CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS!?

Oh, dear.  I don't believe it. But the cover woes continue.

Now, after I've gotten used to Birdie with dark hair (not to mention rewriting the book to make her a brunette,) the folks at Bantam Dell Marketing have decided that maybe blond would sell better after all.

So they've come up with a new cover they're quite enthusiastic about. They've also insisted on a title change -- seems that Someone Important  felt that the title The Day of Small Things was a real yawn and wouldn't sell.

Arrgh!

I don't know . . . of course the name of the game is selling copies of the book. But this new look isn't exactly what I had in mind. . .

Oh, well . . . I'm only the author. What do I know?

They haven't gotten around to making the change on Amazon yet -- but for those of you who've pre-ordered The Day of Small Things, (for which, many, many thanks!) no need to re-order -- they'll just switch you over to Untamed Love.

 

 Happy April Fool's Day!

RHET BUTLER

Another Rhetorical Question from Rhet (orical) Butler.

A 100-WORD PASSOVER STORY

Forty years they had wandered the desert, seeking the Promised Land. Forty years they had complained... and God was getting sick of hearing it. He summoned Moses for a conference.

“Forty years of bitching, Moses. Are My people never satisfied?”

Moses cast his eyes downward. “Well, Lord, we’ve been in the wilderness an awfully long time. That, we can handle... but most of us haven’t crapped in years!”

God asked the angel Gabriel, “What the hell have you been feeding the Israelites? Manna shouldn’t block ’em up like that!”

“Manna? But I’ve been sending them matzoh! What’s the difference, anyway?”


This Passover toilet seat cover reminds us of one of the unfortunate side effects of eating unleavened bread for eight days. A tip o’ th’ Elisson fedora to Jerry Foster for the photo.

AIR JELLY!!!

This is the millennium I was waiting for! One with abstract pretty flying things floating all about. I don't even care if they serve any sort of practical purpose as long as they are amazing looking, (and burn clean fuel). Created for the world by Festo is the Air Jelly. Do yourself a favor and click on the Air Jelly link. Pictures do not do this craft justice, you have to watch it in flight. It’s movements are so intricate and elegant I could sit and watch it all day long! Along with the Air Jelly they have made a water version called the Aqua Jelly which is equally as elegant if not more so. Then there is the Air Penguin !!!! So sleek!! What does it do? I don’t know, or care I’m just too stunned by its design to go any further than that! So pretty, it makes me happy just to look at them! Good job Festo!!!

Promises

Spring is so full of promises -- from a sunlit patch on distant hills at the close of a cloudy day . . .

to the daylily's determined leaves thrusting out of the winter-cold earth . . .

and the climbing yellow rose, bursting forth in new green finery.
 

Tiny buds tip the lilac branches, hinting at glories to come . . .

while wild spirea's flower-like rosy new foliage deserves a closer look . . .

The blue, blue sky invites our hopes to soar . . .

and the flowering quince's tight furled buds say, No -- over here -- look at me!

 

Shameless Haiku - Magpie Tales

"Of course," said the English professor, "flowers are nothing more than sexual organs.  Remember this in your study of poetry." (Emory University, 1960.)

~~~

Daffodil trumpets

Blare . . . blatant they sing,

Come and ravish me . . .

Flaring bright signals,

 Seductive sirens of Spring,

Lure an early bee,

Who, bumbling, plunges,
Blind obedience humming
To April's decree.

~~~

Go HERE for more Magpie Tales

FOOD... AND FREEDOM

The Bradford pears, cherry blossoms, and forsythia are in bloom... and Passover is in the air.

A cauldron of SWMBO’s chicken soup is simmering atop Darth Stover, perfuming the house with chickeny warmth. A pile of matzoh balls - both plain and whole wheat - will shortly be swimming amongst the chunks of chicken and carrot.

Two loaves of gefilte fish are ready to be sliced up and festooned with parsley and carrot slices. One loaf is the standard whitefish and pike blend; the other, salmon. They’ll be served with lashings of pungent chrain - horseradish.


Gefilte fish. Think of it as a sort of meatloaf... but with fish. A Passover tradition.

There’s a bowl of charoset marinating in the back of the fridge. A mixture of shredded apples, nuts, golden raisins, cinnamon, and sweet wine, it symbolizes the mortar with which the ancient Israelites built the cities of Pithom and Raamses.

A honkin’ big brisket of beef is resting comfortably in the downstairs fridge. After having been braised for five hours yesterday, all that bad boy needs is to be warmed up, sliced, and served with a liberal dollop of its oniony, tomatoey sauce.

Our friends JoAnn and Gary will be bringing some roasted asparagus and sweet potatoes. And that’s not all. Chopped liver (which I will doctor up with some onions caramelized in goose schmaltz) - and for afters, sponge cake.

