you can't blame me

we made the promised trip to playa bagdad, in search of vacationer-free waters and bootleg raw oysters. my parents have long grown tired of saying "are you sure it's safe?" i still discussed the recent dead german and fifteen gravely wounded cyclists with them, saying that i'm wise to this city and don't look for trouble.

we made it to the beach without incident, waded in the sea and drank our paper-bagged tecates. 100m down we found a shack with a tanned, grinning woman and her three children and a large pile of oysters. i negotiated a meal of braised bonito, arroz, frijoles refritos, tortillas and a dozen oysters préalablement. we ate with good appetite and listened to an old lady who shooed away the dogs and started to tell us of her life and times. she was either the other client or a relation of the young woman. instead of getting married when she was young, she got a college degree and got a job at a government office in veracruz. she bore two sons, now fully grown, and raised them singly. she now lives between veracruz, puebla (her homeland) and matamoros, and has a boyfriend one of whose children lives in queens. she believes that her life course is something much more reasonable than that of the campesinos poblanos, who have one child for every letter of the alphabet, for every key on the piano, and give them pulque to drink instead of milk or water. we got invited to the kindergarten graduation celebration the following saturday and i left a large tip.

waiting in line to cross the bridge, we got a $0.30 windshield washing and were petitioned by a gringo who had spent all his money on beer and didn't have enough to cross back. when he said "SORRY! DO YOU SPEEEEAK ENGLISH?" i couldn't resist the urge to address him in french. our american customs agent was unsure of himself and took a long time to decide what question he would ask next. i treated him with condescension because i don't like having my movements monitored in my own hometown. my mom said that she knew the guard, and the first time she saw him on duty, she asked him whether he wasn't the same nice boy who bagged groceries at her usual grocery store.

not enough time for traveling these days.

wild foods movement

No country is perhaps richer in esculent Funguses than our own ; we have upwards of thirty species abounding in our woods. No markets might therefore be better supplied than the English, and yet England is the only country in Europe where this important and savoury food is, from ignorance or prejudice, left to perish ungathered.
In France, Germany, and Italy, Funguses not only constitute for weeks together the sole diet of thousands, but the residue, eitehr fresh, dried, or variously preserved in oil, vinegar, or brine, is sold by the poor, and forms a valuable source of income to many who have no other produce to bring into the market. Well, then, may we style them, with M. Roques, "the manna of the poor." To call attention to an article of commerce elsewhere so lucrative, with us so wholly neglected, is the object of the present work, to which the best possible introduction will be a brief reference to the state of the fungus market abroad.

A Treatise on the Esculent Funguses of England, C.D. Badham, 1863.

bukzi e bo no dzap

makes the week go by faster, unless it's one of those weeks when we've vowed not to, in which case it makes the weekend something to be anticipated.

does thy life destroy

it came to pass that three hours of my labor on friday involved me hooking up a dvd player to a big screen tv in a lounge with overstuffed leather chairs, then watching the movie Educating Rita with a student, eating Wheat Thins. Rita is a hairdresser and she decides to study poetry with a private tutor. They have a to read a poem by William Blake, and Rita's husband leaves her:

O Rose, thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

studies in meter

palace prays porcine
trellis intertwine
amber prude purvey
unbrandished vorax
shuttered of flax
to shillings defray
smattered seventh whirl
viscid emerald
severally unfurled

you can be replaced

1. the boss and a girl entered my presence. the boss's technique of conveying information is indirect: she holds the conversation (in earshot of me/in my earshot*) thus : "ok Atemngeng your schedule would only permit you to meet Jesse at 8am, so let's say you start coming tomorrow." [exeunt] then i started to think of what kind of hardship i will endure in eating breakfast, showering and walking to work all before 8am every morning.

