to marry a wrinkled, yellowed old maid:

Fishl, of course, forgot Alter immediately after the engagement party, just as the gravedigger forgets the corpse immediately after the burial...

Baking twice in one day: coconut walnut chocolate bars!

2010-12-17T21:05:00.004-05:00

A vestigial feeling for Christmas compels me to bake at this dark time of year. My high-school sophomore friend Menticia and I made these today for her family.

Chocolate coconut walnut bars

10 tablespoons of butter coarsely grated
3 tablespoons sugar
1-1/4 cups flour
2 eggs
1 cup dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons flour
1-1/2 cup shredded coconut
1 cup toasted walnuts (whole or pieces or chopped)
1 cup (or more) semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix first three ingredients to sandy crumbles and press into a lasagna pan. Bake for about 15 minutes until lightly browned.

Meanwhile, mix the eggs, sugar, vanilla, salt very thoroughly. Add baking powder and flour and blend well. Add coconut, walnuts, and chips and blend well.

Pour onto the hot crust and spread evenly. Bake for about 20 minutes.

Today's Molasses Peanut Butter Cookies

2010-12-17T10:06:00.002-05:00

Last night as my housemate and I were enjoying being in the warm house while "wintry mix" was occurring outside, I got a call from my son Ezra: after his long shift at work, he'd crossed the howling tundra through the wintry mix, heaved his groceries into the car and plopped into the driver's seat with a sigh, and turned the key and - nothing.

He got a friend to jump his battery - nothing. He called me and what an amazement! Just that very day his new AAA card had arrived - I signed us up on the 2-for-1 plan. How often does that happen? So he called triple A and they came and they installed a new battery and he made it home.

But since he'd never called me after that first call, and his phone was out of juice, I thought he was still out shivering in the cold unable to solve his problem, perhaps with a busted starter or alternator or something.

So I called Bob Vasile, who has become a sort of uncle to Ez, and he pried himself up out of his cozy chair and went out in the wintry mix to save Ez. Who was gone, because he'd solved his own problem.

So, in gratitude, I just cooked these cookies for Bob. I kind of invented the recipe because the one I always use in the "Joy of Cooking" isn't very good, it's dry and crumbly. This one is more interesting. I would make it again.

MOLASSES PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES

1/2 c. butter, mostly melted in microwave
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. molasses (not blackstrap)
2/3 c. chunky peanut butter
1 egg
1-1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

Beat together the first five ingredients and whip well. Add the rest of the ingredients and whip some more. Cook at 360 degrees for as long as you like. (Bob likes them a little burnt.)

There are still a few real farms in Orange County NC

2010-12-14T16:10:00.005-05:00

Today I visited Roger Tate's farm in Efland, NC. For a few years he has been supplying the orchardgrass hay Jethro and Superman hoover down every day. I feel much better about this than the hay I bought that was trucked in from New York state. I haven't tried it myself but I can see Jethro and Superman find it quite tasty.

The Tate family has been farming in this area for more than 200 years; Roger and his father transitioned from tobacco to hay and then grass-fed beef several years ago. They also have chickens.

Under the name Harmony Hill Farm, Roger Tate and his wife Lisa are getting into CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). (My daughter Hannah was a member of a CSA coop in New York City.) People pay a certain flat fee (this coming year the fee at Roger's farm is $500) and this pre-payment allows the farming to begin. Then, every week for 24 weeks subscribers get a box of produce grown on the farm. For locavores who don't have the time for a lot of gardening, there's no better arrangement.

Email Harmony Hill Farm or call 336-269-1172 to get further information and sign up. You can also "friend" Harmony Hill Farm on Facebook.

A different December

2010-12-11T07:33:00.002-05:00

Though I generally don't believe in other people's mysterious ailments, I do believe in my own, which happily now has a name, seasonal affective disorder, but which has filled me with horror, despair and a feeling of infinite bleakness since I was a kid and they hadn't invented it yet. I've tried the lamps and mild anti-depressants but the shadows still start to get long in what should be the middle of the afternoon and I feel like retreating to a small corner of my room with a pillow over my head by about 6 pm.

Maybe this is why I came to fear and loathe the end-of-year so-called celebrations (Christmas, New Year, my birthday) and to feel anybody who could distract me from the misery was my hero. My first true love rescued me at this time of year, I walked three miles to a highway exit to have him pick me up and spirit me away from my home full of horror, despair, and the feeling of infinite bleakness.

This year I've been rescued in an entirely different way. My beloved son has, after all his travails, come back to live here for at least a while (I hope a long while). Bob Vasile and I have been fitting out the studio across the driveway for him and he's moved into it so at night I see the gentle light from his window - and he comes up here for meals and fun.

Also, a dear long-time friend - who's known me since Ezra was a baby - has also moved in as she adjusts to life without her long-time husband. I hope she'll stay a long time too. She has a sense of order which calms me and she sponges a counter equally as well as my perhaps-last-ever sweetheart Eric did. She has a robust enjoyment of the world and talking to her is like visiting a sunnier country. She's social and we've already had one party and soon will have another! We share books and desultory conversations over tea.

Even better, she and Ezra really enjoy each others' company and I love to listen to them chatting and cracking each other up at night over a shared beer.

I feel blessed to have them here.

Pictures of animals in snow around my house

2010-12-10T09:03:00.004-05:00

My housemate Mitzi took these...

[Hannah]: I Don't Need a Bath, Just a New Shirt.

2010-11-30T20:47:00.003-05:00

For a long time, if an individual smelt, that meant he was strong and prosperous, as many proverbs testify. Plague was combated with the mustiness of night soil, dungheaps at the door did not inconvenience anyone and showed how well-off a household was... People feared losing their strength in bathwater if they washed too much, and babies grew all the better if they had a thick crust of dirt on their heads. Taking warm baths was linked to lasciviousness.... To conclude, the French, associating a strong smell with good health, kept up a long-lasting collective distrust regarding all ablutions...

Two great movements are observable ... between the seventeenth century and the nineteenth. On the one hand, the civilisation of manners gradually imposed on everyone some new constraints in bodily habits. On the other, the consumption of water remained stable for a long time, whereas that of linen increased in line with the standards of the new propriety.

- Daniel Roche, A History of Everyday Things

Call your congress people right now to support the DREAM Act! It's time! Right now!

