Piglog

Lunchtime, Aiptek Pencam SD

2010-03-09T02:00:16+00:00

Palm Trees, taken with a $20 Pencam SD.

Playing around with a $20 Aiptek Pencam SD, a poor-man’s Digital Harinezumi. I shot some video this afternoon and am looking forward to playing with video editing tools. All of my creative work has been still photography, and I’ve never took a swag at video until now.

Aiptek uses the SP44 video codec, not something that comes with Windows Media Player. The codec is available online and with the installer CD. VLC Media player, my player of choice, plays them just fine.

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Disposable Film Festival – filmmaking workshop TODAY!

2010-03-07T18:23:07+00:00

The Disposable Film Festival was created in 2007 to celebrate the artistic potential of disposable video: short films made on non-professional devices such as one-time use video cameras, cell phones, point and shoot cameras, webcams, computer screen capture software, and other readily available video capture devices. With people everywhere gaining access to these devices, we felt the time was right to draw attention to the creative potential of this new mode of filmmaking. Far beyond its initial roles for video blogging and documentation, the DFF offers a forum to display how disposable media can be used for creative purposes. The DFF hosts screenings, competitions, and other events to showcase the best work within the disposable genre.

Disposable Filmmaking Workshop

Community Director at Vimeo.com, Blake Whitman watches a lot of videos, and so he knows a thing or two about what makes a good film. In this workshop, he’ll go over everything from basic shooting techniques, editing styles, and instruct how to stitch photos together to create an animation (known around the interwebs as photomotion). Class starts at noon and breakfast is provided. Free!

Sunday, March 7th, 12 noon at Artist Television Access [map]

[#ad=cj]

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What's for Dinner

2010-03-05T18:10:38+00:00

Yesterday in our veggie box we got: kale, two different kinds of chard (white and gold), collard greens, broccoli, a pound and a half of leeks, six kiwis, and a bag of fingerling potatoes. Last night we had boiled potatoes and peas along with a salad (incorporating the broccoli); tonight I'm doing yet another run [...]

Aiptek Pencam SD — Digital Holga, or a better Digital Harinezumi?

2010-03-05T01:32:49+00:00

I took this picture with a Aiptek Pencam SD, a camera I liken to the Digital Harinezumi. The Pencam SD is roughly the same size, and does 1280×960 max resolution (still), and 6-8 frames per second at 640×480. Like the Digital Harinezumi, the Pencam SD has 64MB of built-in memory and an SD card slot. Instead of an expensive CR2 battery, the Pencam SD uses AAA batteries – I have a stack of rechargeable AAAs at home.

Unlike the DH, the Aiptek is less than $20.

Is this a “Digital Holga”? Probably not, while it can vignette, it can take impressively sharp pictures in the right light.
Is the viewfinder a best guesstimate of the image area? Definitely.
Is it fun to shoot with? Extremely – I prefer not being able to see the photo until after I get home.

Being able to record sound with the Digital Harinezumi 2 would be interesting, but I really like the effects people have created by adding soundtracks to silent video created with the original Digital Harinezumi.

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What the Heck

2010-03-02T02:43:30+00:00

After what I'd perceived as a long period of everyone gradually getting saner about pregnancy—especially people mostly recognizing that a pregnant woman is still a free adult, retaining both her decision-making faculties and her basic human rights—it looks like portions of the United States have abruptly decided that, no, they'd actually rather treat their pregnant [...]

Street Corner, San Francisco

2010-03-02T01:09:11+00:00

Canon Powershot SD1000 @ 3rd and Folsom in San Francisco, long exposure with no tripod – leaning up against a solid post. This was on my way to the Rayko Juried Plastic Camera show, on display until April. Check it out!

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Site Redesign in Progress

2010-02-28T04:04:52+00:00

So, I'm experimenting with a new WordPress layout. I know the text is hard to read right now and I intend to fix that, but it's late and I have to go to bed. If I weren't such a cowgirl I'd do my tinkering on a sandbox blog and not roll out any changes to the [...]

At the Park

2010-02-25T18:24:26+00:00

A couple quick shots of Robin and Sam playing at the park…

What’s for Dinner

2010-02-25T04:38:34+00:00

Last week I pretty much failed at vegetables. First, I tried to get rid of our squash backlog by making butternut squash puree, as I read you can use squash puree instead of pumpkin in recipes for pumpkin bread or pumpkin pie. Unfortunately, I only got as far as roasting the squash; then I forgot about them, and left them in the oven for two days, at the end of which they were moldy and had to be thrown out. I felt more relieved than guilty, to be honest, but I do think I’ll call up Capay Farms and ask them to reinstate the squash in our box.

Then, a couple days ago, we all came down with a horrible cold. Well, Robin and Sam mostly just had stuffy noses, but I seemed to be hit harder; for a while I was afraid I actually had the flu, as in addition to the congestion I was running a low fever, ached all over, and could barely muster the energy to move from bed to couch. Yesterday I was pretty much flattened, but today I felt much better and went about our routine as normal. Anyway, I didn’t cook for a couple of nights.

