tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-205135902024-03-07T16:30:33.352-05:00A Luminous Halo"Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end."
--Virginia WoolfCicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.comBlogger796125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-62696205012523813462017-08-09T23:55:00.000-04:002017-08-09T23:55:37.907-04:00Taking Candy from Strangers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I work at a Community Action Agency in an unglamorous "diverse" section of Springfield. I usually walk the mile and a quarter home. Ordinarily I have nothing on me but an empty thermos, a cell phone and my house keys, but yesterday I brought two one-dollar bills because I wanted to buy some Junior Mints at the Dollar Store. They'd been out of stock recently and I'd completely depleted my desk-drawer stash of them.</div>
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There's a Walgreen's right next door to the office, and it occurred to me that they might also have those movie theater-sized boxes for the same price, so I went in. Sure enough, they were in stock, with a sign below them advertising "99 cents." I selected one box and carried it to the checkout, where I waited in line between Jalisha ( her name was tattooed on her shoulder blade and clearly visible beneath her peekaboo top) and a hulking Hispanic man with his own share of tattoos.</div>
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"Do you have a Walgreen's card?" the checkout clerk asked me when Jalisha had been taken care of. When I said no, she informed me that the price would be $1.59. </div>
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"Never mind then," I replied, taking back the dollar bill I had placed on the box of candy. "I can buy this for a dollar in the Dollar Store."</div>
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"I got it," said the man behind me, and I felt a little wave of happiness. Many times I had let a clerk swipe my card for a cardless customer at the supermarket, but I hadn't expected such courtesy here. The man handed two bills to the clerk, she rang up $1.59 and handed me the box and some change.</div>
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Wait--what??? The man wasn't lending me his card, he was buying me the candy for the full price! I hesitated, and he said slowly, as though to a small child, "You get the candy, and you get the change, too."</div>
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I didn't want to reject his gift, or hold up the line by insisting on a return, so I pocketed the Junior Mints, handed him his change, mumbled a thank you, and skedaddled. Embarrassed (did I look that pathetic and indigent?), but also charmed by the kind gesture. In 20 years of life in the glamorous part of town, no random person had ever done anything near as nice for me. Who says you shouldn't take candy from strangers?</div>
<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-41198045042194084802016-07-30T22:15:00.008-04:002016-07-30T22:35:49.999-04:00Back to Base Camp<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "serif";"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "serif";">Today is
the one-year anniversary of my taking an active interest in American politics.
(For most of my life, I have been a refusenik.) I have long admired Senator
Sanders, but I feared he would not be able to push his platform through as a
democrat. I don't trust the party (or the Republican Party, for that matter).
But, shamed for my anti-American views, I grudgingly started to follow the
political blow-by-blow, starting with the "pot-luck" gathering at the
White Rose (social justice bookstore) in Holyoke, where a bunch of Bernie
supporters watched him kick off his campaign. I really did g<span class="textexposedshow">ive it my best shot for 365 days.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "serif";"><span class="textexposedshow"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "serif";">Yesterday,
however, I was unfriended on Facebook by a liberal friend of over 50 years for
a polite, dissenting comment I made to one of her political posts. A few days
previously, I pointed out on another liberal friend's timeline that the
anti-Republican meme she was sharing was a hoax. She neither removed it nor
replied. But someone else did reply, saying that it made no difference if it
was true or not, since Trump was so awful...it "might as well be
true."</span></div>
<div style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 6.45pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 6.45pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "serif";">So.
I give up. I have not been following the Republican debacle very closely. but I
have been following the Democratic primaries, caucuses and conventions <i>ad
nauseum</i>. A great deal of evidence clearly shows pro-Hillary bias by the
media, the DNC, voting officials, and others. Most of my liberal friends are so
overjoyed that a woman has been nominated to run for president that they do not
think any of the fraud worthy of investigation or reparations. And anyway,
"We must beat Donald Trump."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "serif";">I
can't be a party to this any longer. Literally. The Democratic Party is dead to
me. I personally am scared shitless of Hillary, who in my opinion is a war
criminal; however, if I thought she had been fairly chosen, I would have sucked
it up. But obviously my vote doesn't count. Hillary's win was decided by others
more powerful than the voters before the primaries began. Doesn't anyone grasp that
this rigging of an election is a more serious threat to democracy than fairly
electing anyone, up to and including a dangerous clown?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "serif";">We
invade other countries for less than what we ourselves are tolerating in our
own country. Where are the riots and protests from the educated class--those
whose liberal educations supposedly taught them to think critically? Until we
figure out how to make the election process fair, what difference does it make
if we vote or whom we vote for?</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , serif; line-height: 115%;">So
I'll make my vote count, refusenik-style, by voting for the Cat in the Hat or
writing in Bernie or whatever. Meanwhile, those friends I still have left can
go back to liking me for my homemade desserts and cute dog.</span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-21326558571279306372015-09-24T16:04:00.000-04:002015-09-24T16:14:30.998-04:00Funny Little Fruit Crackers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbVxcHmS183NorwAZhIugeOPsNdUfKv_GobQ4UNcfNxevxqvI_HTtAThZXr4ePriJASu4RtFQJjAY9k6JNz3Y3NtmbDu9BVdSDW0f8BQ9pPKqqRlQcOwHp5W1sslSUBjTfFK2W/s1600/Flax+Cracker.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbVxcHmS183NorwAZhIugeOPsNdUfKv_GobQ4UNcfNxevxqvI_HTtAThZXr4ePriJASu4RtFQJjAY9k6JNz3Y3NtmbDu9BVdSDW0f8BQ9pPKqqRlQcOwHp5W1sslSUBjTfFK2W/s320/Flax+Cracker.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
Recently I'm eating my way through Cara Brotman and Markus Rothkranz's <i>Love on a Plate: The Gourmet UnCookbook</i>. Yesterday I made fruit crackers, an odd snack if you're not used to raw food. I soaked golden flaxseeds (also called linseeds) with an equal amount of orange juice for a couple of hours, added a bit of maple syrup and some chopped-up pineapple and dried cranberries and spread it on two big trays, then dehydrated the whole business for a couple of hours. At that point I could flip it over and pop it back in the oven for two more hours to dry the other side.<br />
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If I had dried it out a bit more, it probably would've been crispy, but I was impatient, so I ended up with a slightly flexible product, almost like a thick fruit leather. I broke it into pieces and I've been nibbling at it ever since.<br />