2010-11-30T10:32:00.007-05:00

The DREAM Act is coming up for a vote perhaps this week. If it doesn't pass now, how will it possibly pass after the changing of the guard? I know a lot of great kids who came to America when they were very young. They want to grow up and go to college and become wonderful members of our society. They want to be nurses, teachers, they want to serve in the armed forces. Why would our country not want these kids, their gifts and energy, enriching our communities?

I called my Congressman David Price: 202-225-1784 and our senators, Hagan 202-224-6342 and Burr (202) 224-3154. You can call ANY congressperson and they will give you the phone numbers for your own congress folks and the calls just take a minute.

From change.org:

Each year, about 65,000 U.S.-raised students who would qualify for the DREAM Act graduate from high school. These include honor roll students, star athletes, talented artists, homecoming queens, and aspiring teachers, doctors, and U.S. soldiers. They are young people who have lived in the U.S. for most of their lives and desire only to call this country their home. Even though they were brought to the U.S. years ago as children, they face unique barriers to higher education, are unable to work legally in the United States, and often live in constant fear of detection by immigration authorities.

Our immigration laws currently have no mechanism to consider the special equities and circumstances of such students. The DREAM Act would eliminate this flaw. It is un-American to indefinitely and irremediably punish immigrant youth for decisions made by adults many years ago. By enacting the DREAM Act, Congress would legally recognize what is de facto true: these young people belong here. DREAM Act students should be allowed to get on with their lives.

If Congress fails to act this year, another entire class of outstanding, law-abiding high school students will graduate without being able to plan for the future, and some will be removed from their homes to countries they barely know. This tragedy will cause America to lose a vital asset: an educated class of promising immigrant students who have demonstrated a commitment to hard work and a strong desire to be contributing members of our society.

Let's bring these students out of the shadows, out from underground. Tell President Obama and Congress to pass the DREAM Act in 2010. Talented students and their families living in fear of raids and ripped apart by deportations, cannot afford to wait for change.

And from allvoices.com:

Give me the DREAM Act in the lame duck session, says Obama

After a year of unfulfilled hopes and promises of immigration reform, it might finally be time for dreams to come true. Delivering on the promise he made during his hard-fought re-election campaign, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid announced on Wednesday that he will bring the DREAM Act up for vote (as a stand-alone measure) during the final days of the 111th Congress.

While this is not the first time that Sen. Reid has made such an commitment, this time the announcement comes with the added backing of President Obama. Obama has always been a supporter of the DREAM Act, but has never publicly or actively worked on pushing for it to be passed. This is why it came as a surprise when he told Democrats on Tuesday that he wanted the DREAM Act passed during the lame duck session of Congress

Passage of the DREAM Act is achievable right now. With the White House, Majority Leader Harry Reid, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and every Democratic Leader in the House and Senate pulling in the same direction, we can pass the DREAM Act before the end of the 111th Congress.

In which talisman maker Rabbi Azulai fails his customer, Dragan Janjić

2010-11-29T09:07:00.004-05:00

In March 2009 Google served me an ad from kabalatalisman.com and I posted quotes from the rabbi's website on my blog. Imagine, a guy that old knowing how to use Google AdWords!

Last week a dissatisfied Azulai customer, Dragan Janjić, posted a complaint about the $360 he paid the Rabbi for failed talismans. I feel he should be heard. So if you already know all about Reb Azulai and his talismans, scroll down to read the piteous tale of his customer Dragan.

Rabbi Azulai takes the negative energy of the curse and transforms it to a pure and loving positive energy. This profound healing method identifies the patterns that are causing imbalance and effectively releases them at the core level.

The rabbi asserts that he is being possessed by mystical powers such as the ability to "connect with the world of truth". The rabbi describes this ability as a unique gift that only few people possess.

The Rabbi empowers you to feel better about yourself and your life and activates your innate ability to create wholeness, wellness and balance in your body, mind and spirit. This healing experience will also assist you to get in touch, at a deeper level, with your soul's mission and achieve joy, fulfillment, and contentment.

Rabbi Azulai's scroll is written on a kosher parchment and includes many virtues and Solomon signatories that have the power to ensure success in all aspects of life. In addition to spiritual elevation, Rabbi Azulai can provide you with good health, partnership, love, fertility, protection from evil eye and from black magic and ultimately anything you may ask for.

The scroll is personal and is written by a personal order. It is written in hand writing and with a special kosher ink over a deer skin.

The Talisman provides you protection, prevents poverty and improves your economical situation. It brings luck and happiness and also used against the evil eye and sadness. It sharpens your intuition. Beyond encouraging wealth, it also intensifies your personality, your charisma, your self-confidence and abilities while promoting success and prosperity in many fields.

Are you a victim of voodoo and black magic spells ? Would you like to be protected from evil eye, voodoo spells and black magic curses ? Voodoo is a powerful mystical practice that can cause disruption to your financial holdings, ability to make money and achieve your goals. It is also believed by many spiritual healers that voodoo spells and dolls can harm one's health, create negative energies and conflicts, take away the joy of life and even break up relationships.

Regardless of your background and spiritual beliefs, the ancient art of Voodoo can find its way to hurt you and sabotage your happiness. Once a spell has been cast on you, your soul, mind and spirit will never be the same again. The power of a black magic/ Voodoo spell can damage your life in a matter of seconds and without professional help your life, career and contentment could seriously be damaged.

After 30 years of practicing the Kabbalah and writing numerous talismans, Rabbi Azulai was able to craft a special protection talisman that holds all the secretes to the Kabbalah. The talisman is constructed according to the specific conditions and instructions delineated in various holy works to track the source of evil from the voodoo religion.

Once, a man came to Rabbi Azulai terrified and crying, claiming that nothing is going right in his life. His health was deteriorating and he felt as if there was no longer a reason for him to live. The Rabbi looked at him and told him that an evil eye curse has been surrounding him for many years. Horrified by the rabbi's words, the man wondered what he should do. To resolve the man's problems, Rabbi Azulai wrote him a talisman and told him to bring a glass of water. When the man came back, the Rabbi dipped the talisman inside the glass and told the man to drink the water. The man did so and since then he has been successful and healthy.