So going into this new week (vegetable weeks start on Wednesday, as that’s when our box is delivered) we had on hand: lettuce, chard, leeks, and bok choy. Then in our box we got more leeks, more chard, and more lettuce, along with kale, broccoli rabe, six kiwis, and a bag of fingerling banana potatoes.

Tonight I made the polenta with chard recipe that I didn’t do last week, using both bunches of chard and all of the leeks as well. Tomorrow I’ll make hot and sour soup with the bok choy, and then on Friday a winter pesto with the kale and collards.

Saturday I’ll make some kind of salad. Sunday I’ll roast a chicken with the potatoes, and then make stock from the carcass, as I’m out of chicken stock. Monday, pasta with sausage and broccoli rabe—and then we’ll be all caught up with vegetables!

Blink

2010-02-25T01:46:09+00:00

Taken with a Sipix Stylecam Blink. The Blink is one of the cameras I think comes closest to the “Digital Holga” that people are searching for. Plastic lens? Check. Soft focus? Check. Vignetting? Check.

It’s got some quirks – when you take out the battery, the pictures are gone. The camera eats batteries as soon as you take the first shot. The video mode is toy-camera at best, approximately 8 frames per second.

On the bright side, you don’t need to buy medium format film (expensive), have it developed (expensive) or develop it yourself and scan it (scanners that can handle medium format are expensive!)

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Cheap Coffee of the Week, On the Road — McDONALDS

2010-02-25T01:23:25+00:00

McDonalds? Good Coffee?

McDonalds has been on a campaign to take some of Starbucks’ coffee business. They’ve changed their coffee suppliers and now offer espresso drinks in 70 percent of their restaurants. That’s a LOT of restaurants, and it’s got Starbucks looking in their rear view mirror.

I thought I’d try a plain old cuppa joe for review first before moving on to their espresso drinks.

The local McDonalds drive-through was empty. I was in and out in 30 seconds.

The coffee came nicely hot. I was pleasantly surprised at the first sip – their coffee has much more body than the usual watery fast-food blends. I got hints of maple, a slight tang, and a medium-bodied bite – slightly roasted.

I’ve got a McDonalds on the way to the freeway. In the morning, I think I’ll skip the Starbucks, their expensive coffee, the lines and the baristas.

What: McDonalds Coffee
Where: McDonalds restaurants
$$$: $1.49/16 oz.
Rating: 3 cans.

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Onomatotopia, where every word sounds exactly as it should

2010-02-24T06:24:36+00:00

I started last week by trying to recycle other peoples' old half-finished arts and crafts projects. I collected peoples' projects, that they'd been meaning to finish and never got around to. And I meshed them together into something that didn't complete any one individual project, but wrapped them all up together so there was nothing incomplete. I made them all into this one grand city of ideas, crafted together in a little urban park grove back behind my apartment. It really seems to capture the chaos of thousands of intentions stacked on top of one another.

I liked it so much that this week, I am collecting peoples' unfinished writing and stories, and lumping them together into a grand conjoined narrative. All those unfinished first paragraphs gathering cobwebs on peoples' hard drives, but I'm stringing them along with hundreds of different styles and clever turns of phrase and settings and premises, and I'm hoping to swirl them together into one grand sweeping chorus and put it all to music -- a grand opera of everyone's best undeveloped ideas.

If it goes well, then next week I'm going to do the same thing, but with people's abandoned and incomplete life plans.

FUN NATURE FDC01, A New “Digital Holga”?

2010-02-24T04:54:07+00:00

FUZZYEYEBALLS wrote about the “Fun Nature FDC01″, a new toy digital camera. While other camera manufacturers have been beating each other to market with higher megapixel sensors and features, the FDC01 stands apart. It’s a 1.9 megapixel camera with 64 MB on-board memory, SD expansion slot, rechargeable battery, 8 fps “movie” mode, and 3 photo effects. What it doesn’t have is a viewfinder, flash or display!

Mind you, HD video is 30 frames per second. The FDC01 does 8 frames per second, which results in jerky, surreal, dream-like video. In either still or video mode, you can apply monochrome, vivid, or “noise” filters.

Toy camera aficionados have been looking for the perfect “toy digital” camera to complement their Holgas, Dianas, LOMOs and plastic 35mm film cameras. Some have called the Yashica EZ F521 and the Digital Harinezumi the “new” Digital Holga/LOMO; in my opinion the FDC01 comes closest. It shoots 1,280 x 1,200 photos, which turn out roughly square. Without a viewfinder, it’s much easier to shoot without thinking (See the Lomographic Society’s 10 rules of Lomography http://www.lomography.com/about/the-ten-golden-rules). And, it’s small enough to bring with you everywhere.

The FDC01feels like a second-generation Pencam. I love Pencams – I started shooting with an Aiptek Pencam SD and a SiPIX StyleCam Blink in 2001. Both have low-resolution CMOS sensors, a rough optical viewfinder and no display. Both have soft focus, vignetting, and that

Pencams can generate surprisingly good (or bad) results – many of my better pencam photos are online at Low Resolution.