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Golden flaxseeds are identical, nutritionally, to the brown ones, but a bit prettier I guess. Flaxseeds are the most widely available botanical source of omega-3 fatty acids, as well as <span class="st">the richest dietary source of lignans, a type of phytoestrogen. They have been called "nature's hormone replacement therapy." I eat plenty of flaxseeds and can testify that menopause, for me, consisted of two brief hot flashes. No sweats, mood swings, sleep disruption, depression, pain, or any of that. No prescription pills, no worries. I attribute my easy ride to high intake of flax and soy.</span><br />
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<span class="st">Flaxseeds are hard little mothers, so I was surprised that soaking them resulted in a gooey bowl of glop. You're usually advised, for most nutritional benefit, to eat them raw, grinding them just before use. Flaxseed oil seems like it would be handy, but it goes rancid very fast, at which point it's worse than nothing at all. Already-ground seeds pose the same danger. Whole flaxseeds pass through your system undigested, unless you chew them thoroughly. And that's what I've been doing. It would seem impossible to gain weight on this snack (which becomes strangely addictive) because it takes a really long time to chew and swallow! And that's all beneficial fiber you're chewing and chewing, so you get remarkably full after a few little pieces.</span><br />
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<span class="st">p.s. If I make these again, I will add more fruit (as recommended in the book, actually). The recipe calls for dried blueberries and fresh raspberries as well. I just used what I happened to have.</span><br />
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<span class="st">p.p.s. For some reason, the dog is wild about these. She is following me around and begging a lot. </span><br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-63353102610851372922015-09-23T13:53:00.000-04:002015-09-23T13:53:36.764-04:00What I Had for Lunch Today: A Taste Explosion in My Mouth<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'm pretty nosy, which is why I probably enjoy being a journalist so much. My job is more or less to travel around, eat new foods, have new experiences, ask personal questions, and get paid for it. At my age, I've seen and done quite a bit, so when I encounter something I haven't seen or tried before, I get excited.<br />
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I'm also pretty open to suggestion. I can still picture, clear as day, a tray of muffins in the cafeteria of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, where I was working in 1970. One of the muffins had a little flag stuck in it, saying, "New flavor! Try me!" Guess which muffin I picked? Basically, whenever I get that message--whether it's written on a flag or not--I'm there.<br />
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Today I was flipping through a new cookbook (well, "uncookbook" to be precise: it's all raw foods), and I read this sentence:<br />
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"Words cannot explain the taste explosion in your mouth when you eat this."<br />
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Suddenly I <i>had</i> to try this dish, a.s.a.p.! The book is <i>Love on a Plate: The Gourmet UnCookbook</i>, by Cara Brotman and Markus Rothkranz, and the dish is called simply "Mango blueberry mint." I didn't have all the ingredients, so I immediately went to the store to stock up. Got home, realized I had forgotten one item, went right back out again. The dish itself, fortunately, only took a couple of minutes to throw together once I had all the ingredients. Garlic, ginger, jalape<span>ñ</span>o pepper, and fresh mint leaves, all chopped up and tossed with mango chunks and blueberries, then a few squirts of fresh lime juice and a sprinkle of salt. "Explosion" is right! This is my new favorite food.<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-52472207587674742302015-09-17T01:40:00.000-04:002015-09-18T13:57:56.351-04:00What I Had for Lunch Today: Love on a Plate<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Af34PBQlXlnZQRlJDAwCO-_2IBw7OuUWh-kzIQyr2QBHEBc3YD5SPLlwqmR5yM0N7a7A9x4fqX_xHg13cCVmY99kzJ65G7mEyX980MlzuQ0hyphenhyphenILPqd0jz74KSAENF5g5VmGD/s1600/love+on+a+plate.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Af34PBQlXlnZQRlJDAwCO-_2IBw7OuUWh-kzIQyr2QBHEBc3YD5SPLlwqmR5yM0N7a7A9x4fqX_xHg13cCVmY99kzJ65G7mEyX980MlzuQ0hyphenhyphenILPqd0jz74KSAENF5g5VmGD/s320/love+on+a+plate.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
I usually have a salad for lunch, and I don't vary the salad much. Romaine always, maybe a little tomato, red pepper or celery, a simple dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. On top, a sprinkle of chopped nuts, fried tofu, chickpeas or some such. I'm happy to report I'm out of my salad rut with the arrival of this interesting new book, <i>Love on a Plate</i>.<br />
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<i>Love on a Plate</i> is an "uncookbook"--all the food is raw. That means no ingredient is ever processed at over 118 degrees Fahrenheit. A blender--preferably a powerful VitaMix--and a food dehydrator are frequently called into service. However, nothing more than a cutting board, a sharp knife, and that old Hamilton Beach blender you got for a wedding present in 1986 will get you pretty far along if you're not quite ready to commit to the raw vegan lifestyle full-time.<br />
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The authors, Cara Brotman and Markus Rothkranz, look like they've sprung fully-dressed from somewhere on Rodeo Drive: tanned, blond, healthy, white and gold outfits glittering in the Southern California sun. Cara is a longtime vegan raw foodie, chef and restaurateur. Markus is a movie special effects guy turned health guru. Together they make living a healthy life simple, attractive and fun.<br />
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ALL of the food in this book is extremely easy to prepare. Some of the ingredients need a few hours in the dehydrator, but not counting that drying-out time, a recipe might take three minutes to whip up. Today I made a cheese, date pineapple salad with kale, and it was pretty yummy. I love kale, but I never use it raw in salad. I stuck to the recipe, though, mixing it with cut-up pineapple, dates, scallions, cashews and the non-dairy almond cheese. The dressing is olive oil, cider vinegar, balsamic vinegar, salt, pepper and nutritional yeast (that's the pale yellow powder with the cheesy flavor, not the stuff you use for baking). Again, I'm not a big fan of vinegar, balsamic or otherwise, but I stuck to the recipe. And it was great! All the flavors and textures mixed together perfectly: sweet, sour, salty...creamy, chewy, crunchy: perfection. I even licked the plate.<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-14186960813179262182015-06-29T18:00:00.000-04:002015-06-29T18:27:12.104-04:00What I Had for Lunch Today: Vegan Egg Salad<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'm trying to eliminate eggs from my diet, for a variety of reasons. In dishes that traditionally call for eggs, substitutes can be made, with varying results. In pancakes and layer cakes, for example, I dare you to tell the difference. In eggplant parmigiana, on the other hand, making a credible batter is difficult. Egg salad, fortunately for me since that's what I was craving today, is one of those dishes for which excellent alternatives exist.<br />
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To make this particularly successful batch, I started with pressed tofu from Trader Joe's. It's quite dry, so it doesn't need to be weighted, drained, or dried off with paper towels. It's also organic, nutritious, and cheap. I mashed it up with a fork in a little bowl, then added a couple of spoonsful of nutritional yeast, a couple of pinches of black salt, and some turmeric cooked in a bit of oil. I then had the equivalent of a hard-boiled egg or two.<br />