This week, Dragan Janjić, an employee of Radio & Television in Montenegro, posted the following on my Rabbi Azulai post. (Moshe is, evidently, the rabbi's assistant.)

Moshe, unfortunately, the time confirmed my doubts about the success of Rabbi's talisman.

My position in Radio and Television of Montenegro is becoming increasingly difficult. Mobbing managers above me are left to receptionists and physical security of radio and television that we often make it impossible to enter and exit the buildings making up the formal obstacles.

The Administration does not issue me an electronic card that I was forcefully abducted just before I was illegally fired 2008.

The Administration does not issue me an electronic card with which an employee enters and exits the building Radio and Television by me forcibly abducted from the same security agents shortly before I was illegally fired 2008th.

In vain I sought to be appealed to the competent inspection ...

So, after months of wearing your talisman I perceive only the deterioration of my living and working conditions.

At the beginning of our communication, I warned you that the $300 is the big money for local conditions in Montenegro! Do not even talk about the two prayers of the $30 with no results!

I have hopes in knowledge and talent of Rabbi David Azulai…

Sincerely disappointed,
D. J.

Jethro the donkey does breakfast yoga

2010-11-22T09:33:00.002-05:00

Doesn't anybody remember May Sarton's book "The Fur Person," in which her cat does "cat yoga" - concentrating all its energies so that somebody will come by and open the door. Well? Every morning when we wake up, Jethro is staring through the window concentrating his forces on the first person standing. Breakfast. Breakfast. Breakfast.

But note that Superman the miniature horse has the opposite approach. He is concentrating on the back fence hoping a hole will appear in it and he can escape and eat the neighbor's back lawns.

What the poor state of American manufactury has reduced me to.

2010-11-16T09:15:00.002-05:00

This is how to fix a toaster when the catch doesn't work any more.

"I Can't Complain (But Sometimes I Still Do) got a huge review in the Yiddish Forward!!

2010-11-11T20:32:00.006-05:00

My Yiddish teacher, Sheva Zucker, gave me this copy of Itsik Gottesman's review of the cd Aviva Enoch and I just made. He is editor of the Jewish Forverts.

Here's what he wrote:

From the town of Chapel Hill in the state of North Carolina we have received a cd of Yiddish songs with the charming name, "I Can't Complain - but sometimes I still do" (Ikh darf zikh nisht baklogn, ober baklog zikh fundestvegn). Jane Peppler sings and plays fiddle and Aviva Enoch plays piano. Chapel Hill is more known as the home of the University of North Carolina, and the state of North Carolina is a center of traditional American music - but it's no longer a surprise to hear a Yiddish word from there. It's been taught for years at the university, and the annual "Charlotte Yiddish Institute" has become an important undertaking in the Yiddish culture calendar.

Jane Peppler began to sing Yiddish songs in 1979. She directed the Triangle Jewish Chorale for 14 years. Before that, she participated in the Slavic chorus at Yale University and also played violin in the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Yale School of Music. She is interested in folk music from around the world and is now a musician in "Mappamundi," a group which plays international folk music.

Peppler studies Yiddish with Dr. Sheva Zucker and has already translated a number of stories and Jacob Dineson's classic novel "Yosele." She learned some of the songs on the compact disc at KlezKamp, which takes place in the Catskill Mountains every December, in the Vocal Master Classes with the teachers Zalmen Mlotek and Adrienne Cooper.

The recording's greatest virtues are the selection of songs and the well-tailored folkish arrangements. We liked that the duo presented songs from various genres: songs which are rarely sung and even more rarely recorded. But information about the songs, lyricists and composers is lacking in the recording's liner notes, and even on the website.

This is the first time we have heard the songs "Zing, Brider, Zing" (Sing, brothers, sing) and "Birobidzhan." The melody for "Birobidzhan" is utterly beautiful and the piano and fiddle twine in and out, creating a noble spirit. The usual songs about Birobidzhan are faster and more jolly, but this song, full of hope for tomorrow, has a completely different sentiment.

Itsik Fefer's song "Di Elter" (Old Age) was also new to us - we knew it only with the melody Chava Alberstein created and recorded with the Klezmatics on the recording "The Well."

Peppler composed a fine original melody for the folk song "Hob Ikh Mir a Mantl" (I Have a Coat) and added a new verse to the song "Gris, Bagris" (Greet, greet) which Lazar Veyner and Leybush Lerer created for Camp Boyberik in the 1920s. She learned the song from Zalmen Mlotek at KlezKamp. Another original composition is "Hilda's Waltz" by the pianist Aviva Enoch - it's the only instrumental piece on the compact disc.

They learned "Don un Donye" (verses by H. Royzenblat, music by Mikhl Gelbart) from the songbook "Pearls of Yiddish Song" by Hannah and Yosl Mlotek. Jane Peppler clearly loves folksongs or art songs like "Don un Donye" which have a folklike character. The duo doesn't, however, avoid theater songs - like Molly Picon's "A Bisl Libe" (A Little Love) by Josef Rumshinski, which comes from the theater production "Tsipke" of 1924. The Milkin Archive contains the song in its collection, sung by a singer with a strong voice and an orchestral accompaniment. Peppler's simpler version also has charm.

The comic folksong "Fraytig oyf der nakht" (Friday night) was very popular in the "old country" and it's a pleasure to hear it with Enokh's piano accompaniment. Peppler's voice rushes a bit too quickly here; her voice is not strong or trained enough for this tempo. It would be better sung more slowly and sweetly. In "Harbstlid" by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, she sings with heart, but also too quickly.

On the other hand, when one hears the prayer "Got fun Avrom", sung without accompaniment, and "Bobenyu," in which she sings more slowly, one feels clearly that the singer doesn't strain and she sings these songs as they should be sung.

The recording concludes with the theater song "Glik" (Luck), Fefer and Yampolski's "Yidishe Khasene" (Jewish wedding), and a Hebrew song, "Ta-am Haman."

Jane Peppler and Aviva Enoch have worked carefully on their arrangements, and the two musicians capably present the songs. One wants to hear them again.

Since the majority of compact discs these days emphasize klezmer music, and not Yiddish songs, it's wonderful to hear a recording like this, which expresses such love of the Yiddish word and song.

Click here to go to the Skylark Productions site and buy the album.

[Hannah]: philosophy?