Being an old-school film photographer, I prefer not having a display to review photos (see Chimping). I spend more time composing a shot when I can’t review it and I enjoy the suspense/surprise of seeing photos for the first time after the moment has past. Pencams feel like shooting with a film camera (without the cost of film, processing or scanning…)

By 2007, I’d gotten a Blackberry Pearl, and being able to post via email made Pencams fall out of favor with me.

I think I’ll knock the dust off of my Pencam SD and take it out shooting tomorrow.

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Ultrasound Followup

2010-02-22T23:18:45+00:00

This week we had another meeting with the midwife, and she went into the ultrasound results in a bit more detail. She confirmed that Davy is looking perfect in every way, but mentioned that a couple of other things had turned up on the scans: for one, I have another dermoid (benign) cyst, just like last time, although this time it’s on the other side. As with my last pregnancy, it most likely won’t cause an issue, but it’s something to monitor.

Also, this time around the placenta is in a good position, but the umbilical cord is showing what’s called a velamentous insertion. Wikipedia makes this sound a lot more alarming than the midwife did: she said that “The way we used to know about velamentous insertions was after the delivery; we’d look at the placenta and say, huh, it’s velamentous. But now that these things can be seen on ultrasounds, the doctors like to monitor it.”

Anyway, the upshot is that I’m going to have more ultrasounds—which to be honest is kind of nice. I’m always happy to get another look at the wee one.

Here he is, in profile:

Cheap Coffee of the Week, On the Road — 7-11

2010-02-21T14:56:32+00:00

Business and professional interests take me on the road often. Required for a lifestyle such as this is a luxurious ride and an extensive database of roadside coffee shops.

7-11 still carries a bad reputation from their truck-stop coffee days but cheap, quick, easily available 24/7 caffeine is always a win in my book. On a trip to the beaches of central California, I stopped at the 7-11 where I spent my summers playing Defender, Tempest, and Battlezone. Gone was the aroma of hazelnut cream coffee burning on a Bunn hot plate and 32 oz mega cups. Instead, there were 3 pots (Regular, decaf and Dark Roast), and a note when they were brewed. Torani syrups, half-and-half, non-fat milk and non-dairy creamers were available.

The cups impressed me – they felt stiffer than Starbucks cups and didn’t need the cup sleeve. The lids (seen above) have a sliding cover over the drink hole, perfect for minimizing spills in the car and helps to keep the coffee as warm as possible on long drives.

The coffee? Not bad at all — I tried the Dark Roast, and it was freshly brewed – no baked-in coffee flavor. The beans were only slightly darker than their usual coffee, and didn’t have that bitter hit common to cheap coffees laced with Robusta beans. Mild finish, without that “dirty pennies” taste I used to get from their coffee. I’d put 7-11 coffee on par or slightly ahead of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.

Their coffee is inexpensive, $1.49 for a 16 ounce coffee compared to $1.75 at my local Starbucks. I’ll go to 7-11 and use the quarter I save to feed the meter elsewhere.

By the time I’d gotten over the hill, I’d finished the cup – something I never seem to do with Starbucks or Peets’ coffee. I saw more 7-11s on this trip than I’d seen in years; I suppose a good experience with their coffee removed a blind spot years in the making.

What: 7-11 coffee
Where: 7-11 Stores
$$: $1.49/16 oz. cup.
Rating: 3 cans.

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Squashed

2010-02-20T00:53:02+00:00

I just noticed that on the Capay Valley site, you can check and see what will be in your box for the upcoming week. That could be really handy if, for example, we switched to doing a big grocery shop on the weekends instead of me walking to the store every day like I do now.

Anyway, it looks like next week they’re planning on sending us another butternut squash. So I just called them up and asked, please, no more squash for the time being. The lady on the phone was super nice and asked if there was anything in particular we’d rather have: I said we’re loving the potatoes. Gold star for customer service, Capay Valley Farms!

But we still have to eat the three squashes we have. I’ve done lots of squash soup recently; I’ve done mashed squash with butter and ginger; I’ve done baked squash with brown sugar and apples; I’m kind of at my wit’s end for new and enticing ways to prepare squash. Does anybody have a good butternut squash recipe they’d recommend? This one for squash and potato chunks roasted with garlic and herbs looks like something I might try…

Cheap Coffee of the Week — MARKET PANTRY BREAKFAST BLEND

2010-02-20T00:30:57+00:00

With all of the cheap coffees in my pantry, it’s high praise for a brand when I go buy the brand twice. There have been a couple of repeat buys over the past few months, most notably Yuban Original.

Market Pantry coffee will NOT be a repeat buy. Watery, weak, slightly bitter - everything cheap coffee is known for. Brewing it Navy style, by adding a pinch of salt to the grounds while steeping improved the result – especially when served piping hot. Do not let it linger.

If you’re at Target, go for Archer Farms coffee in the foil bags. I’ve reviewed them before, and am on my second bag now.