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To the "egg" mixture, I added a couple of dollops of vegan mayonnaise, some sliced celery, and some chopped-up bread-and-butter pickles (which I had made only yesterday), salt and freshly-ground black pepper. I dumped it on a plate of shredded romaine and garnished it with tomato and parsley. That's a soy mocha latte with it.<br />
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Nutritional yeast, by the way, has a cheesy or nutty flavor, which gives a boost to notoriously-tasteless tofu. It's also got 9 grams of protein in every two tablespoons. The tofu itself has 14 grams of protein per serving (one serving = a bit over three ounces), so do the math: the vegan version is actually much higher in protein than real egg salad.<br />
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The black salt--which I purchased in a local Asian market--contains a lot of sulphur. It comes in big chunks, so I have to pound it into smaller pieces and then grind them up in a mortar and pestle (at least until I find my salt grinder). Although the big chunks are blackish, the ground-up salt is pink. The sulphur in the black salt adds that totally authentic eggy aroma and taste.<br />
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Turmeric is mainly for golden color, though it adds a bit of flavor also. But please: never use turmeric raw! You have to fry it in oil first. NEVER just sprinkle it in at the end, no matter what the recipe says. In most traditional recipes calling for turmeric, frying something is part of the cooking process anyway, so that's when the turmeric goes in. For "egg" salad, it's kind of weird, because it's an otherwise no-cook dish. But if you're like me, you can taste the horrible raw taste of uncooked turmeric, and so you get out your tiny cast-iron skillet and add your pinch of spice to a few drops of oil and fry for a few seconds. The result is a cheap, nutritious, cruelty-free vegan dish that tastes pretty much exactly like the original.<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-84539697566897084132015-06-29T13:15:00.000-04:002015-06-29T13:30:48.950-04:00Pillow Concierge!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLWreP-ycuvVEtlmZIkGC9jT-t69PNsQ9hIAankKMa40sgyuYXi7cE0y-yA0M577wYypuTTIGeqUPX_g1u7FtUWOTQejtMmsmy2PvgdyncTfuAI7xbCV9kkLMCSoiZAl3mSbNR/s1600/20150625_165754.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLWreP-ycuvVEtlmZIkGC9jT-t69PNsQ9hIAankKMa40sgyuYXi7cE0y-yA0M577wYypuTTIGeqUPX_g1u7FtUWOTQejtMmsmy2PvgdyncTfuAI7xbCV9kkLMCSoiZAl3mSbNR/s320/20150625_165754.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Most excellent three days in Boston with Brian--a great combination of local color and prodigious luxury. We love Boston, but it's just so darned crowded. A couple of times already this year we've decamped early because we just couldn't deal with the traffic and the crowds. Accommodations at the Battery Wharf Hotel--problem solved! When they say it's "on the water," they mean it's literally <i>on top of the water</i>, on a pier. No cars anywhere around. Even with the windows open, all you hear is the sound of little waves lapping.<br />
<br />
Recently, luxury hotels have re-discovered the blatantly obvious fact that real luxury, especially for us boomers, is getting a decent night's sleep. I remember Aunt Wanda and Uncle Eddie used to carry around their <span class="short_text" id="result_box" lang="pl"><span class="hps"><i>pierzyna</i> (Polish featherbed) on trips, whether it was to camp out in the Bay of Fundy (reached by private plane; there were no roads) or rest in regal splendor at the Ch</span></span><span class="short_text" id="result_box" lang="pl"><span class="hps"><span class="st">â</span>teau Frontenac. No vacation was worth taking, to them, if the bed wasn't as good as theirs at home. And better to be safe than sorry.</span></span><br />
<span class="short_text" id="result_box" lang="pl"><span class="hps"><br /></span></span>
<span class="short_text" id="result_box" lang="pl"><span class="hps">I feel the same way. So I was excited to discover that the Battery Wharf Hotel has a pillow concierge! The pillow concierge of my imagination wears a special little costume, poufy and floaty, trimmed with tassels, feathers, and bits of eiderdown. She glides into your room with a selection of restful bed accessories and lets you try them out. Kind of a cross between Mary Poppins, the Sandman and Tinkerbell, but with feathers.</span></span><br />
<span class="short_text" id="result_box" lang="pl"><span class="hps"><br /></span></span>
<span class="short_text" id="result_box" lang="pl"><span class="hps">Okay, so the reality doesn't exactly match the fantasy. The results, however, are the same. The Battery Wharf has a selection of pillows, so if you don't like what's provided (a feather pillow), you have your choice of foam, or gel, for example. In my case, the bed as made up in standard fashion (high-end sheets, snowy duvet, pillowtop mattress, feather pillows) was perfection. So I had no need to call on the services of the pillow concierge. She may forever remain the be-tasselled sprite of my imagination.</span></span><br />
<span class="short_text" id="result_box" lang="pl"><span class="hps"><br /></span></span>
<span class="short_text" id="result_box" lang="pl"><span class="hps">On the other hand, the coffee was so good (Nespresso coffee maker in room, yum!) and I drank so much of it (hey, I'm a writer....caffeine is my fuel) that I managed to run out of those little pots of cream. So I got to test out the coffee concierge (as I like to think of him). One phone call and I got enough sugar and cream to last the rest of the trip...from an attendant who beamed at me so brightly, I felt I had somehow made his day.</span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-68716964563018200642014-05-26T01:25:00.001-04:002014-05-26T01:29:04.983-04:00Carrie Jane Emory<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeN23uJ6-Kb3gAvZp_pqfx-ZZAsLuRaOpSQqvendsc2gFjeUrmw8umkh2DSd22Aj6o9KyPWrzHaEmMhQliG1DnoUzBVQgx6F8enUGbPfvw5qxummZAVkavpSKYQuy2kLEqL2Et/s1600/Carrie+Jane+Emory+Crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeN23uJ6-Kb3gAvZp_pqfx-ZZAsLuRaOpSQqvendsc2gFjeUrmw8umkh2DSd22Aj6o9KyPWrzHaEmMhQliG1DnoUzBVQgx6F8enUGbPfvw5qxummZAVkavpSKYQuy2kLEqL2Et/s1600/Carrie+Jane+Emory+Crop.jpg" height="320" width="291" /></a></div>
This past weekend, at my Smith College reunion, I was supposed to be reminiscing about 1969, but at least part of the time my thoughts were firmly fixed on 1885. I wasn't there at that time, obviously, but Carrie Jane Emory was. She was the daughter of Pascal Emory, first owner of the house now owned by me. I learned a few years ago from her obituary that she had attended Smith, but I didn't know exactly when. So on Saturday afternoon, while my classmates were eating their box lunches on the lawn, I was in the Smith College Archives hunting for any trace of Carrie.<br />
<br />
The wonderful archivist showed me a directory published in the 1930s listing all the students from each class, graduates and non-graduates. Carrie was a non-graduating member of the class of 1885. Oddly enough, I counted 45 graduates and 49 non-graduates. That's a dropout rate higher than Springfield's struggling public high schools! I think that in many cases, girls left because they married or because their families could not afford the tuition, but I don't think either of those reasons was the case for Carrie. She died a spinster, her parents were pretty rich, and she was the only child who survived to adulthood (so no competition for the funds).<br />
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The archivist also found me a file containing two identical cabinet card portraits (see above) and several letters written during the summers of her college years to a friend named Abby. The letters are maddeningly fluffy, with little concrete information about anything. "Yesterday, I received six letters, two packages and two visiting cards. It took me all morning to read my mail." "I have owed you a letter for a long time. I hope you shan't be angry with me. I have been meaning to buy more note paper." "I am sorry to hear of your distress. I, too, have felt the same way. I hope you shall feel better." Why is Abby distressed? Why was Carrie distressed? What did they <i>do</i> all day long? No clues.<br />