2010-11-08T15:09:00.002-05:00

Found by a friend on a male dorm room wall at Yale. Who knew graffiti by college-age men could be so domestic?

[Hannah]: everyone gets defensive

2010-11-03T12:51:00.003-05:00

"To the Soure Reader"

If thou dislik'st the Piece thou light'st on first;
Thinke that of All, that I have writ, the worst:
But if thou read'st my Book unto the end,
And still do'st this, and that verse, reprehend:
O Perverse man! If All disgustfull be,
The Extreame Scabbe take thee, and thine, for me.

-Robert Herrick, Hesperides, quoted in Adrian Johns, The Nature of the Book.

[Hannah]: the Federalist

2010-11-01T22:34:00.002-05:00

"Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency planning it."

- Alexander Hamilton

Protest sign from sanity rally

2010-10-30T16:55:00.000-05:00

In which Menticia and I make delicious tv-dinner style baked chicken breasts

2010-10-30T07:43:00.003-05:00

Menticia and I finally finished reading "The Lovely Bones" in Spanish (it's called 'Desde mi cielo') and as a reward to ourselves we made dinner, then watched the movie as we ate. Completing my nostalgia moment, we had Pepperidge Farm turnovers for dessert (a favorite from my childhood). This was the main course.

Oven-fried (oven baked) chicken tv-dinner style

1-1/2 cups buttermilk
1-2 tablespoons mustard
1/2 teaspoon of whatever spice you like: we chose blackened creole mix
1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
3 minced cloves of garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 pounds of skinless boneless chicken breasts
2 cups panko bread crumbs
3 tablespoons oil
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and put a cake-cooling (or other kind of) rack on the aluminum foil. Spray the rack with cooking spray.

Our package of chicken had three big breasts in it. We put each in a plastic grocery bag, smashed it flat (so it was the same thickness throughout), and then cut it in half so we had six pieces.

In a smallish lasagna pan we whisked the first six ingredients together, put in the six flattened pieces of chicken breast, and went off to watch "The Lovely Bones" for an hour while the chicken marinated.

We whirred the bread crumbs in the food processor with the oil and salt and pepper and put this dry mix on a plate. We lifted the pieces of chicken out of the marinade and coated them with the dry topping (don't put on a ton - just enough to cover), then gently laid them on the rack.

Bake for about 25 minutes.

Aviva Enoch and Jane Peppler cd release and Hannukah party - concert November 21 at Temple Beth El in Durham

2010-10-28T18:51:00.004-05:00

Jeez, I've been very busy lately and I want to write about it, but first I wanted to say, if you're around here please come to our concert. Hanukkah is very early this year. We'll have cds for sale, and also songbooks of various kinds, and a klezmer tunebook.

Freylach Time, a local klezmer band, will be joining us, and also Bob Vasile of the Pratie Heads.

Call 383-8952 for more info.

[Hannah]: Adam Smith

2010-10-27T22:20:00.002-05:00

"What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, who is out of debt, and who has a clear conscience?"
- Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments

In which Ezra, Superman, Jethro and I explore our new domain

2010-10-20T16:24:00.005-05:00

Quite a few years ago I was unsuccessfully sued by the owner of this piece of land-locked land which abuts my property - he wanted to put a driveway from his place onto my driveway so he could develop this parcel.

He was an extremely elderly African American man who told me his grandmother had received the property after the Civil War and that she had never had road access to it - she walked in along the railroad tracks.

His son had the land logged a few years ago, and this week he called me and offered the property at a very good price, so I bought it.

Today Ez and I took Superman and Jethro on a tour. We found the foundation and hitched the equids to trees so we could explore it (Jethro immediately tied himself in knots around hist tree). We admired the chimney of the grandmother's cabin, and some rusted pots that might have been hers.

In all, we found four deer stands (one of which had many apples and handfuls of corn strewn around it, immediately gobbled by our companions). Also rusted things that have been used as target practice and a 4-wheeler trail.

Green roof housebuilding in Norway

2010-10-15T10:02:00.001-05:00

What about bugs and mud falling in your soup? From Amusing Planet.

The death of CDs contemplated, as I complete another one. Will it be the last?

2010-10-08T20:16:00.004-05:00

In about a week, my latest cd (see below this box) will be coming back from Oasis Disk Manufacturing. I didn't order very many because look:

Best Buy Finally Figures Out People Don't Buy CDs: Reacting to fading sales in most types of disc-based entertainment, Best Buy plans to slash shelf space for CDs and DVDs, making room for things that sell better, which encompasses just about everything else at Best Buy.
...
RIP, CD: Best Buy to Cut CDs, DVDs: Retail giant Best Buy (BBY) is set to slash the store space it allocates to compact discs and DVDs this holiday season, in a tacit acknowledgment that those products are going the way of the buggy whip... It's the latest blow for the beleaguered compact disc, increasingly viewed as a throwback to a former era.

CD Sales Plummet To Worst In Decades: Nielsen Soundscan data shows that CD sales have plummeted to the lowest numbers the industry has ever seen.

For years music fans would hear a song they like, and then proceed to buy the CD because that was their only option to own the song. Now, fans can log onto iTunes, Amazon, or even right on their mobile phone and download just the song that they want. Why spend $12 when you can just spend $0.99?

Is the death of the CD looming? "Show me a teenager buying a Susan Boyle album on CD and I'll show you someone buying a gift for their grandparent -- for Christmas ... There is definitely an age component to the consumption of music."

There's no sense moaning about it.

You can't even buy a cd player to go with your stereo system at Walmart any more - there are only dvd units which happen to also play cds (but not very well);
Everybody I know is downloading music. Nobody I know is buying cds.
Anybody who happens for some odd reason to buy a cd immediately rips the tracks onto a computer or iPod or something.

Anyway, this my new album, I made it with pianist Aviva Enoch, you can buy it if you're of a mind to: I Can't Complain but sometimes I still do - Yiddish songs - available from Skylark Productions - which is to say, I'll stick one in an envelope and put a stamp on it and mail it to you. It's a cottage industry.

There are boxes of probably never-to-be-sold cds in my attic (a.k.a. the Skylark Productions warehouse); there were boxes of cassettes up there for a decade before I got up the energy to throw them away...