What: Market Pantry Coffee
Where: Target Stores
$$$: $3.99/10 oz. can
Rating: 1 can.

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What’s for Dinner

2010-02-19T23:05:43+00:00

This week in our veggie box we got a couple pounds of little yellow potatoes, which are identified as fingerling Russian banana potatoes. They came in a brown paper bag which I put up on the counter. I was reminded of this as I stepped out of the shower this morning, and Robin came pelting up to me and handed me a potato.

“Um,” I said.

Then he ran away. As I toweled off my hair he came back with another potato, and gave it to me.

When I followed him into the kitchen I found that, indeed, the potatoes were strewn all over the floor. The funny thing is that I haven’t been able to find a shred or scrap of the brown paper bag.

The upshot of this is that Robin can obviously now reach things on the kitchen counter. He has to stand on tip toes and stretch his arm up, and he can’t actually see what he’s groping for, but he’ll pull down anything that he touches. Ridiculous child. At least he’s pretty good about picking things up again: when I got a bowl for the potatoes, he quite happily picked each one up off the floor and dropped it in the bowl.

In the box we also got two heads of lettuce (butter and red leaf), a bunch of carrots, some bok choy, kale, collard greens, chard, two leeks, and six kiwis. We also had a lot of leftovers from last week: the shepherd’s pie and the caldo verde both lasted a while, so I still have a leek and a head of lettuce on hand that miraculously is looking just fine. And of course I still have three butternut squashes to deal with. So I’m a little overwhelmed with veggies at the moment.

Tonight we’ll have a big salad, with hard-boiled eggs and ham as well as the broccoli and carrots. Tomorrow night I’ll make pork chops smothered in spicy collard greens, and Sunday we can have polenta with chard and leeks.

Monday I’ll use the rest of the lettuce in a seared tuna salad—they tell pregnant women not to eat sushi-style fish, but I think it’s fine if you get your fish from a trustworthy source and handle it sensibly. Tuesday, bulgur salad with kale, salami, and olives. That’ll leave the bok choy and the potatoes (and the squash) to deal with next week. Maybe on Wednesday I can make a bok choy-potato-squash casserole. Mmmm!

Weathered

2010-02-19T01:00:44+00:00

Weathered. Rusty box, Blackberry Curve 8900 Smart Phone.

I love being able to carry a single device that plays music, takes still and video pictures, and is small enough to carry with me all the time.

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Contrast

2010-02-18T20:09:44+00:00

So today I was in for some food that was much more simple than yesterday's thousand-cheese pizza. I ordered a simple lettuce salad with Ten Island dressing, which they billed as a "much simpler version of Thousand Island." The dressing has only one ingredient, which is described as "Natural Flavorings."

I'm beginning to think that this restaurant makes everything out of Velveeta and just tinkers with powers of ten afterwards.

Always-Sometimes-Never

2010-02-18T18:48:30+00:00

Always-Sometimes-Never

From Laura at madness of mundanity

How to Enter…
As I’m still new to the blogging scene, I would love to get to know everyone a little better.

There’s a little game called always, sometimes, never that we used to play in school.

Just fill in the blanks

I always:
I sometimes:
I never:

So to enter all you have to do is:

• follow my blog

• once you’re a follower, re-blog! So post your always, sometimes, nevers including a link to the giveaway on your own blog

• then leave the link to your blog post on the Mcklinky below. To do this, click where it says ‘you are next.’ In the title section, write the title of your blog. Then in the URL section copy and paste the URL where your always sometimes never appears on your blog, then click ‘enter your link’

The giveaway will end on the 21st Feb at 11pm I’ll be randomising the winner the same day. I will also compile everyone’s answers together a few days after so we can see what everyone’s always, sometimes never are.

So have fun, and all the best to all who enter!

I always:

Throw a camera in my bag wherever I go.
Forget to develop rolls of film and find them weeks/months later.

I sometimes:

Miss capturing moments – tell myself I’ll go back to shoot something that caught my eye, only to find the moment passed.
Question my creative vision.

I never:

Stop reminding myself to live in the moment.
Forget that people don’t have to “get” my art for it to be relevant to me.

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I don't know how to say this nicely...

2010-02-17T21:55:19+00:00

So I finally tried the thousand-cheese pizza that people keep talking about. I like the way they included a magnifying glass so you could read the list of ingredients. I counted the number of cheeses and there are actually 1006 distinct types of cheese. That's more than I knew existed. I respect that collecting and blending all those different cheeses must require very considerable effort and expense, and honestly I don't begrudge the pizza place the high cost of that pizza.

What's more, I fully admit that the pizza was perfectly tasty...

But....

...did anyone else who ate it stop to think that it pretty much tastes like Velveeta?

merovingian @ 2010-02-16T01:18:00

2010-02-16T09:18:13+00:00

I clicked on the button on LJ that says "Be charming and witty for me while I am away" but somehow I don't see the updates from it. It's unfair that I still have to write my journal manually.

There's something about a checkbox that makes you think you can fix it by checking and unchecking it over and over again like maybe somehow it is stuck.

