late summer trip north

We’re leaving this week for a trip to see our families, and won’t be back for a couple of weeks. Time and energy has been taken up preparing for the trip, and writing has taken a back seat. I have a log of half-written posts piling up, most of them book reviews, and I’ll clear them out when I’m back. I’ll have my wee clamshell with me, of course, so I may write as I go. We’ll see.

On this trip, in addition to collecting some of the world’s best blueberries, I’ll be birding at Point Pelee. I haven’t been to the park since I was a kid, but it was always one of my favorite places. I look forward to revisiting the boardwalk and trying to catch a glimpse of some of the songbirds that have eluded me around here.

As a final preparation for our trip, I’ll be stopping at our garden plot and collecting any peppers—hot and sweet—that have survived the drought through the benevolence of strangers. Thank you, strangers!

See you down the road.

late summer trip north

Democrat presidential candidates debate

Where my Indiana heads at, as my pal Caesar would say? I have to give respect for Senator Lugar. He may be a Republican, but he’s our home republican, and he’s one of the last true moderates. I can, and do, respect him, and I’m glad to see him named as someone another moderate would pick for his team.

The reminder of Elizabeth Edwards is there in John’s bracelet. What an awesome woman. What a powerful reminder that cancer hits all kinds of families in all kinds of ways.

As a lead in to this debate, I watched the news, local NBC and BBC World. Both shows mocked the people suggesting questions almost uniformly, NBC white guy calling them ‘crazy YouTubers’ and the BBC white guy sneering at the Viking hat submission as a ‘typical internet user.’ Again, it’s funny to see the defensiveness of these people. Do they not send email? Does their mother not send them photos of her grandchildren over email? I mean, it’s kind of true — to tweak the phrase a bit — that the internet is for nerds. But just because nerds push the envelope, that hardly makes them typical.

I have to agree with Hillary — who I’ve always liked and respected; isn’t it great (however honest or accurate) for people to be arguing on tv about who is going to be better at fighting for women’s rights. I would say, also, that what they’re talking about is poverty, and in our current capitalist patriarchy, that means talking a lot about women and children.

You go, Rev! Wow, huh. A Reverend who understands the 14th Amendment.

I took the opportunity to get my cucumber tomato salad while a couple of the candidates were blathering about how we would end wars with violence. I’m glad to come back to hear Barack saying that you can’t end this with war. I agree, and am glad to have someone recognize that you can’t end wars by waging more wars.

I’ve never much liked Chris Dodd. I had lunch next to him and his family in the first year we were here, and he’s not much more personable in real life. His brand of not-so-personable really yanks my chain. Maybe, Chris, the people of Iraq are not rushing to ‘start a nation-state’ because (1) they had one before the U.S. illegally invaded and occupied it, and (2) they’re still reeling from the destruction of the relics of the civilizations on which that nation-state was based.

Yes, women should register if men register. It’s funny to hear Hillary say she believes the volunteer military is sufficient, since it depends on those systems of poverty and inequality to fill its rosters. If we create the national systems of quality education, health care, and full employment that Hillary talks about, the attraction of the military will be lost for all but true believers.

Hugo Chávez! What an honor to be lumped with Castro! You lucky devil. Tee hee. What a threatening idea, that the resources of the nation belong to the nation, not to rich people abroad.

Joe, Joe, Joe. Do you think we’ve forgotten the whole plagiarism thing? I guess no one told you that taking credit for work you didn’t do is at the very least a minor transgression.

Bill! The relief to be able to stand up in public and say SCRAP IT!

University of Chicago Lab School, represent! I went there, for kindergarten and first grade. It was there that I was sent home with a message that I had a problem with authority. Go figure.

Woot! Ann Arbor! Note, though, that ‘safer’ didn’t get on that pro-nuclear list.

Joe, Joe, Joe. Do you think that people are going to consider a net worth of 70 to 100 grand as not very much? Minimum wage is around 10k per year; you’d triple that if you lived off your net worth (and I assume you mean liquid assets, and not your house) for the duration of a presidential term of office. Barack has it right.

C-c-c-clinton. Poor Michael. You spit out that name in a way that would make the NRA magazine editors proud.

Good for you, Anderson. And Joe. I was thinking Dennis would have to be my man in the corner to say ‘that gun is only for killing people, it’s unnecessary, and it should be banned.’

Thank you, Anderson. You did good.