I'm trying to go with the flow. You can buy most of my stuff as mp3 downloads on Amazon - Mappamundi and Pratie Heads in the mp3 section - and as of today I've succeeded in getting one of Skylark Productions albums on iTunes, more to follow. Here it is: New Hope Harmony a capella gospel on iTunes!

I can see good things about this. We could make "albums" that never existed in a physical form - just record a bunch of tracks, paint a cover, and zip them right up on to the internet!

Also, these days, they say, music is like a utility, like water that pours out of a faucet, people want a lot of it and don't really think about where it comes from - so does that mean nobody will care that the wonderful a cappella gospel group New Hope Harmony hasn't actually existed for many years? I have a lot of great old music in my attic - it would be fun if a bunch of people who maybe weren't even around when we made it might hear it again some day.

Hanukkah is early this year! Get your Mappamundi Klezmer Tunebook now!!

2010-10-06T12:17:00.003-05:00

While I'm waiting for "I Can't Complain" to come back from the printer, I decided I was tired of having stacks of old klezmer tune charts around the house, because we never can find the right one when we need it. So I put ALL our favorite tunes, all the ones we play at weddings, festivals and concerts, into this book.

You can buy it, with a coil-binding so it opens nicely on a music stand, at lulu.com: The Mappamundi Klezmer Tunebook. I set the price as low as I could (12.90), coil binding is expensive. I can buy a large coke and a McDouble hamburger for what I make when you buy a book! But it would make me happy to have it out there. Great Hannukah present!

In which we play at a rally for Pedro Perez Guzman, unlawfully detained in Lumpkin GA by Janet Napolitano's ICE

2010-09-30T08:03:00.012-05:00

On Tuesday Bob and I (the Pratie Heads) played at a rally at Moore Square in Raleigh. It was in support of the case of Pedro Perez Guzman, who was grabbed by angry Immigration police in front of his son and jailed. He has been in Lumpkin, Georgia for almost a year, and, as was pointed out at the rally, instead of being the law-abiding working taxpayer he used to be, he now costs the government at least a hundred dollars a day to keep him idle, far from his wife and 3-year-old son.

I was nervous because we had learned most of the songs specially for the occasion - I wish I'd had time to memorize them - but I think they went ok.

Here is Logan Guzman, who was woken up when the ICE banged on the door yelling at 4 in the morning and was present when his father was grabbed. His mom took him to visit once but they were not allowed to be in the room with him, they only saw him on tv, and Logan fell apart and had a meltdown.

Emily asks that we please sign this Free Pedro Guzman petition.

Here's Logan with his mom Emily. Instead of my trying to paraphrase the situation Guzman finds himself in, I direct you to their website: Logan's Dad. I admit I think our immigrants make this country a much better place, and so even if Pedro were illegal I would be in support of his release. But the fact is, he is here legally and was nabbed due to bureaucratic error which the grinding behemoth of government has been in no hurry to fix.

The call to action: Emily asks that if you're the calling sort of person,

You can call the Secretary and Assistant Secretary of DHS to ask for Pedro's release. Please be polite! Even though this case is maddening, anger and aggression will hurt our case! Below is a script of what you can say.

"My name is ____________ and I am calling on behalf of Pedro Perez Guzman, A#072540471. He has been detained by immigration for almost a year. It has caused severe and unneeded pain and suffering to his American born wife and 3 year old son. I am asking that you defer his deportation and release Pedro to be reunited with his family. Thank you."

Secretary Janet Napolitano: 202-282-8495

Assistant Secretary John Morton: 202-732-3000

Or, if you prefer letters,

You can write an original letter asking Secretary Napolitano to defer Pedro's deportation or you can use the form letter below.

You should send it via fax AND snail mail.

You can fax to:
Attention Secretary Napolitano, Department of Homeland Security
703-235-0854

The letter should sent snail mail and would be addressed to:
Secretary Janet Napolitano
Department of Homeland Security
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Washington, DC 20528

It would be great if you could EMAIL me a copy: info@logansdad.org

FORM LETTER

Dear Secretary Janet Napolitano,

Pedro Perez Guzman ( A#072540471) has been in this country since he was 8 years old. He has been detained in Stewart Detention Center by ICE for 11 months. This detention has caused trauma and severe economic stress to his American born wife and 3 year old son. Pedro qualifies for NACARA and previously had a work visa in the US for many, many years. Many of his family members are now naturalized citizens and permanent residents due to NACARA. He is a hardworking, compassionate, and honest man and he does not deserve to be detained. I am a US born, voting citizen and I am asking you to defer his deportation and release Pedro Perez Guzman so that he can be reunited with his wife and 3 year old son that love him and miss him terribly.

Sincerely,

Your signature here
Your name here
Your email address here
Your city, Your state and zip code here

Or, if all you're up for is clicking mouse buttons, you can sign an online petition or two... Sign the change.org petition requesting more humane treatment for detainees.

Pratie Heads at the rally for Pedro Perez Guzman, today 5pm in Raleigh

2010-09-28T07:29:00.003-05:00

Bob Vasile and I are singing today at 5 pm in Moores Square in Raleigh at the rally for Pedro Perez Guzman, one of many people who have gotten stuck in a mire of conflicting immigration agencies, officials, and regulations, and who has now spent an entire year at a detention center in Lumpkin Georgia, away from his wife and young son.

You can read more about it here: Pedro's story. excerpt:

Pedro was only 8 years old when he entered the United States. Approximately 3 years ago, Pedro's mother went in to the immigration office for her permanent residency interview. Our biggest mistake, in hindsight, was not sending a lawyer with her. She is older and her memory is not great. In the interview, she made a mistake and was denied permanent residency.

Pedro was then sent a Notice to Appear in Court by immigration authorities ... they sent the Notice to Appear to the wrong address even though they had the correct address... when he did not appear to the court date, because he did not receive the order to appear in court, he was issued an order of deportation.

On Friday September 25, 2009, at 4am, there was a loud banging on the door and someone shouting, "Police! Open up!" ... Logan, our 3 year old son, was terrified and traumatized... [later] they handcuffed him and told us that they were from ICE and they would be detaining him because of an order of deportation... Pedro was able to give Logan one kiss and say goodbye.

Pedro was first detained in Wake County jail. After one day, he was transferred to Alamance County jail... for about a month... [and was] transferred to Georgia.