<br />
She seemed to like tennis, refers to tournaments, and mentions playing against the men because the women were "too amateurish." I think my next step will be to see if she belonged to any sort of tennis or country club in Springfield. I can find no evidence that she ever married, worked, or even volunteered for any committees (and of course, she didn't cook or clean because she had a servant). She lived almost 60 years after leaving Smith. She must have done something!<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-88172330032633041842014-04-29T07:14:00.002-04:002014-04-29T09:10:59.857-04:00Hole You Could Lose a Baby in<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW43NQIYxXscUDPTuPSjXeXQ3bWepBEAUoc1yTgSANugxgrTA5iPaYRLVEflL4TXT4VgoXSoiMdR_tQQY2JP4PKyXkO9iEIJ5PPF-MTO14SSDPL1l72EGxL4hrhDcO_kK9LIe0/s1600/hole.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW43NQIYxXscUDPTuPSjXeXQ3bWepBEAUoc1yTgSANugxgrTA5iPaYRLVEflL4TXT4VgoXSoiMdR_tQQY2JP4PKyXkO9iEIJ5PPF-MTO14SSDPL1l72EGxL4hrhDcO_kK9LIe0/s1600/hole.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
Here's a sinkhole on Mattoon Street in Springfield, Massachusetts, a block from where I live. I pass by this scary-looking hole at least four times a day....on foot, thankfully. As a pedestrian, I can stay on the sidewalk and don't have to go anywhere near the asphalt. <br />
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An orange construction barrel has been covering the hole, leaving just enough room on the one-way street for a car to get by. This arrangement is an excellent system as long as the barrel remains in place. Unfortunately, April showers have also brought some high winds, and the flimsy barrel doesn't always stay where it belongs. I myself have replaced it over the hole at least six times in the past couple of weeks. I'd wager that many people who drive past don't know exactly why the barrel's been there, and might not automatically avoid the spot it usually occupies if it was blown over. They--and their suspensions--would be in for a bad surprise!<br />
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At last night's quarterly meeting of the Mattoon Street Historic Preservation Association, I learned that the street is slated to be paved "sometime before the end of the summer." The pothole situation on the street has been noted, and needs to be addressed before September's Mattoon Street Art Festival, which brings thousands of people to the neighborhood. Last year, at least one festival attendee twisted an ankle while strolling the street. <br />
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No plans to make the repair of the sinkhole before the major repaving project seem to be afoot, however. Meanwhile, we've always got the barrel. I guess it's no worse or different than the rest of the country's approach to crumbling infrastructure.<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-18382943081179665992014-04-23T11:35:00.000-04:002014-04-23T11:35:38.268-04:00What I Had for Lunch Today: Vegan Sausage and Potato Scramble<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhql9hIyqiUKIs4sDWZ1TsQx1VtSsEswVBbMA9-VgojFOCXNqaUWyDWi3aurJJ0mrjlUDzmejZ6m-yyvdJpqb1R82lPl2pHBLeH2k6x7l2U5GjcJln4ialLSxNFNT8bDFcFzTw/s1600/vegan+sausage+and+potato+scramble.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhql9hIyqiUKIs4sDWZ1TsQx1VtSsEswVBbMA9-VgojFOCXNqaUWyDWi3aurJJ0mrjlUDzmejZ6m-yyvdJpqb1R82lPl2pHBLeH2k6x7l2U5GjcJln4ialLSxNFNT8bDFcFzTw/s1600/vegan+sausage+and+potato+scramble.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
If I had to run out of my house with only one item--in the case of some disaster like a fire or flood--it might well be my cast iron skillet. (The family photos are all in the cloud.) These days the skillet rarely makes it back into the cupboard; it's about the only cooking implement I put on my stove. Cooking for the family was a Norman Rockwell-style affair; cooking for myself is usually a one-dish meal.<br />
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Today it was onions, red peppers, green peppers, vegan Italian-style sausage, Yukon Gold potatoes and a handful of those little cherry tomatoes, all stir-fried in olive oil with a bit of sweet basil and oregano. A good meal for a rainy day.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-50994811842831952892014-04-23T00:40:00.001-04:002014-04-23T00:47:37.644-04:00Maggie Rose Redux<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In 1960, I kept a diary. I was 12 years old. In 2011, I posted in this blog each day the text of my diary entry for that same day in 1960. Many things I remembered, but a surprising number of entries seemed to have been written by another person. In many instances I had no recollection whatsoever of the events described, and I was taken aback by some of my reactions. Overall I had the feeling, copying out those old entries, that a messy, disorganized, slightly mercenary preteen had usurped the place of the saintly little Cicily of my memories. The diary Cicily had terrible taste in movies, didn't always finish her homework, and was occasionally mean to her friends. Part of me wanted to burn the evidence, but being a journalist and a historian, I opted to publish it here.<br />
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On April 9, 1960 I wrote:<br />
"At Steiger's there was a fountain, so we threw in pennies (<u>my</u> pennies). I finished 'Maggie Rose,' it was wonderful." <br />
I have no recollection of having read <em>Maggie Rose</em>. But I was curious about what my younger self--the self I am realizing I don't actually know all that well--would have considered "wonderful." The Springfield library system no longer owns a copy of the book, but the Berkshire Athaneum does, and through the miracle of the inter-library loan, that copy arrived at my local branch a few days ago and I was able to re-read it.<br />
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<em>Maggie Rose</em> is written by Newbury medalist Ruth Sawyer, a storyteller, teacher, reporter and author who lived in Boston. (Sawyer's son-in-law was Robert McCloskey, author of <em>Make Way for Ducklings</em>.) It's illustrated by none other than Maurice Sendak. The story takes place in 1951. Maggie Rose is an enterprising little girl, the rest of whose family is cheerfully indolent. On June 24 she realizes her birthday, which falls on Christmas Eve, is exactly half a year away. She makes plans to have, for the first time, a real birthday/Christmas celebration (her family is too lazy and too poor ever to have gone to that much effort). For six months she works to earn money and make preparations. The story ends on December 24 with her party, a smashing success.<br />
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<em>Maggie Rose</em> actually is a pretty good book. I think what I like about it--and what my twelve-year-old self probably liked--is the sense of place evoked in the story. Maggie Rose lives in a small Maine seacoast town. She spends a lot of time outdoors in her "secret place" on the fringe of the woods. Flora and fauna are lovingly described by Sawyer...hemlocks and pine, spruce and birch, mosses, rocks, sparrows. The other nice thing about the book is Maggie Rose herself. She's a reader, a dreamer, and a resourceful child. Kind of like me as a girl. Or at least what I think I was like.<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-16908631693651324652014-04-19T12:49:00.000-04:002014-04-19T12:49:04.344-04:00What I Had for Lunch Today: Dandelion Omelet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEtCZmq9DLpiEPRxhNxoTZU5QTI7EvR1TcWBE1zwERoVSdpXY2X1Ks4Wq5-SMiLFKzLust986s0404FQCyS9HCwyp8NS3myzcdbEJioKqYazyvKbGs6OmkyXST-Evdm-yruRnF/s1600/dandelion+omelet.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEtCZmq9DLpiEPRxhNxoTZU5QTI7EvR1TcWBE1zwERoVSdpXY2X1Ks4Wq5-SMiLFKzLust986s0404FQCyS9HCwyp8NS3myzcdbEJioKqYazyvKbGs6OmkyXST-Evdm-yruRnF/s1600/dandelion+omelet.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