I met someone in the elevator this weekend who asked me out of the blue if I was the writer of this LJ. Sir, if you're out there, ah, do you know how to make this button work?

Other

2010-02-15T07:19:40+00:00

Guess the subject -- Blackberry Curve 8900

Here is another random shot I wouldn’t have caught if I hadn’t had a camera phone with me.

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Year of the Metal Tiger

2010-02-15T01:29:15+00:00

(Credit: This picture was taken by KungFuStu and hosted on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kungfustu/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

This is a pretty ridiculous thing to worry about, but as San Francisco celebrates the Chinese New Year, I’ve been looking up Davy’s horoscopes: aaaaaand they’re not particularly auspicious.

Let me start by saying that I’m not a believer in astrology in the way people mean when they ask if you “believe in” these things—no, I don’t believe that the pull of the planets has a direct affect on brain chemistry, or anything like that—but I’m attracted to complex symbolic systems of all types, and I do think that we cannot help but use the folklore of our societies as we define ourselves. For instance, I was born in the year of the Dragon—a fact I learned early from the place-mats in Chinese restaurants—and that knowledge has affected me to a certain degree throughout my life.

I have also had at least one experience with Eastern astrology that I just can’t explain. I had a really difficult time in my freshman year of college; it all culminated in a suicide attempt towards the end of the year that landed me in the psych ward for a brief time. It was without a doubt the worst period of my life. My dad was on a Fulbright to Korea at the time—going, he said later, a little bit crazy with worry and the inability to do anything from so far away—so when I got out of the hospital he sent me a ticket to Seoul.

By the time I came to Seoul I was already on the mend. I had made up my mind to live—a decision I never had to revisit again—and my three weeks in Seoul were a great affirmation of the surprises and wonders that the world yet held for me. One of the things we did during that time was to visit an astrologer. (I learned later that the Korean and Chinese zodiacs are the same.)

This old man, he asked me nothing except the exact time and place of my birth. He wasn’t a cold reader. He didn’t fish for information: he wasn’t actually interested in hearing from me at all. He just consulted a lot of charts and papers, and then started talking. He was specific and accurate: one of the things he told me, quite matter-of-factly, was that I had just emerged from depression and danger of death. Then he gave me some herbal recommendations for balancing out my health, and sent us on our way.

So, I guess this is all a long-winded way of saying that I consider myself neither a believer nor a skeptic when it comes to astrology: I mostly just think it’s interesting.

And as it turns out, 2010—year of the Yang Metal Tiger—is something of a “jinx year” in the Chinese calendar. The traits associated with the tiger (courage, ambition, a competitive streak) aren’t well-balanced by the metal element: according to chinesefortunecalendar.com, “We can image that 2010 is a Tiger wearing armor. This Tiger doesn’t like armor on the top its body and keeps jumping around. For safety, we should keep our distance from it.”

Additionally, “Tiger has the potential to become vigorous, ferocious and cruel. So Tiger is a symbol of power and authority. This kind of personality is good for the leadership [but] With the inflexible and destructive personality, Tiger has very poor people relationship, especially, with family members. In traditional customary, Chinese family don’t invite people born in year of Tiger to involve private wedding ceremony.”

Where Robin is a Yin Fire Pig, a well-balanced sign pointing to an amiable and loving temperament, the Yang Metal Tiger is associated with great courage but also extreme combativeness. The metal element only makes the naturally ferocious tiger sharper, inflexible, and more reckless: not a great combo. Plus, Sam, Robin, and myself are all born in Fire years, but Metal doesn’t like Fire.

Astrologically, 2010 is forecasted to be an angry, tense, and violently unpredictable year. Sorry! It’s just what I’ve read! And of course those born in this year (supposedly) risk inheriting these qualities.

At least Davy’s due date will make him a Cancer, a feminine water sign that’s supposed to have a tendency toward caution. I’m mixing Eastern and Western systems with wild abandon here, but I’m glad that his sun sign will provide him with some much-needed balance. I guess he’s also going to need extra water and earth influences around him to balance out the metal/fire conflict he’s born into.

I dunno. If I do end up with a combative little white tiger cub in Davy, maybe I’ll drag him to Chinatown and see if I can find an old astrologer to prescribe some herbs. It worked pretty well for me.

I’m SO MONEY.

2010-02-13T02:42:04+00:00

Posted via email from poindexter, WHO? (Mobile Edition)

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Robin’s Checkup

2010-02-12T21:17:40+00:00

Robin had his two and a half year checkup yesterday too: it was pretty quick, in and out, boom. He’s 35 inches tall and 28 pounds, which puts him in the 35th percentile for height and the 30th percentile for weight. So he’s on the small side, but his growth curve is normal and the doctor described him as a “well-nourished child,” which is always what a mom likes to hear.