Six weeks later immigration authorities admitted their mistake (sending vital information to the wrong address) and agreed to reopen the case and stay his deportation temporarily until a final decision about the case.

On December 15, 2009, the judge stated that he did not believe that Pedro was eligible for relief under Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central Relief Act (NACARA), did not want to entertain Pedro’s case for immigration relief, and denied him bond. [later] our attorney showed me the statute in the immigration law that clearly stated that Pedro was eligible... The judge then proceeded to tell us that he still did not believe that Pedro was eligible for NACARA and that his final decision was to deport Pedro.

On May 9, 2010, the appeal for the final decision on Pedro’s eligibility to stay in the U.S. was filed to the Board of Immigration Appeals. We are waiting for the decision about the appeal of the final decision to deport Pedro.

Also read: humane alternatives to detention centers.

New Yiddish cd "I Can't Complain..."

2010-09-24T08:11:00.005-05:00

"... but sometimes, I still do." It was lots of fun working with pianist Aviva Enoch. We recorded her piano tracks at Jerry Brown's Rubber Room, then I took the tracks home and edited them and sang my parts at home and then stuck everything on a flash drive and went back to the Rubber Room for mastering. (I am also entering this picture in Illustration Friday for this week's prompt, "Old Fashioned.") Click the picture to order or here: Yiddish songs cd I Can't Complain but sometimes I still do

[Hannah]: quotes continue

2010-09-23T23:30:00.002-05:00

"One must be an inventor to read well."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson, explaining that you shouldn't just let yourself be a book zombie.

[Hannah]: stole this from Terry

2010-09-20T22:27:00.001-05:00

"Everyone complains of his lack of memory but no one of his lack of judgment."

La Rochefoucauld, Maxims

[Hannah]: Thomas Paine

2010-09-20T15:17:00.002-05:00

"I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it."

- Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

[Hannah]: "So Convenient a Thing it is to be a Reasonable Creature"

2010-09-15T10:06:00.002-05:00

from Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography:

I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first voyage from Boston, being becalm'd off Block Island, our people set about catching cod, and hauled up a great many.

Hitherto I had stuck to my resolution of not eating animal food, and on this occasion consider'd, with my master Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked murder, since none of them had, or ever could do us any injury that might justify the slaughter. All this seemed very reasonable. But I had formerly been a great lover of fish, and, when this came hot out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanc'd some time between principle and inclination, till I recollected that, when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then thought I, "If you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you."

So I din'd upon cod very heartily, and continued to eat with other people, returning only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet.

So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.

"Milk builds strong bones" turns out to be another old advertisers' tale

2010-09-06T08:57:00.003-05:00

Driving to Charlotte at 5 am recently I heard an interesting discussion on fruits and vegetables being better for your bone vitality than calcium and milk products on the People's Pharmacy. If you don't like listening to podcasts, here's what I took away:

Thirty years of advising people to drink more milk and take calcium supplements: not working. The countries where people drink the most milk and consume milk products have the highest incidence of bone fractures in old age. It's in the Asian countries - where consumption of milk-based products is lowest - that the strongest bones are found.

The author of Bone Vitality was on the show, saying that high protein diets lead to weak bones, because when the amino acids are broken down and enter the bloodstream, they make it more acidic, and calcium is leached from bones to neutralize the blood's ph. (He said acidic fruits don't do that, their acids are dealt with in the stomach.)

He said calcium on its own can't build bones - "if our bones were built of calcium, they would be chalk" - that it takes a combination of more than a dozen nutrients and trace elements to build healthy bones, and they are found in, ta da, vegetables and fruits.

He also said, horribly, that fosamax and some other medicines used to slow bone loss work by messing with our bones' repair system and end up making bones weaker.

He also pointed out: a diet high in vegetables and fruits is also good for lowering blood pressure, weight loss, and heart health; it is in fact better for us in a myriad of other ways.

So Hannah and I have been eating a lot of roasted vegetables since I got here, in honor of this new information, but we sadly ask: "If what our bodies need so badly is vegetables, why are we so fond of chocolate cake?"

Sholem Aleichem on sensational novelas

2010-09-05T18:15:00.004-05:00

I just translated this from "Kasrileke Progress." Reminds me of Univision and the telenovelas...

During the time I was in Khasrilevke, both local newspapers, "The Yarmulke" and "The Cap," published a highly interesting and thrilling novel. One called it "The Forbidden Kiss from the Stolen Bride" and the second called it "The Stolen Kiss from the Forbidden Bride."

As the above-mentioned Kasrilevke highbrow led me to understand - confidentially, as usual - the said novela was taken from an old Russian book through the efforts of two literati, who endeavored to smear its plots out as thinly as possible in all directions to make it longer, and - in order to keep the public in suspense - they were constantly thinking up new sensations, suddenly coming up with a fresh, healthy hero, lively right off the bat, who was not slow to bring a couple of women down from the Other World if it suited them.

And if you like, they'll start right over again from the beginning...

The truth must be told, however: in Kasrilevke the said novela was being read with great eagerness. People lick their fingers over it, looked forward to it. Morning barely passes, they throw themselves at the "Forbidden Bride."

In the normal course of things, there'd have been an end to it long ago. The authors themselves were hard-pressed to continue drawing out the suspense. They'd killed off the novela's protagonists long before: some had been hung, some poisoned, some shot. But in the course of their dismal competition, the editors demanded the story be drawn out still more: neither wanted his story to end before the other's.

During the time I was in Kasrilevke, it happened that some of the story's heroes were being shot for the THIRD time, and the Forbidden Bride had been stolen twice - kidnapped and tortured, thereafter sought and found, then stolen again, and again murderously tortured. There was just no end to these authors' atrocities - I have no idea what they were thinking!

Visiting Hannah: factoid about borrachos

2010-09-05T09:00:00.003-05:00

Hannah is working on her history PhD and was reading a book about the trade of wine from Madeira, a Portuguese colony off the coast of Africa. "The book mentions that a goatskin bag used to carry wine was called a borracha. I thought, hmm, that's funny, they named it after a drunk guy. Then I realized it was almost certainly the other way round - when you're calling someone a borracho you're calling him an old goatskin bag filled with wine!"

Jethro does a little work for once.