Pesach, AKA Passover, begins at sundown. Perhaps owing to the special dietary requirements of the holiday, it’s an extremely food-centric festival, its central observance being a combination of Great Big Meal and Socratic dialogue. But the food is, despite the grip with which it holds our sense-memories, not the point. The point is the retelling of the story. It is the story of a great liberation, a journey from slavery to freedom. It is the central narrative of the Jews, those quintessential Red Sea Pedestrians, who could just as well be called “The People Who Went Forth from Egypt” instead of “The Children of Israel.” For while being descended from the patriarch Jacob - Israel - made us a people, the going forth from Egypt defined us as a nation, a people with a shared historical experience.


The Seder plate, with the traditional adornments. Clockwise, from the top: Zeroah - a roasted lamb shankbone, symbolic of the Paschal sacrifice. Charoset - an apple and nut relish representing mortar. Chazeret - Romaine lettuce, a bitter herb. Karpas - parsley, a green vegetable. Beitzah - an egg, symbolizing the chagigah (festival) sacrifice. Center: Maror - a bitter vegetable, in this case horseradish. In the silver case beneath the plate are three sheets of matzoh, the unleavened bread that is the most well-known food associated with the holiday.

The story is thousands of years old, yet it still resonates. And it should. For, as the Haggadah (the book of Passover liturgy) reminds us, had our ancestors not been redeemed from bondage, we would even now be slaves in Egypt... and the history of the Western world would have been very different.

A chag sameach - most happy festival - to our Jewish friends. To everyone else, a good week - one that may be spent, perhaps, meditating on the blessings of freedom that we enjoy today.

My Firstborn

Well…I Was Sort of In a Print Magazine…

I just love this necklace. It took me so long to make. The designing alone took me at least a month and a half. What I wanted to do was resonate the feeling of Laurie Hassold's sculptures without mimicking them too much. Just a whisper of the essence of them. She wanted something very unique, and eye catching to wear to art openings and other various art functions. Once I finally got the design down the intricacy of it had me sawing and filing the sterling silver sheet at the jeweler's bench for at least another month. Then after that it was riveting the little beauty together, oxidizing, and then finally working on the chain. The chain turned out to be the hardest part of the piece. It went through so many different versions until I braved this design. So the piece was finished, and Laurie was VERY pleased. Then she notified me that she had worn it to the photo shoot for an article on her work in Art LTD. Magazine. I couldn't be more thrilled!!! So see just like I said I was sort of featured in a print magazine. My necklace was there promanate so everyone could see blazing from it's pages.... AWwwww.. Come on I think it counts! In any case Laurie looks beautiful in the pictures, and the necklace looks very at home with her sculptures.

Reading for the Detail

The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt is a marvelous read for a details freak such as myself. A while back I was fantasizing about an ebook that would have hot links to every obscure reference -- I found myself wishing for those very hot links as I made my way through this beautiful, rich, and alluring story. 


It's not for everyone -- because of this denseness.  And it's not as compelling a story as Byatt's Possession which ranks as one of my favorite books. But I truly enjoyed it and will reread it to revel in all the lush details.


This is what The New Yorker had to say:

Byatt’s mammoth novel, spanning the two and a half decades before the First World War, centers on the Wellwood family, led by a banker with radical inclinations and his wife, the author of best-selling fairy tales. At their country estate, they preside over a motley brood of children and host midsummer parties for fellow Fabians, exiled Russian anarchists, and German puppeteers. But the idyll contains dark secrets, as a potter whom the family takes in for a time discovers. Byatt is concerned with the complex, often sinister relationship between parent and child, which she explores through various works of art—pottery, puppet shows, fairy tales—using them to refract and illuminate the larger narrative. At times, an excess of detail threatens to overwhelm the plot: no aquamarine glaze goes undescribed, no psychological process unmentioned. But, despite risking tedium, the book is ultimately engaging and rewarding. ♦

And then there's  The Road to Wellville, T. Coraghessan Boyle's exceedingly comic take on the health food industry in Battle Creek, Michigan in the early 1900's. The book is based on the real Dr. Kellog and I found it pretty hilarious. (There was a movie of the same name which evidently was quite awful.)

Wellville is another fairly dense period piece. There are several plotlines and some outrageous situations. But again -- I enjoy that sort of thing. Here's a review, that will tell you more.

FROM ASHEVILLE, A REAL-LIFE DICKE JOKE

Only in Asheville, North Carolina do you have this remarkable example of (probable) Unintentional Humor.

On our way downtown yesterday afternoon, we found ourselves at the intersection of Southside Avenue and two other streets. To the left there was Coxe Avenue:



And to the right? This:



[No, it’s not Photoshopped. You can look it up on Google Maps.]

So, what was this? Some road architect’s sense of humor? The boundary between Asheville’s African-American and Asian communities?