Democrat presidential candidates debate

the hour of reckoning is nigh upon us

Today I will put all other considerations aside, and begin the rereading of the Harry Potter books, in anticipation of the final volume. Tonight I’ll join my friends to screen the fifth film. I’m sure the film will be great in all the ways that the other films have been great—Alan Rickman, Ralph Fiennes, Maggie Smith—and weak in the ways that all the other films have been weak, insofar as they cannot convey the rich detail of the novels themselves. The films, though, are just the icing on the cake of what this series promises to deliver.

In just over a week now, we will all know who kills Voldemort. I have to say that I am torn between piercing curiosity and a bit of melancholy. I hope that J.K. Rowling as an author rises to the place she has brought her characters, but I have my lingering doubts. I don’t entirely believe that the growth in depth of the books over the course of the series thus far was planned to parallel Harry’s development from child to young adult; I suspect that some of that growth was on the part of the author as well. Nonetheless, the novel we will hold in our eager hands in 10 days will have little in common with the first one we read nearly a decade ago. Names, places, types of flying games: these will all be the same. But the core struggle has shifted—and whether it’s shifted or only just been presented to us in its entirety here at the point of conclusion only the author can know—and the series has become one that awaits an adult conclusion.

As Snape approaches the hour of reckoning, so too, does Rowling. The thousands of pages of teen angst and eager sidekickery will either be redeemed or be for naught in this final volume. There are many reasons that I believe both character and author will find in themselves the ability to do what needs to be done. The largest of these reasons is that the writing of a book gains a momentum of its own, and this series as its been written thus far requires a conclusion worthy of its conflicts. Nothing but redemption will ring true at this point in the narrative, and that alone is enough to justify Snape’s choice: the story demands it. Rowling will write what comes next, because that is what writers do, and it will be as near to or as far from her initial conception of the conclusion as it needs to be in order to do justice to what’s already written. I do believe that Rowling has become an author capable of writing the ending that is required; whether that belief is solely founded on hope, I couldn’t tell you.

What, then, does this narrative require? In Dumbledore‘s world, there are fates worse than death, among them the splintering of the soul that is required for the act of killing another person, even or especially when that person is dead-set on killing you. It is this fate, living on after that action, from which Dumbledore is protecting the young people in his charge. And it is through Snape, the most compelling anti-hero in contemporary fiction, that Dumbledore’s protection runs. For Snape, it is through the commitment to this protection that redemption lies. Snape is not facing redemption in any sort of heavens-opening-up-while-angels-sing way. Snape is holding onto the possibility of a redemption eked out of the ruins of a wondrously horrific life, through daily labor.

When Snape kills Voldemort, he will do so because he has promised Dumbledore that he will protect others from having to attempt that act. Not only because Snape is the only person left alive who is a powerful enough wizard to stand a chance against Voldemort, but because Snape’s soul is already splintered, and he will offer up that splintered soul to keep others from having to learn what it takes to kill another person. This is what Snape is exchanging for Dumbledore’s trust, the coin that is earning a chance for another life: a chance to use the scars from the abuse of his early life in the service of a different end, an alternative to using his power to cause that pain in others.

So, it’s not Harry’s life, or the lives of any of the other characters, that I believe Snape is pledged to protect. It’s Harry’s integrity, for lack of a better word. In that light, I don’t know whether Harry will die. I have friends who believe Harry is the final horcrux and must die, at the hands of Voldemort or of Snape after Voldemort’s death. It’s possible that Harry will confront Voldemort and be killed as simply as Cedric was. Certainly some of the characters will die facing Voldemort; he is simply too powerful a wizard to not exact deaths in any conflict. Whether one of those characters will be Harry remains to be seen.

Here, too, the central conflict is revealed in the end, and it is not between Harry and Voldemort. If it were, Harry’s outcome would be clear at this juncture in the narrative. What is clear instead is that it matters not at all to the narrative whether Harry Potter lives or dies. The series is no longer, if it ever truly was, a story of man against man. It is, and has been for some time, a story of man against himself. And that man is not, as we might have earlier believed, either Harry Potter or Voldemort.

That man is Severus Snape.

the hour of reckoning is nigh upon us

upset the setup

Lately PJ, a friend of mine from college, has been rockin the local scene with DC Upset the Setup gear. Whenever I see the stickers on utility boxes around the city I am reminded both of him and of the music of my youth, ‘Kiss Me, Son of God’ and ‘Upset the Setup’ going through my head on a loop with PJ’s ‘This is DC.’

It’s hard to not have ‘Kiss Me, Son of God’ be the first thought whenever I come to face to face with politics here in our nation’s capitol. I am at heart a luddite, so I lack the equipment I would need to make a digital recording of the song from my cassette tape and convert it to an mp3 that I could give you. However, because it’s the two Johns we’re talking about here, you can still listen to the song, direct from their little corner of the web.