2010-08-30T06:22:00.001-05:00

Mrs. Keen's Apple Cake

2010-08-29T10:16:00.004-05:00

This is my housemate Mitzi's magnificent 30-year-old adapted low-fat apple cake recipe. We whoofled it up in no time flat although Mitzi says it's great for breakfast, it was mostly gone by then.

Mrs. Keen's Delicious Low-Fat Apple Cake

2 cups peeled, diced apples
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
1/4 cup applesauce
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1/2 cup raisins

Mix apples and brown sugar in a large bowl; let stand for half an hour.
Mix flour, soda, salt, cinnamon in one bowl.
Mix oil, vanilla, and egg in another small bowl.
Dump wet ingredients and dry ingredients into the apple bowl.
Mix, adding nuts and raisins
Bake in an 8-inch square greased pan at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes.

[Hannah]: Kaleidoscope Quilt - top is finished

2010-08-28T16:58:00.006-05:00

The top is done!

Like ma, I like the patterns where it looks like there are curves even though there are only straight lines.

Which do you see more, the dark circles or the light circles?

Next step: sewing the quilt top to the batting and the backing.

Cats love batting. They immediately know they can be very helpful with this kind of material. How did she ooze herself between all these layers? I've never seen such a happy look on her face.

Our absolutely favorite chocolate cake

2010-08-21T14:28:00.004-05:00

I've made a lot of chocolate cakes in my life but have now settled on this one as the very best chocolate cake and - more importantly - the very best chocolate icing. It makes two relatively low 8" layers so you get more frosting per serving! We know this as "good Jeimy cake" after the person I first made it for...

Chocolate Buttermilk Cake

1 ounce unsweetened chocolate
1/3 cup cocoa plus enough to dust the pans
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 stick softened salted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
5/8 cup buttermilk
1 cup cake flour
raspberry jam

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Put an 8" round cake pan on wax paper and trace it with the back of a knife. Cut out the wax paper circle. Butter the bottom of the cake pan. Add the wax paper. Butter the wax paper and sides of the pan. Repeat with other pan. Dust both with cocoa powder.

Melt chocolate in a microwave-safe mixing bowl. Add cocoa, salt, baking powder, butter, vanilla and sugar and cream well. Add eggs separately beating after each. Add buttermilk and flour and mix.

Pour evenly into the two pans and bake for about 15 minutes. Turn out onto a cooling rack and in about five minutes spread raspberry jam on top of each layer. It will sink in to seal the cake and prevent it from drying out.

When the layers are cool, put the thicker one flat side up on your cake plate. Put strips of wax paper under its edges to keep the plate clean while you frost it. Frost the top of the first layer, then put the second layer flat side down on top of the iced bottom layer and frost the rest.

Chocolate Buttermilk Icing

2 squares (2 ounces) unsweetened chocolate
7 tablespoons salted softened butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
pinch of salt
5-6 tablespoons buttermilk (approximate)
3-1/3 cup confectioners sugar (approximate)

Melt chocolate in microwave-proof mixing bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and beat them well. If it's too stiff add more buttermilk. If it's too soft add more confectioners sugar.

A hospital in Ethiopia repairs fistulas so women can rejoin the world.

2010-08-19T07:34:00.006-05:00

I've been meaning to write about the documentary A Walk to Beautiful, which you can rent or watch instantly at Netflix. The movie shows the work of the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital and won the 2007 Best Feature-length Documentary at the International Documentary Association Awards Ceremony. It galvanized me into sending a hefty donation (see the bottom of the post for links to donate or learn more).

You can also see it here, on YouTube (you'll have to endure a commercial first):

(From McClatchy News Service)

By the age when American girls start to attend preschool, girls in the Ethiopian countryside are already pressed into household labor, hauling buckets of water to help their mothers. Soon after that, they're handed the daily task of grinding grain with heavy stones to prepare injera, the spongy bread that's the staple of the Ethiopian diet.

"By the age of 8 they can carry weights that I can't carry," said Ruth Kennedy, a 54-year-old midwife at the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital.

Hard labor and poor nutrition conspire against rural girls, who grow up sinewy and stunted.

But in traditional practice, girls are often married off by age 12 and expected to bear children within a few years. Their undersized pelvises are ill equipped to deliver fully formed fetuses, producing devastating complications, hospital nurses said. Some patients arrive at the hospital having endured up to seven days of labor.

At the end, the baby's head collapses and it emerges stillborn. The stuck fetus blocks blood flow to tissues in the pelvic wall, eventually tearing a hole.

Within hours the mother begins to leak urine and, in extreme cases where rectal tissue is also damaged, sometimes feces, nurses said.

Without treatment, women can leak from their vaginas for the rest of their lives, making it difficult for them to live among family and friends and forcing them to the margins of their close-knit communities. "Very few of their husbands keep them. They are spoiled," Kennedy said. "In a survivalist society, these little women become a burden."

The injuries to bladder and kidneys are extreme. "I smelled," [said one patient]. "No one talked to me. All my friends hated me. No one understood the condition." For several months Melise lay at home in bed in a fetal position, wracked by depression and trying desperately to stop the constant dripping of urine. She awoke one morning to find that her mother-in-law had thrown her things out of the house.

The humiliating injury is called obstetric fistula, a tear in the tissue between the vagina and adjoining organs, caused by prolonged labor in small, undernourished women—and now almost unknown outside the poorest countries of Africa and Asia. While the last recorded case in the United States was in 1895, researchers believe that 9,000 women will develop fistulas this year in Ethiopia alone.

Founded in 1974 by two Australian gynecologists, Catherine Hamlin and her late husband Reginald, the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital has performed more than 32,000 free operations on women from across Ethiopia. More than 90 percent of patients fully recover

The couple performed the first fistula operations in Ethiopia as volunteers in 1959. Now the hospital, with support from nonprofit foundations and private donors, has grown into an internationally recognized center for fistula research and has trained doctors from 28 countries to perform the simple, life-altering surgery.

Their work has helped raise the profile of the debilitating but long neglected injury. In 2003 the United Nations Population Fund launched a worldwide "End Fistula" campaign, which is now working in 35 poor countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In recent years Sudan and Nigeria have opened centers for fistula repair.