Things only got more surreal when, a block north, we saw a vehicle from Tennessee with this license tag [click to embiggen]:



What county was that tag from? You gotta be kidding...

Yes, indeedy. Just one block from the corner of Coxe and Short Coxe, we saw a car from County Cocke!

NOW THAT YOU’RE BACK...

...I want you to give me a skritch.


Hakuna cranes her neck for a skritch as SWMBO catches up with her Facebook buddies. [Click for embiggification.]

How dare you run off and leave me by myself all weekend? Just because I ignore you most of the time doesn’t mean I don’t want your undivided attention.

Update: Friday Ark #288 is afloat at the Modulator.

Parachute Balls of Hope

When's the last time you picked up a dandelion and blew to make a wish?

I took this photo a little over a week ago.

But I didn't pick the dandelion...or blow off the parachute sphere part to make a wish.

Its not that I don't have wishes.

I do.

I haven't lost hope in wishes.

I think they are very important.

Hope is what keeps us alive and motivated.

But, I have to admit, my storage of hope has diminished somewhat lately.

I find myself disappointed in people.

I feel slightly adrift at sea again, trying to find my way.

I'm trying to stay on course, but my compass has gone missing.

What do you do to keep yourself on track?

To maintain faith in people?

To replenish your hope?

Sunday Smattering

Back on Wednesday, I was heading to Burnsville to teach my class when I passed a red-tailed hawk by the side of the road. I've seen him before, up in a dead tree nearby, but this time he was on the ground. 

I was past him before I realized what I'd seen but he didn't take off so I stopped, fumbled around for my camera (which I'd foolishly put in its bag, in the backseat -- note to self: keep camera out, turned on!) and backed up.

The hawk wasn't hurt, thank goodness. It had a goodsized black snake -- probably road kill, certainly the first I've seen out.)

To my amazement, when I backed up, the hawk didn't take off at once. Finally, though, he got his dinner firmly in his talons and flew. 

I was delighted with these two captures -- be sure to click on the pictures to biggify them and really see the hawk -- such gorgeous birds!

Hawk, shmalk, says Eddie. Biggify THIS!

 And the willows are greening...

And there was a fine moon on the rise last night.

Happy Sunday!

MR. DEBONAIR’S GUIDE FOR THE WELL-DRESSED MAN ABOUT TOWN

When putting on your Undershorts,
If knowledge you should lack
Of which side’s against the penis
And which side’s against the crack,
Recall this simple mantra
Whenever you are able,
To help you with those Undershorts
If they should lack a label.
No matter if you’re Asian,
Hispanic, white, or black -
The yellow stain, it goes in front;
The brown stain goes in back.

Sepia Saturday - Someone Else's Folks

A while back, Nancy Meadows, one of my readers who grew up in the area where my novels are set, shared some family pictures and diaries with me. Her aunts, Odessa and Inez Henderson -- here seen on either side of their mother -- lived in the Walnut community in western NC (about three miles from my home and the prototype for the place I call Dewell Hill in my stories.)

Odessa and Inez kept daily diaries from the Thirties into the early Seventies and I so much enjoyed meeting Inez and Odessa in their own words that (with Nancy's permission) I've made them characters in my forthcoming book -- complete with diaries!

The diaries are of the five year variety -- just a few lines for each day -- but they provide a wonderful glimpse into ordinary life of a certain time and place

I wrote more about the girls and their diaries here and here .

Go HERE for more Sepia Saturday.

Futuristic Elegance- The Work Of Patrice Hubert

I think one of my requirements for loving an artist is A- growing green with envy at their talent and B- not being about to fully describe it. Patrice Hubert is one of my new favorite artists, but for the life of me I can’t eloquently describe his work. Every time I try just a long stream of descriptions come out. Dark, mechanized, industrial, edgy, Baroque, otherworldly, AMAZING!!! Do yourself a favor and check out his website.

Stromboli

"The stromboli -- homemade pizza dough spread with last year's basil pesto and soft-dried tomatoes from the freezer, topped with thin slices of prociutto and provolone, as well as grated Asiago -- was rolled up and baked brown. Molten cheeses escaped from its fragrant interior as Elizabeth served out the portions."

(from Signs in the Blood)

I usually make stromboli with some combination of cheese, pesto, roasted tomatoes, and prosciutto. I've also used fresh tomatoes (de-seeded) and plain old sliced ham.

This one had capacolla on it but, to tell the truth, the taste of the pesto and the roasted tomatoes pretty much drowns out the flavor of the meat. Another time, I'll omit it.

Roll 'em up and bake them or freeze them to bake another time.

Stromboli is a nice dinner entree with a salad on the side or it can work as an appetizer too.

If you'd like the complete recipe, go to my website , click on RECIPES, and scroll down.