This omelet is nothing but a few shallots and a handful of dandelion leaves, chopped and sautéed, salt, pepper, and one egg. I had it with Tuscan pane toast, slathered with boysenberry jam, a few organic strawberries with sugar and a splash of triple sec, and Café Bustelo with molasses and cream. A real taste of spring.<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-18462942172293558922014-04-11T22:20:00.000-04:002014-04-11T22:26:34.536-04:00What I Had for Lunch Today: Polenta with Italian Sausage and Dandelion<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLTchnOQqDIWgK43of12QiX73pyOkDennKJKHUVTnK068Z__Hp2VO5aEC-ZdAxC07SHgwekvv4HD5rCsW1On1cc7IbD9R8D6stK2L6NDux7t4rf0CuV7xKeJ94jTP2uu1PlGQ8/s1600/dandelion+lunch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLTchnOQqDIWgK43of12QiX73pyOkDennKJKHUVTnK068Z__Hp2VO5aEC-ZdAxC07SHgwekvv4HD5rCsW1On1cc7IbD9R8D6stK2L6NDux7t4rf0CuV7xKeJ94jTP2uu1PlGQ8/s1600/dandelion+lunch.jpg" height="256" width="320" /></a></div>
Friday night, so, a glass of wine. Vino de tavola, so, something with polenta. Spring, so, dandelion greens. Something spicy needed, so, vegan Italian sausage. Garlic, shallots, olive oil, a few mushrooms, a spoonful of marinara, some crushed red pepper. Pantry to table in twelve minutes.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-50581120159326393952014-04-05T21:55:00.000-04:002014-04-05T21:56:53.253-04:00What I Had for Lunch Today: Tomato Soup with Farro<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOghwnrOWM4-gu5flnKpORVLoZsuRshUlUPTEBfpOiQOM2XZEgDHqcaoaHT57dULAGABIUFpcOfn59HzLd-z70bsliW4uG1Q21NRJLUbjg4xhZqm-rY3p7P0GUAjh-SfMltmpS/s1600/tomato+soup+with+farro.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOghwnrOWM4-gu5flnKpORVLoZsuRshUlUPTEBfpOiQOM2XZEgDHqcaoaHT57dULAGABIUFpcOfn59HzLd-z70bsliW4uG1Q21NRJLUbjg4xhZqm-rY3p7P0GUAjh-SfMltmpS/s1600/tomato+soup+with+farro.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
Soup is odds-and-ends food for me. This one is three or four shallots and a couple of cloves of garlic, chopped and sautéed, plus a few tablespoons of leftover marinara, vegetable bouillon, fresh parsley and dill, and a handful of farro, simmered till the farro was tender. I finished it with a splash of heavy cream, a pat of butter, homemade croutons and a grating of Parmigiano-Reggiano. For dessert, a couple of chocolate digestive biscuits and an espresso. I would've enjoyed my lunch more if a certain dog and cat had not been staring fixedly at it the entire time. Note to Taz: onions, chocolate and sugar are all bad for dogs.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-55047474822597398312014-04-03T21:56:00.000-04:002014-04-04T17:43:36.418-04:00Festival of Flowers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRFNwLbuVPc78RfiOG9tyNEtgDBlUjQte9StvZ-0TtZ5MW2_N2dvSKmyspKbiuhucQQx4YMaknttPXyr0pcIzPipGUq84MYCidUkRIkjnA4ng0IuFwSeC6wV2ZN0jEm1-GyoYW/s1600/flower+lamp.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRFNwLbuVPc78RfiOG9tyNEtgDBlUjQte9StvZ-0TtZ5MW2_N2dvSKmyspKbiuhucQQx4YMaknttPXyr0pcIzPipGUq84MYCidUkRIkjnA4ng0IuFwSeC6wV2ZN0jEm1-GyoYW/s1600/flower+lamp.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
The Springfield Museums' wildly popular monthly series "Culture and Cocktails" always has seasonal themes, but this month's could not have been better planned. March this year came in like a lion and went out like a lion. Winter lingered so long in Massachusetts that I seriously wondered whether spring would ever come. The last two days of March brought bitter cold, snow, sleet, and Arctic winds, and then suddenly this week it's April, the sun is out, the air is soft, and the crocuses are up. And the Museum is having a Festival of Flowers. <br />
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Local florists and garden clubs were invited to submit floral arrangements inspired by various works in the museums. The arrangements are scattered throughout the four museums, placed near the pieces that sparked them. Patrons can pick up a diagram identifying the locations and then it's like a scavenger hunt, roaming around the Quadrangle looking for all of them.<br />
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My favorite is the arrangement by Sherry Williams of the Springfield Garden Club, interpreting a glass and bronze Tiffany Studios lamp from 1910. She's spot-on, not only with the colors and the form of the lamp, but with the overall feel of the piece. What amuses me the most is that the lamp is botanically inspired, with its base in the form of a trunk and leaves, and she's taken it back to the original plants. Plus it's pretty and I could totally picture it in my house.<br />
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The design team at Flowers, Flowers! took over the entire Blake Court in the Museum of Fine Arts, and did a bang-up job. The interpretation of Herman Herzog's "View of Niagara Falls in Moonlight" has huge cascades of white flowers, frothy moss and a beautiful palette of greys and greens. The interpretation of Joseph Whiting Stock's "The Fisherman with His Dog" is very large, like the painting itself, with a dangly exotic flower to represent the fishing rod and line, and a mirror so that you see yourself as the fisherman. Very whimsical. The interpretation of "Evening at Low Tide, Manomet" has rocks, seaweed, and tight chrysanthemums which look like some form of sea life. Gorgeous.<br />
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In the French Impressionist Gallery, Tara Northway Ostrosky had the courage to tackle the Degas, "Rehearsal Before the Ballet," with success I might add. The gorgeous pink parrot tulips, delphiniums, Queen Anne's lace, plum blossoms, combined with sage green leaves,<br />
are the essence of spring.<br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-72207590719217791792014-03-22T00:39:00.001-04:002014-03-22T00:41:04.356-04:00Liquor for Lunch<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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One of the best things about working from home is, you can drink on the job. Not that I drink all that much, but when I make a pasta dish for lunch and want to have a glass of wine with it, I don't have to think twice. It's perfectly legal. I remember when I was working at Intel, some poor guy had a couple of beers on his lunch break and ended up in a world of trouble, suspended I think. Of course, every box of wafers we handled had a street value of four million dollars, and the equipment was worth much more than that, so probably it was a good rule. But it's not my rule any more.<br />
<br />
I don't even like pasta much, so when I do cook it, I always add a lot of other stuff to it. This was a dribs-and-drabs meal anyway...some forgotten tortellini in the freezer and a bit of leftover marinara from last week's pizza. I turned it into vodka sauce with olive oil, shallots, artichoke hearts, rosemary, heavy cream and of course the vodka. I jazzed up some overripe kiwis, persimmon, and raspberries with a splash of Chambord, and ate both dishes with some Merlot. And there you have it...liquor for lunch.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-42059930972429141522014-03-19T16:30:00.000-04:002014-03-19T21:25:53.959-04:00What I Had for Lunch Today: Braised Cabbage and Pierogi<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Braising is a cooking method I like very much, right after stir-frying. It's a combination of frying and boiling...what you do when stir-frying alone would burn the food before it would cook it through. You just begin by frying your cabbage or whatever, then add a bit of water and cover the pan till the food is tender. Sometimes I reverse the process: moist-cook the whatever, then add oil as the water evaporates to make the food crispy. <br />