Language-wise he’s still a little bit behind, although he’s making steady gains and the doctor says that’s the most important thing. Ideally we’d be able to understand about half of what he’s saying at this point; I think we’re only at about 20 percent, although my guess is that 40 percent of what he says is actually intended to be English. The doctor advised us not to worry so long as Robin’s language skills continue to progress. He gave us a little printout of Robin’s vitals that says “no major problems” right at the bottom. So we have it in writing!

merovingian @ 2010-02-11T19:05:00

2010-02-12T03:05:41+00:00

After all of these decades, we finally broke the impasse and came to a compromise. The cast and crew of The Outer Limits controls the horizontal, but I get to keep control of the vertical.

So, you know, things are not too bad.

Ultrasound Results

2010-02-12T01:12:32+00:00

So…we had the first ultrasound today, and it looks like we’re having another little boy. The midwife will go over the results with us when we see her next, but from what the ultrasound technician said it sounds like Luke David (”Davy”) Phillips is shaping up just as he ought, measuring within a couple days of his due date on all the charts. We got some pictures—Sam will scan them tomorrow and I’ll add them to the blog.

I did want (and still want) a little girl whose hair I could put in pigtails, and who would have tea-parties with me, but little boys are wonderfully sweet and I’ll be delighted to have a pair of them. “It’s good for a boy to have a brother,” my friend Matt told me, “and then when you have a girl she’ll have two older brothers to look out for her.” Which is a nice thought.

Robin was in the room for the ultrasound, and seemed pretty interested in the first glimpses of his baby brother, even if he did keep saying “Fwee!” which is his word for fishie. I guess a fetus is something like a fish at this stage, suspended in amniotic fluid and all that. I just hope he’s not disappointed when Davy doesn’t come out a little merman.

Here is a bonus picture of Robin:

Looking down

2010-02-11T16:44:10+00:00

Posted via email from poindexter, WHO? (Mobile Edition)

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What’s for Dinner

2010-02-10T18:29:44+00:00

This week in our box we got: Nantes carrots, dinosaur kale, collard greens, two heads of lettuce (one butter, one red leaf), two leeks, a butternut squash (nooooooo), twelve kiwis, and two pounds of those beautiful red fingerling potatoes.

Tonight we’ll have baked potatoes and a salad (probably using the butter lettuce). Tomorrow, I’ll use the red potatoes, the leeks, and both the kale and the collards in another big pot of caldo verde (that recipe is really good). Tomorrow we’re also going in for the ultrasound, by the way, so I might have something exciting to post after that.

Friday night I’ll tackle the squash: I think I’ll try this recipe for Bulgur and Squash Kefteh from the New York Times. Sam won’t be thrilled, but there will probably be leftover soup that he can have instead if he wants.

Saturday is my day out with friends, and cook’s night off; Sunday is Valentine’s Day, so I’m going to make a shepherd’s pie at Sam’s request (it’ll be a potato-heavy week), and probably something chocolate for dessert.

I’ve got some anchovies in the fridge that I want to use up, so Monday I’ll make pissaladière, a kind of anchovy and garlic pizza. I know you’ll all want to come over and kiss us afterwards! If the other head of lettuce holds out till Monday, we’ll have a salad on the side too. And then Tuesday we’ll eat leftovers.

State of the Robin

2010-02-09T19:35:53+00:00

Robin’s once again crossed one of those invisible thresholds of growth: lately both Sam and I are prone to look at him, look again, and exclaim “When did he get so big?” He can climb in and out of the bathtub now on his own, although generally he’s wise enough to wait until one of us comes over to give him a hand. He doesn’t fall down so much when he runs: and I love to watch him run, I love the way he throws himself heedlessly forward and just barely manages to catch himself with every step. It’s a full-body expression of the enthusiasm with which he approaches the world.

He’s talking more too. This morning Marlis walked over him in the bed and he said “Uh-oh! Why why why meow?” Translation: “What’s that cat doing and why did she step on me?” (He can say “kitty” and “doggie,” but he prefers to refer to a cat as a meow and a dog as a woof-woof, I think because there’s less confusion between the words.) Anyway, so he’s now using three-word sentences, and it’s even possible to have extended conversations with him on a subject, although these conversations tend to veer randomly into left field. He’s also still very likely to form a sentence with a recognizable English word at the beginning and at the end, but a stream of baby babble in the middle. I wonder if that’s what we sound like to him?

He’s developed an interest in letters, fueled, I think, by his ClickStart games. When we’re walking around he’ll often stop to point at signs in shop windows, picking out the various letters: he does the same thing when Sam wears a tee-shirt with writing. Though he often gets confused between Y and V, or C and J, he’s pretty reliable about identifying most of them. If you ask him to find a letter on a keyboard, he’ll press the right one about 75% of the time. I’ve been impressed enough by this development to let him play the ClickStart more often: he loves it intensely and he’s clearly learning from it, and it gives me time in the mornings to drink coffee and update my blog.

The head-banging behavior that vexed us so much has dropped away almost entirely, discarded at pretty much the instant he figured out that throwing his sippy cup on the floor provokes a better reaction from us. (We have to clean up whatever liquid dribbles from its top, so we really don’t like this behavior—but there’s definitely some part of me that notes and approves of his increasingly sophisticated efforts to communicate frustration and anger.) Now if we do something that pisses him off, like picking up his toys, he’s very likely to run into the kitchen to grab his sippy cup just so that he can come back and throw it on the floor in front of us. This is annoying, but also hilarious.