Whitney Tilson of the Motley Fool wrote about the Fistula Hospital on April 17, 2001

Life in Ethiopia is very hard for most everyone, but it's especially hard on the women. Like women in most of the developing world, they tend to do the most difficult, dirty work, yet generally do not have access to the few opportunities that exist for an education and a good job. Many are married off at a young age -- sometimes as young as 10 -- and often start bearing children by their early teens. Childbirth rarely occurs with a qualified attendant, much less at a hospital. If there's a problem during delivery, common given the lack of prenatal care, the babies often die and the mothers can suffer injuries.

A common injury is called an obstetrical fistula, which occurs when the baby tears a hole into the bladder and/or rectum, causing the mother to become permanently incontinent and constantly smelly. When this happens, the husband almost always abandons his wife, who returns to her family, often to be rejected again. These women have lives of unspeakable misery. One didn't leave her bed, much less her family's hut, for nine years before making her way to the Fistula Hospital.

The hospital specializes in the relatively simple surgical procedure that repairs the fistulas, allowing the patients to return to normal life and even bear children again. It heals more than 1,000 women annually, at a total cost of a mere $400,000 -- a pittance by Western standards, but a fortune in Ethiopia.

http://www.fistulafoundation.org/
endfistula.org
www.fistulatrust.org (this is where I sent money)

Cut yourself some slack.

2010-08-19T07:09:00.000-05:00

From Brian Wagoner's Photos - Thailand 2010, seen on Facebook.

Donkey escape artist (not mine)

2010-08-17T08:01:00.001-05:00

Jethro is limping today - I have the farrier coming at 5:30 am tomorrow to see why. Here, a story from one of my donkey lists.

My one horse and now one of the four donks will open anything that is not secured to the point of ridiculous.

I put good chain locks on all the gates. They responded by taking the gates off their hinges.

I drilled the hinge pins and put cotter pins through them. They pulled the pins and took the gates down again. I've had to turn all cotter pins so that they cannot reach the closed end and wire the open ends so they can't just push them out.

They decided to jump the four foot fence. The fence is now five feet high.

Luckily their only interest seems to be in playing and/or coming to the house to see if some of their people will come play with them. They only want to come to us, not actually 'escape'. We headed for the paddock, scratching ears as we went and everybody, donks, horses and ponies just followed us right back into the paddock. It was an object lesson in the value of building those relationships of trust and escape proofing the entire property.

I thought the donk was going to crash the fence. Then, when he cleared it (he rattled it good but not so as to throw him off) I was fearful he would be injured on the landing. Instead he was all excited and trotted around quite proud of himself - his only interest was in coming to me (and showing off). I wish I'd had a camera.

Anybody else have a flying donkey out there? Are they known for jumping abilities or did he just have a moment when he got caught up in his play with the horse? He and the horse also play 'tag' and I didn't know donkeys were that fast or exuberant.

I hate wasting stuff

2010-08-14T18:22:00.004-05:00

Ordinarily I love weed-whacking, but the temperature hasn't been below the 90s here for more than two months, so the weeds everywhere, and whatever grass peeks through the weeds, it's all knee-high.

I tried to deal with the weeds by siccing the donkey and the horse on them, but my equids were the opposite of help - they always find tiny patches of the grass they prefer and scalp those to the ground (essentially killing those patches of desirable grass) while stepping daintily around the switchgrass I wish they would eat.

Here's something else that's wasted - why did I bother putting up that deer fence to keep out the deer when my donkey does exactly what they did? He likes mulberry trees as much as the deer do - so the first time he got the chance he stripped all the bark off a 15-foot high tree I grew from a seedling. Now it's dead. Good work, Jethro.

Noticing the temperature was merely 91 late this afternoon I decided to weedwhack and that's when I uncovered so many wasted and broken things it put me in a horrible mood. What did I get for three hours of weedwhacking. Buckets of sweat, hundreds of chigger bites, and a survey of ruined purchases, abandoned projects, stupid mistakes...

For instance, traces of failed gardening. I put a lot of effort into building a lovely terraced garden. It gets plenty of sun, and it was fun dumping lots of donkey poop and composted chicken droppings and hay on it - but because I won't go out there in the blazing summer sun and weed, and because my chickens dig up every single thing I ever try to plant, and because we have a drought every summer, there will never be a garden...

There were broken sprinklers and rusty garden implements under those weeds, and dried-up skeletons of the blueberry bushes I kept planting for years. When the bushes got enough attention, the squirrels ate all the blueberries before they were ripe. When I was out of the state studying Yiddish in the hottest part of August, the bushes turned into black sticks. Never again.

And as long as I'm sulking about waste, back inside the house were the credit card bills I forgot to pay on time - no matter how many times I've requested those automatic email reminders, the companies don't send them. Why is it so hard to send an email? Once, I got a phone notification from a credit card company - AFTER the bill was due. If they'd made the call two days sooner, it would have saved me all those fines. Hmm, wonder why they waited...

The Little Loves that I've Forgot

2010-08-06T15:51:00.003-05:00

Came upon this while looking for a title for my new Yiddish cd.

BALLADE OF FORGOTTEN LOVES

Some poets sing of sweethearts dead,
Some sing of true loves far away;
Some sing of those that others wed,
And some of idols turned to clay.
I sing a pensive roundelay
To sweethearts of a doubtful lot,
The passions vanished in a day--
The little loves that I've forgot.

For, as the happy years have sped,
And golden dreams have changed to gray,
How oft the flame of love was fed
By glance, or smile, from Maud or May,
When wayward Cupid was at play;
Mere fancies, formed of who knows what,
But still my debt I ne'er can pay--
The little loves that I've forgot.

O joyous hours forever fled!
O sudden hopes that would not stay!
Held only by the slender thread
Of memory that's all astray.
Their very names I cannot say.
Time's will is done, I know them not;
But blessings on them all, I pray--
The little loves that I've forgot.

Sweetheart, why foolish fears betray?
Ours is the one true lovers' knot;
Note well the burden of my lay--
The little loves that I've forgot.

Arthur Grissom

Muzak's Top Ten (Roz Chast)

2010-08-04T09:09:00.001-05:00

Cleaning up my desk I found this oldie from the New Yorker. "Let's wait in this room forever!"

In which greed conquers fear and Jethro gets on the porch to eat chicken scratch

2010-08-02T08:37:00.003-05:00

Problem: now I can't feed the chickens.