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These were the outer leaves of a head of cabbage, sort of tough to be handled with oil alone. Slivered and braised, with plenty of garlic, they were delicious. And those are some of the homemade pierogi I had frozen at Christmastime. A nod to both my Irish and Polish heritage. <div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-26198979877050596692014-03-18T12:48:00.001-04:002014-03-18T21:38:53.637-04:00Whoever Hateth His Brother Is a Murderer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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History is not exactly "everything that happened in the past." It's more like "everything that happened in the past of interest to human beings that has been written down or otherwise recorded." According to the latter definition, the town of Wilbraham, Massachusetts has precious little history. Before its settlement in 1636 by white Europeans (mainly English), the area was populated by nothing more than beaver, salmon, otter, mink, deer, skunks, and Nipmuc Indians, none of whom had any written language--hence, no history.<br />
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For centuries afterward, the history of Wilbraham consisted mainly of a dry chronology of births, marriages, deaths, and real estate transactions, punctuated every few decades by a colorful anecdote. In the early 1700s, somebody named Peggy fell off of her horse into a shallow marsh on the way to Sunday meeting, soaking her best clothes, on a road still to this day called Dipping Hole. On August 7, 1761, young Timothy Mirrick was fatally bitten by a "ratel snake" while mowing a meadow. A famous ballad was written about that "pesky sarpent." On June 15, 1763 the town was officially incorporated as Wilbraham. No one bothered to record the origin of the name or who came up with it, only that "the name was very grevious to us and we are hardly reconciled to it yet." WTF?? On April 29, 1799, six young people fell out of a boat on Nine Mile Pond and were drowned. Their bodies sank like stones, although for several hours "the red skirts and white bonnets of one or two of the young ladies" as well as "a solitary hat or two" could be seen floating upon the surface of the water. In 1854, some zealous Millerites were sure the world was about to end in a great conflagration and, sure enough, within a week of each other, not one, but two barns east of Main Street burned to the ground.<br />
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But perhaps the most notable event ever to have occurred in Wilbraham was the murder, in 1806, of a young farmer named Marcus Lyon. His horse came home one day without a rider, and sometime later his body, shot and bludgeoned, was found in the Chicopee River. A young boy recalled having seen two Irishmen walking down the Boston Post Road that day. That seemed to be sufficient evidence. Dominic Daley and James Halligan were found, arrested, jailed in Northampton, tried, found guilty, and hanged on June 5 of that year. According to Chauncey E. Peck's 1913 <i>The History of Wilbraham</i>, "of the 15,000 supposed to be present, scarcely one had a doubt of their guilt. Daley and Halligan were natives of Ireland."<br />
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The Reverend Jean-Louis Anne Madelain Lefebvre de Cheverus, first Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Boston, was allowed to visit them in jail. He counseled them, heard their confessions, held the first Catholic Mass in Northampton in their cell, and at their request preached what was deemed "an appropriate and eloquent discourse" on Gallows Hill just before they were put to death. His text: 1 John 3:15, "Whoever hateth his brother is a murderer."<br />
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It seems obvious from our contemporary perspective that the murderous brother-haters to whom the Reverend Cheverus referred were the 15,000 over-eager spectators, and not the accused. On St. Patrick's Day in 1984, then-governor of Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis, officially exonerated the two men. A marker was placed on Gallow's Hill, a.k.a. Pancake Plain, presently called Hospital Hill, easily viewable from Route 66. A yearly ceremony on St. Patrick's Day and another on the anniversary of the hangings commemorates the sad event.<br />
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This year Retired Massachusetts state trial court judge Michael Ryan spoke at the commemoration. He likened old-timey prejudice against Irish immigrants to contemporary attitudes towards Blacks and gays. While I see his point, I think he missed a better analogy. When a crime is committed these days, we don't automatically assume it's a homosexual. We've got Muslim "terrorists" for that.<br />
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<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-8852690177674180792014-03-14T23:29:00.000-04:002014-03-14T23:29:09.278-04:00What I Had for Lunch Today: Parmesan Soup<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Remember when bones were free, or practically so? You asked the butcher for them when you wanted to make soup, or give a treat to your dog. Suet was the same: a waste product that bird lovers knew to ask about. The butcher went in the back and reappeared with a hunk, which you could wrap up in a piece of chicken wire and hang up in the back yard to attract chickadees and woodpeckers. Then the markets got wise, and now the fat and the bones cost as much as some of the meats.<br />
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Same thing with cheese rinds. Stores used to toss them; if you knew someone in the back, they might save them for you. Most people wouldn't even know what to do with them in any case. But then word got out about using them for gourmet soup, and now they're six to ten dollars a pound.<br />
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Here's some of that gourmet soup. What it lacks in beauty, it makes up for in taste. Half a pound of Parmigiano Reggiano rinds, an onion, a few cloves of garlic, a handful of Italian parsley, salt and pepper simmered for an hour with a quart and a half of water makes the broth. It's supposed to be strained, and the solids discarded. As if! I just chopped up the cheese into chewy nuggets and kept going. I added cooked cannellini and some ribbons of kale, cooked it a bit longer till the kale was tender, then drizzled olive oil over it to serve.<br />
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This is divine with a couple of slices of toasted sperlonga. Although spring is technically less than a week away, it's still ridiculously cold here, with views of snowbanks from all the windows. A pot of this will be long gone before anyone at the Emory House wants warm-weather fare.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-63668703488148567222014-02-27T14:34:00.000-05:002014-03-11T23:01:54.157-04:00Julia Child Declassified<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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If Julia Child had not been over six feet tall, she would've enlisted in the WACs or the WAVES during World War II, instead of the Office of Strategic Services. She wouldn't have gone to Kandy, Ceylon with the OSS, she wouldn't have met Paul Child there, she wouldn't have married him after the war, she wouldn't have been introduced to gourmet French cuisine by Paul, she wouldn't have challenged herself to learn to cook it for him, she wouldn't have formed L'école des trois gourmands, written all those books, done all those TV shows...and cuisine in the United States would not be what it is today. As the Bobs sing in "Julia's Too Tall," their a capella tribute to the famous chef: "She's too tall to be a spy,/But not too tall to bake a pie."<br />
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Julia (as a fellow alumna, I feel we can be on a first-name basis) graduated from Smith College in 1934 with a major in history and minors in music and French. In 1935 she became assistant to the advertising manager at W. & J. Sloane, 5th Avenue, NYC., at a salary of $20/week. Returning home to California after a year and a half due to her mother's illness, she became a fashion columnist (!!!!) for a San Francisco publication, earning $25/column. When the magazine went bankrupt, she went back to work for W. & J. Sloane, this time in Beverly Hills, as advertising manager. In 1942, with World War II in full swing, she began working as a civilian in the Office of War Information, and from there transferred to the OSS. She stayed until the office was disbanded in 1946, got married to Paul Child, and the rest is culinary history.<br />