The song that always pops into my head when I see the stickers, ‘Upset the Setup,’ does not appear to live anywhere on the interwebs. Since it’s a 15 year old recording by a local Indiana band, Icemakers of the Revolution, released (as far as I know) only on cassette, that’s not surprising. I can point you to two former band members, Tammy — who married another one of my favorite local musicians and continued a career in music — Stephen — who’s now a professor.

The thing that strikes me the most listening to these old songs is how little things have changed. The Icemakers, along with the other local artists I loved, wrote dozens of songs — and participated in gazillions of actions — protesting the Bush policies and war of the early 90s. I could pick those songs up and plunk them down in new Bush era without having to tweak a single reference: war, unemployment, illiteracy, corporations taking over our food supply…it’s all still relevant. I try to be heartened by the acts of resistance I see around me every day, but they pale at times in the face of the constant and ongoing acts of lunacy.

On those days, it’s stickers on utility boxes that keep me sane.

upset the setup

high fiber muffins

Over the past month we’ve been shifting to a high-fiber low-saturated-fat way of eating in our house. Because of my eating choices — no mammal flesh, no dairy — we largely ate this way already. Largely hasn’t been good enough, though: my partner’s cholesterol is unacceptably high. Not just high overall, but inverted on each individual measure (high triglycerides, low HDLs, high LDLs). So, we’re (as my students used to say) taking it to the next level.

The next level, such as it is, involves no butter, egg substitutes, and whole wheat flour (we already bought whole wheat bread and high fiber cereal, just because those generally contained the smallest amounts of sugar). It also involves salads every day, which isn’t difficult with the food from our farm share and the community garden streaming in, and fish oil supplements. In addition to boosting fiber and shifting to exclusively using non-animal fats, I’ve also been trying to include things like rhubarb and walnuts in our meals, both of which are purported to specifically contribute to lower cholesterol.

In the course of trying to find something that’s tasty and moderately sweet that meets these criteria, I have been baking variations of the muffin recipe from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks At Home (one of my favorite cookbooks for food that’s delicious and easy to make). While the recipe doesn’t call for whole wheat flour, I find that I actually like the muffins better when made that way. And, most of the variations call for walnuts!

Muffin Madness

wet ingredients
1/2 cup egg substitute (equal to 2 large eggs)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4-1 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

dry ingredients
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

additional ingredients
blueberry lemon
1 1/2 cup blueberries (add to wet ingredients)
1 tbsp freshly grated lemon peel (add to wet ingredients)

banana nut
1 1/2 cup mashed bananas (add to wet ingredients)
1 cup chopped walnuts (add last)
optional: handful of blueberries

zucchini
2 cups grated zucchini (add to wet ingredients)
1 tsp cinnamon (add to dry ingredients)
1/2 tsp cardamom (add to dry ingredients)
1/2 cup raisins (add at end)
3/4 cup chopped walnuts (add at end)

apple
2 cups grated apples (add to wet ingredients)
1 tsp grated lemon peel (add to wet ingredients)
1/2 tsp cinnamon (add to dry ingredients)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (add at the end)

rhubarb
1 1/2 cup diced rhubarb (add to wet ingredients)
1/2 to 1 cup chopped walnuts (add at end)
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon (add to dry ingredients)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, mix together the wet ingredients, then stir in the additional ingredients and mix well. In a separate bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. Combine wet and dry, being careful not to overmix the batter. Spoon the batter into oiled standard muffin tins, and bake for 20-25 minutes, until puffed and golden (test with toothpick; they are done in my oven, which tends to need more time, after 23 minutes). If you are using mini-muffin trays, only bake for 10-15 minutes. Each plain muffin is listed as having 220 calories; I don’t know how much the adjustments to the recipe might change that.

Finally, the recipe emphasizes that the basic ingredients do not make a plain muffin: you must choose a variation to get the delicious end product!

I’ve been making a batch of these at least once, usually twice a week. We eat them warm for breakfast or as dessert in the evening, and then with our lunches through the week. I like each of the variations in their own way. The banana ones are sweeter, and I tend to use less sugar (more like 1/2 cup, especially when I’m putting in blueberries). The zucchini ones require more sugar because of the strong spices; they were more like a savory bread when I used only a minimal amount of sugar. I’ve made the rhubarb ones most often (and tucked away chopped rhubarb in the freezer, for when the season’s over), and the tartness of the rhubarb is nice. Maybe you have to have grown up in the Midwest to appreciate rhubarb? At any rate, we like it.

My serving recommendation: warm, with a big cup of strong coffee.

high fiber muffins