His great pet peeve—people who say the same thing at the same time—remains in place, but he’s grown a bit more tolerant of accidental lapses. I’m even allowed to sing along to the music sometimes. (Sometimes not.)

He has a well-developed sense of the things that are his, and no sense at all of the things that belong to other people. For instance he’ll eat off our plates liberally, but he will scream and yell if I take anything from his plate, even if it’s a portion of food that’s gone untouched for hours. Similarly he’ll often grab books that we’re reading, but try and take anything in his grasp and he’ll respond with an immediate and full-throated howl.

I should say, though, that with other kids he’s a bit more well-mannered. He’ll often run up to kids in the park that have interesting toys, and try to reach for them: not violently, thank goodness—just tentatively and with a smile, in a kind of ‘oh that’s cool, can I see it?’ way. When other kids pick up his stuff he doesn’t usually get mad, but follows them around and watches carefully.

He’s getting better at initiating games with the other kids—mostly he just runs up to them and smiles, or offers them his ball, and often a kind of impromptu game of tag will result. The rules of Toddler Tag are a bit incoherent, but the main points are that all players assume that all other players are It, and mommies are always considered safe. Each player wants to be chased, so will try and get as close as possible to another player in order to catch their attention: of course, this is often perceived as chasing behavior, provoking the other toddler to run, shrieking with laughter, to their mommy. The game usually ends when the players get distracted and wander off.

I’ll try and take another picture of Robin soon. All that’s on my camera right now is this cityscape I snapped over the weekend:

This Blog

2010-02-07T17:08:20+00:00

So, with another baby on the way, I think I’m gonna have to change the title of the blog again.

And although this started as a pregnancy & parenting blog, it’s already expanded to cover more topics—cooking, writing, local history, etc. I’d like to post more about writing in the future, maybe start putting up book reviews and things like that. But there will still be pictures of the kids and recipes and so forth. So my question is…what should I call it? Anybody got a suggestion for a snappy blog name?

Conversations with Toddlers

2010-02-06T03:17:13+00:00

Yesterday Robin and I got caught out in the rain when we were at the park. Robin registered his displeasure as the raindrops hit his head:

Robin: Oh! Oh! Moooomeeeee!
Me: Sorry, buddy, I can’t turn off the rain.

A pause, then:

Robin (hopefully): Daddy?
Me: No, your daddy can’t turn the rain off either.

I thought that was pretty hilarious. If Mommy can’t do it, Daddy probably can!

Waldorf

2010-02-05T23:42:00+00:00

Waldorf. Let’s talk about Waldorf. See, there’s a lot that’s very appealing about these schools; and a lot that’s very off-putting.

PRO: They provide a calm and beautiful environment for children.

The aesthetics of Waldorf are one of the first things that draws prospective parents. Trust me, I realize exactly how much my class background is showing when I start to enthuse about the natural hand-crafted everythings; it doesn’t change the fact that this is exactly what I want for my kids. Waldorf educators believe that children’s toys should be very simple, so as to encourage imaginative play, but of the highest possible quality: so hand-made dolls; simple wooden play structures and bright-colored silks (real silk, natch, hand-dyed and hand-hemmed) that can be turned into anything from a stage curtain to a superhero cape to a princess skirt; genuine beeswax crayons and paints made from natural plant pigments; handcrafted wooden toys; and so forth. Everything is hand-made from natural materials. The food served to the children is organic and often grown on premises. Yadda yadda.

CON: They are weirdly proscriptive about how children are supposed to use the provided materials.

For instance, they remove the color black from the crayons provided to the younger kids (black is too harsh for their delicate spirits). They don’t allow the kids to paint houses and stick figures in their watercolors, but instead lead them through a series of abstract watercolor shapes that are supposed to represent the developing soul. Yes, you’re seeing a flash of the woo-woo behind the Waldorf.

PRO: They spend a lot of time outdoors, emphasizing our connection to the natural world and learning about the changing seasons.

This is a good article about Waldorf’s commitment to outdoor learning. There’s really no con to this aspect of Waldorf; I’m wholly in favor. There’s some woo-woo here too but it’s far enough backgrounded that I don’t care.

PRO:For young children, they don’t attempt to do academic drills, but rather immerse the children in an environment of storytelling, music, art, dance, and imaginative play. They are really serious about the arts.

Waldorf educators believe children should experience live performances rather than just recorded ones, and similarly, that teachers should tell stories rather than simply reading from books (the idea being that kids learn more about the fundamentals of language when they are engaged in the process of storytelling rather than hearing the same words recited over and over). These stories are often Grimm fairy tales—the originals. Can you fathom how rare it is to find teachers who are telling the original fairy tales, not the Disneyfied versions, to kids these days? I think that’s awesome.