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Julia's 130-page OSS file was declassified in 2008, and it makes interesting reading. Not the insufferably dry parts the government wrote, but the parts she contributed, such as her résumé and job applications. Her cheerful forthrightness and dry humor shine through even in these mundane documents.<br />
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On her earliest filed résumé, she doesn't flinch when asked her reason for leaving her last pre-government job. "Fired, and I don't wonder. One needs a much more detailed knowledge of business, buying, markets, and more experience in advertising than I had for so much responsibility. But I learned a great deal, and did pretty well in establishing the mechanics of the office and the business personnel." On her OSS job application, she's a bit more diplomatic. Reason for leaving (same job)? "Resigned." "Store in state of upheaval owing to change of management. Disagreement with management." "(Think it was partly store politics. I was put in over the heads of several who wanted the job, and I was put in by the New York office. Basic disagreements with new manager about method & approach. Think also they needed a more mature person for the job.)"<br />
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At the job before the OSS, with the U.S. Information Center in Washington D.C., she "typed over 10,000 little white cards and put in for a transfer to the OSS." Elsewhere she sums up that job: "Verifying names & complete breakdown of titles of government executives and other persons of importance, typing them on small index cards, copying cards several times. Am supposed to get a promotion to typing bigger cards, but nothing has happened." I wish I could go back in time 70 years and reassure Julia that she has much, much bigger cards in her future.<br />
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When the OSS disbanded, Julia McWilliams was granted an Emblem of Meritorious Civilian Service. In it she was praised for her resourcefulness, industry, sound judgement, drive, and inherent cheerfulness. "Morale in her section could not have been higher." Sounds to me like Julia was just being Julia. Giving 200% to everything you do, from typing little white cards to making television history, if you live to be 90 or so, can get you all the way from Smith to the Smithsonian.<br />
<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-53026762696807477822014-02-24T22:48:00.002-05:002014-02-24T22:52:37.384-05:00Rose Mochi<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So, I've been fooling around with some Asian recipes recently, and yesterday I made mochi. I started with the recipe from tworedbowls.com, which I found at Food52, a cooking site I trust. I would've made green tea-flavored mochi if I had had plain green tea powder on hand, but I didn't, so I opted for rose-flavored instead. I was thinking of masghati, a Persian sweet also made of starch, but flavored with rosewater, cardamom, saffron and pistachio nuts. <br />
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I mixed up a cup of mochiko (sweet rice flour), a cup of sugar, a half-teaspoon of baking powder, a cup of water, and half a can of coconut milk. That was the recipe as given. To color the mochi, I grated a little fresh beet into the water and then strained it out. To flavor it, I added a teaspoon of rosewater. I poured the whole business into a Pyrex greased with coconut oil, covered it with foil, and baked it for an hour at 275 degrees. After it was out of the oven and cool, I cut it into squares and tossed them in a bit of cornstarch so they wouldn't stick together.<br />
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When the mochi went into the oven, it looked like Pepto-Bismol and smelled overpoweringly of rosewater. I was worried that I had overdone both the flavoring and the coloring. But when I uncovered the baked mochi, all the pink was gone; instead, it was exactly the color and texture of raw boneless chicken breast. The flavor, on the other hand, was perfect. I don't like using artificial food colorings, so I guess I'm stuck with a vegan treat that tastes amazing but looks like raw meat.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-5413537467928258172014-02-19T11:55:00.001-05:002014-02-19T11:55:20.417-05:00Stop Winter!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin8JleUq_HeukUxnNiOm6oOQZZbHZo4UoVWTvxQZmtzVMMZIXhHolvBoIzuo99jqr8slyWOlo5Ewq7Gl_xBIE4QxPCCHvqqgStlFVDOCus3pNqUy2qvo_NLVU232PCsGemkud_/s1600/stop+winter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin8JleUq_HeukUxnNiOm6oOQZZbHZo4UoVWTvxQZmtzVMMZIXhHolvBoIzuo99jqr8slyWOlo5Ewq7Gl_xBIE4QxPCCHvqqgStlFVDOCus3pNqUy2qvo_NLVU232PCsGemkud_/s1600/stop+winter.jpg" height="320" width="297" /></a></div>
Here's a street sign a couple of blocks from my house. It's at the corner of Spring and Winter Streets--but notice that Spring seems to be missing. Global climate disruption, polar vortex, Arctic amplification...whatever the cause, it looks like, in my neighborhood anyway, it's going to be all winter, all the time from now on.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-76753511860715195272014-02-14T09:47:00.000-05:002014-02-14T09:48:48.451-05:00Waking Up on Valentine's Day<h3 class="tab-content active">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-B22XDZz-_jvKzxeM_u7LenHqTB4APBPaUgsnzg9lvA5eQikqAGWmK8rIDyDMhBS5qcurTY3MSvjnTdUTVk_KlKPKHR7iup-dRo1sMn2MbOUmVs22vfY4J7MSvxh0pyJnjhaz/s1600/valentine.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-B22XDZz-_jvKzxeM_u7LenHqTB4APBPaUgsnzg9lvA5eQikqAGWmK8rIDyDMhBS5qcurTY3MSvjnTdUTVk_KlKPKHR7iup-dRo1sMn2MbOUmVs22vfY4J7MSvxh0pyJnjhaz/s1600/valentine.JPG" height="282" width="320" /></a></h3>
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The Good-Morrow</h3>
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John Donne</div>
<span class="author"><a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/john-donne"></a> </span>
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I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I </div>
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Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then? </div>
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But sucked on country pleasures, childishly? </div>
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Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den? </div>
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’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be. </div>
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If ever any beauty I did see, </div>
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Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee. </div>
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And now good-morrow to our waking souls, </div>
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Which watch not one another out of fear; </div>
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For love, all love of other sights controls, </div>
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And makes one little room an everywhere. </div>
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Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone, </div>
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Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown, </div>
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Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one. </div>
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My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, </div>
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And true plain hearts do in the faces rest; </div>
