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Author Archives: Anastasia
Precious
This quote from Maud Newton’s essay on why she wrote a novel in lieu of a memoir (we need to justify such choices now?) is exactly why, in the final analysis, I found Precious unpalatable: The critic Dubravka Ugresic has … Continue reading
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A Bedtime Story (courtesy of Bob Taylor)
On the last day of a three-day retreat for the top people at Xerox, Bob Taylor was asked to show the men the products of his Xerox PARC research team’s labors. And so he put on the stage the Alto, … Continue reading
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Names
I have ideas for you, blog. Because I have them all the time, J is used to them. In fact, he thinks that the only blog I have a chance of keeping is a blog of blog ideas. Of course, … Continue reading
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Lunch
I finally made these miso walnut green beans from Bitten and had them for lunch. Delicious! I used yellow miso, which worked fine, and oodles more water to get the right consistency. Many flavor additions–from ginger to lemongrass to lemon … Continue reading
Scallops with braised ramps and roasted asparagus
For dinner yesterday, we made sea scallops in a ginger-lime beurre blanc sauce with chermoula on a bed of ramps braised in olive oil and roasted asparagus. This was my first foray into sea scallops, but they may become a … Continue reading
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Tagged asparagus, beurre blanc, dinner, Food, ramps, sauces, sea scallops, sunday suppers
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Your Friday Moment of Zen: 'tellectuals
Is it bad that some of this dialogue sounds like something I’ve recently written?
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Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower
This is the first book in a long while to leave me speechless. I don’t know anything about it, except that I liked it. Fitzgerald has charmed me out of my need to dissect every piece of writing into intelligible little pieces. It seems only fitting–Romanticists like Novalis were in some measure reacting against rationality.
Ostensibly, the story is about love. But part of Novalis’s legacy to the world is Liebesreligion, “the religion of love,” and it’s unsurprising then that here talking about love entails discussing everything. Underneath the dainty peak of Fitzgerald’s beautiful, breezy prose sits an iceberg of wit, philosophy, and impeccable grasp of history. In the end, The Blue Flower is the most awesomely strange novel I’ve read all year, and the originality doesn’t even seem to be the primary intent. Continue reading
I have a new favorite columnist: Meghan Daum for the LA Times.
A genre comes of age: Seth Schiese for the NYT describes the newly released Grand Theft Auto IV as “a violent, intelligent, profane, endearing, obnoxious, sly, richly textured and thoroughly compelling work of cultural satire disguised as fun.”
Stanley Fish on French theorists in America.