2. caramel sauce. here is a french technique which seems to have been adapted to viet cuisine, or a use of viet ingredients adapted to a french cooking scheme.

sauce caramel crème

cook refined sugar, stirring constantly, until it melts into a smooth, deep red syrup.
add heavy cream, stir to incorporate.

ca kho
cook refined sugar, stirring constantly, until it melts into a smooth, deep red syrup.
add shallots, fish sauce and black pepper, stir to incorporate.
in the which you braise catfish steaks.

3. a fashionable adjunct: "despite, or perhaps because of..."

4. scheme theory of learning: which is primary, descriptive or procedural knowledge?

5. meningitis. the dear friend of a woman whose other dear friend had died had died of meningitis.

frustrate: Middle English, from Latin frustratus, past participle of frustrare to deceive, frustrate, from frustra in error, in vain

1. saturday morning i had to get my wedding ring resized
2. viet jewelers are all honest
3. we can't pass by the jeweler without making a stop at the grocer, because gasoline is dear
4. we can't stop at the grocer without knowing what to buy
5. we can't know what to buy unless we know what to cook
6. i would have a better idea of what to buy if i found a good recipe
7. if i knew the name of that cookbook about which i had read a review, then i could search for it at the library
8. if i was at the library, i could also pick up the novel by banana yoshimoto, Amrita
9. in that novel, the narrator mentions a book by Phillip K. Dick, Flow my tears, the policeman said
10. at the grocer, i bought oysters porque me antojé
11. the oysters spoiled because we were busy doing other things and didn't shuck them on time.
12. when i went to the library, the phillip k. dick novel wasn't on the shelf.

HOV

business euphemisms:

"i'm sorry for the miscommunication" = "i'll do as i damn well please; fuck you."

romance euphemisms:

"i think we had a miscommunication" = "you have one chance to admit you're wrong."

logistical euphemisms:

"i think we had a miscommunication" = "i'd rather not say why i was late."

business euphemisms:

"i'm sorry for the miscommunication" = "i was wrong, but let's not shame me."

redemptus

i've finished my corruption project. i gave all the books back to the library. here is the best citation i found during the research:

"It happens that you are made a judge. You are not corrupted because you do not seek what is not your own. No one gives you a reward and says, 'Judge against my adversary.' . . . See what evil you will do for what is your property. Perhaps he who wants you to judge wrongly and issue a judgment for him against his adversary is a powerful man, and he is able to slander you so that you will lose what is your own. You note his power. You think of it. You think of your property which you have and love, which you have not possessed wrongly but have clung to wrongly . . . . You will judge wrongly, not when you seek what is another's, but when you keep your own.

Augustine of Hippo, qtd. in Noonan, Bribes

sex and the city

i am normally not a movie critic, but i just have to tell you about SEX AND THE CITY. i am going to write a true, unbiased review of the movie.

WARNING: SPOILER! i cannot make my nuanced critique without leaking a bit of the plot.

1. i think carrie bradshaw's face is large and square and i would not like to have sex with her.
2. every person spoke every word without meditation. the most thoughtful character is dante. he has one line: "would you like to join me? i am dante, come anytime."
3. there was no need for all of the yelling. the normal reason for movie actors getting away with yelling is that they're always about to get murdered. the only man who didn't get yelled at, the bald guy, had little time on camera.
4. i was not aroused by the sex scenes, because there was no foreplay.
5. carrie bradshaw can eat cup o' noodle. if i owned an expensive restaurant i would make it membership based, so that people could not eat there if they were abusive to their palates.
6. there was a preview about richard gere in a beach house, and a lonely woman enthralled by his gravelly voice. his gravelly voice makes the woman say "vous aviez l'air d'être seul" and then he squeezes her ass while they kiss.
7. miranda was angry or crying or having sex in every scene.
8. when people see a flash of light they become excited and start to laugh, but then they are confused and they become angry and when the caretaker breaks up the fight they start to drool and masturbate.
9. excellent camera work. they had to cut from scene to scene very quickly, and one time there was not enough of a pause between the narration and the climax of the scene, which was conveyed by the appearance of steve.
10. carrie ends up married. miranda ends up re-married. charlotte bears a child. samantha turns 50.

can't miss!