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Where can we find two better hemispheres, </div>
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Without sharp north, without declining west? </div>
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Whatever dies, was not mixed equally; </div>
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If our two loves be one, or, thou and I </div>
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Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.</div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-17257306946725553352014-02-09T15:52:00.000-05:002014-02-09T15:54:15.086-05:00Amy Lowell<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK_zYu4AxFFGGItt0sdmhZ1O4TUt0PqwehgrIdEr0K0BV6s-6PC8tkZS4H0Si5J5IQ7Ui2rq4ECGiOVaWRRFkyab9ItRphvZvsHqQtueEpVnH0Z30RZ-wb9cTseUSe4f-yljx8/s1600/amy+lowell.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK_zYu4AxFFGGItt0sdmhZ1O4TUt0PqwehgrIdEr0K0BV6s-6PC8tkZS4H0Si5J5IQ7Ui2rq4ECGiOVaWRRFkyab9ItRphvZvsHqQtueEpVnH0Z30RZ-wb9cTseUSe4f-yljx8/s1600/amy+lowell.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
Biography is not my favorite genre, but nevertheless two particular biographies have endeared themselves to me. One is a two-volume work by Eve Curie about her mother, Marie, and the other is S. Foster Damon's 1935 <i>Amy Lowell</i>. I read these in junior high school for book reports. The former is two thick volumes, translated from the French, and the latter a hefty 773 pages. Spend that much time learning about someone's life and you are bound to come away with an appreciation.<br />
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The books were not my own; they were checked out of the Forest Park branch of the public library. That branch was right across the street from my junior high school, and probably the place I spent the most time in my childhood, after home and school. At least until I went to high school--at that point it was probably home, school, and the downtown branch of the library. That main branch was across the street from my high school.<br />
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One of the perks of my current location is its proximity to the downtown branch of that same library. If anyone had told me in the 1950s or 1960s that I would go away to college, live on three different continents, and end up two blocks from my old high school and library, I would have had difficulty believing it. But that's what happened. And anyone who knows this blog knows my appreciation for the free shelf in that downtown library. <br />
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So imagine my pleasure a while back at finding a copy of Amy Lowell's biography on said free shelf. My pleasure turned to amazement when I realized it was the self-same copy I had checked out probably in 1961, discarded by the Forest Park branch. Now it's a treasured addition to my own library. As the King of France says to King Lear, "Be it lawful I take up what's cast away."<br />
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Today is the 140th birthday of Amy Lowell, Massachusetts socialite and poetess, critic and translator, friend and rival of Ezra Pound, cigar-smoking antifeminist beloved of current feminists. She was born in Brookline, buried in Cambridge. I think I'll celebrate her birthday tonight by re-reading her biography.<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20513590.post-24258523555470700212014-02-07T19:24:00.003-05:002014-02-07T19:32:23.313-05:00Crispin Struthers...and a Parrot<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB8ZYDGoMKZ4_TAx1WaFOtxs_PFKmh0YCQVauJbxQQTz1fFccvv7lQctEhL3PbWHYm4FR13Mf1DHQKPNLTgp-jjvG5NoKZrbgtenF5fWrdJ2sC2dfgw-RAcvNEx-w_RpTlOoO5/s1600/crispin+struthers+with+a+parrot+crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB8ZYDGoMKZ4_TAx1WaFOtxs_PFKmh0YCQVauJbxQQTz1fFccvv7lQctEhL3PbWHYm4FR13Mf1DHQKPNLTgp-jjvG5NoKZrbgtenF5fWrdJ2sC2dfgw-RAcvNEx-w_RpTlOoO5/s1600/crispin+struthers+with+a+parrot+crop.jpg" height="320" width="251" /></a></div>
The film industry a century ago was like the wild wild West...wide open for pioneers with vision, talent and guts. Fast forward fifty years, and all the real estate had mostly been grabbed by the big studios. You had to be in Hollywood to do anything, you had to be in the club, and you had to play by the rules. Change your name, sleep with the producer, work your way up from the bottom, whatever, because only the big studios had the money for all the equipment and sets necessary to make a movie.<br />
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Technology has changed all that, and now it seems to me a whole new frontier has opened up. Anyone can make a movie--I myself made one a few years ago with a pocket camera and zero budget, and won top prize in a film festival with it. As in everything else, in every era, 99% of everything that's produced is crap--but there is plenty of amazing good stuff, too. Much of it made by young kids.<br />
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Crispin Struthers is one of the new breed. He's an editor who's worked on David O. Russell's last three movies (his "trilogy"): <i>The Fighter</i>, <i>Silver Linings Playbook</i>, and <i>American Hustle</i>. Crispin is American-born but raised in the Scottish Highlands, and he majored in physics in college. Fast forward a few years and has he become a high school science teacher? A geek living in his parents' basement, busy inventing a bicycle-powered microwave oven? No, he's somehow gotten himself into the movie-editing business, big time. He was working in the studio next door to David O. Russell's, they needed someone to help out for a bit, he came aboard, he was amazing, and the rest is history.<br />
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Editors still work mostly on the West Coast. Although <i>American Hustle</i> was filmed in Boston, it was edited in California. Crispin Struthers was in Boston last week, however, speaking to some members of the Boston Creative Pro User Group, and I wanted to meet him, so I went. A disarming guy with a charming accent that's not quite American, but not really Scottish, either. A guy who doesn't mind posing with a parrot who somehow happens to be in the theater.<br />
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The most interesting part of Crispin Struthers's discussion, for me, was around David O. Russell's use of the Steadicam. That's a product invented in 1975 by Garrett Brown to combine the features of a traditional, clunky, dolly-mounted camera and a versatile, but shaky, hand-held camera. The Steadicam is a camera mount, or "sled," attached to a harness worn by the camera operator. The whole business is weighted and counterbalanced in such a way that the center of gravity is exactly at the cameraman's fingertip. Instead of a viewfinder, it has a monitor. The operator can walk and film, tracking the shot in the monitor, and still get smooth, steady footage. The Steadicam is what was used to get all those shots of Rocky Balboa jogging through the streets of Philadelphia, fighting in the ring, and of course running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.<br />
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Russell likes the Steadicam so much because he can have it swing around in a dramatic scene, capturing, for example, both sides of an intense dialogue. With this method, cinema actors can really get into a part, much as stage actors do. Anyone who's been on a movie set knows how artificial traditional moviemaking is, with green screens, multiple takes, scenes filmed out of order, actors reacting not to what the audience ultimately sees, but to a blank-faced stand-in mouthing a part in a monotone, etc., etc. The Steadicam allows a movie to be filmed more like a play, and lets the director capitalize on all that dramatic intensity. Polly want an Oscar?<div class="blogger-post-footer">http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php</div>Cicily Corbetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15970185233928402158noreply@blogger.com0