The Waldorf dance program is called Eurythmy and it incorporates some stuff that’s sort of similar to yoga.

CON:Again, the woo-woo. Eurythmy isn’t just a performing art, it’s—like yoga—a spiritual exercise. I’m more or less okay with this, except I don’t like how the newage spiritual content is being disguised as pedagogy. They’re not up front about it at all.

PRO:Waldorf preschools and kindergartens create a delightful, magical environment for small children.

The teachers often tell stories about gnomes: little felt gnomes are common in Waldorf classrooms, and when they go on walks the children are encouraged to look for gnome-homes or evidence of gnomish passage. This is adorable.

CON:It’s very likely that the teacher actually believes the gnomes are real.

“Our lead kindergarten teacher is very upfront that she believes in gnomes,” responded [a Waldorf] parent. “Before their weekly walk in the forest, the kindergartens ask the gnomes (who, after all, live there) for permission to enter.”

“But do they really believe in gnomes?” persisted the first parent.

“Trust me, they believe it,” Diane Winters asserted. She’s a former Waldorf classroom aide in Philadelphia and now a vocal critic of Waldorf education because of her growing concerns with the schools’ philosophy.

“Do you believe in gnomes?” I asked Waldorf parent Leah Spilchen at an Ottawa Waldorf school open house last spring. “Yes, I do,” answered Spilchen unequivocally. “But I don’t believe that they would look like what we think of as gnomes because they are spirits, and we can’t see them.”

I received similar responses from the half-dozen other Waldorf supporters whom I queried on the topic. Ernst Von Bezold, who represents Waldorf schools on the board of directors for the Ontario Federation of Independent Schools, believes gnomes are “nature’s spirits” and says he is open to believing that some people have seen them. He claims he has seen angels.

“Steiner [Rudolph Steiner is the founder of Waldorf] taught that if you didn’t make spiritual progression over successive lifetimes, you come back as a gnome,” explains Philadelphia’s Diana Winters.

Source: http://www.religionnewsblog.com/1213

PRO:These Waldorf people are so nice.

CON:These Waldorf people are crazy.

Here’s the thing: Waldorf educators believe in almost everything I do when it comes to early education. An emphasis on free play, art and storytelling, and outdoor time—check. Simple but high-quality classroom materials—check. Child-led learning—well, not so much, because they have a secret agenda.

Their agenda is Anthroposophy, Rudolph Steiner’s wacky religion. Anthroposophists believe that an evil entity called Ahriman is close to manifesting in the world (he can already influence it through television and other electronic devices). To fight Ahriman, humanity must be raised to its highest spiritual level—Anthroposophists believe that a person who is sufficiently spiritually developed can manifest psychic powers. As far as I can tell, Waldorf schools are kind of a secret training camp in this holy war, and their true purpose is to create psychic soldiers who will be able to fight Ahriman when the time comes.

Now, I frankly find this kind of awesome, but you can see how I’d be reluctant to hand a kid over to these people.

And the thing is, Waldorf educators will deny that anthroposophy forms a basis of the curriculum, but only because Steiner told them to say that.

[W]ith these things the outer form is of the utmost importance. Never call the verse a “prayer” but a “school opening verse.” Do see to it that people do not hear the expression “prayer” used by a teacher. This will go a long way towards overcoming the prejudice that this is an anthroposophical school.

We must worm our way through…[I]n order to do what we want to do, at least, it is necessary to talk with the people, not because we want to, but because we have to, and inwardly make fools of them.

Steiner, Rudolf (1920). Conferences with Teachers of the Waldorf School in Stuttgart, 1919 to 1920, Volume One. Forest Row, East Sussex: Steiner Schools Fellowship Publications, 1986. Quotations sourced from waldorfcritics.org

So, okay. Waldorf is run by newage woo-woo types. Their intentions are good, and their methods are mostly good, but they actively seek to deceive parents about the occult basis of some of their pedagogy, which is double-plus ungood.

On the other hand, because they have a commitment to keeping this anthroposophy stuff secret, they also don’t foist it on the kids. All the kids know is that they’re supposed to make these shapes in the watercolor, or lift their arms in a certain way in the dance: they don’t have any idea that it’s because these exercises are supposed to unlock their latent psychic powers. Most Waldorf graduates come out of the school without any initiation into the occult basis of Steiner education, most go on to do well, and most look back fondly on their hippie-crunchy school experience. But some feel that they were harmed by the experience: “The effects of Waldorf’s educational program gradually accumulated in our heads and hearts. After I had been at the school only a few years, the notion of trying to see the world clearly had lost almost all meaning for me. Everything seemed to me symbolic rather than concrete—although what the symbols stood for was vague.”

Also, although I do believe that modern Waldorf schools, especially those in liberal cities like San Francisco, have mostly rid themselves of this baggage, Rudolph Steiner was very racist and there’s a lot of racism coded into anthroposophy.

All in all, I would consider Waldorf for preschool and maybe kindergarten, but no farther than that. I would ask a lot of questions of the teachers in the specific school I was considering. I would keep a very close eye on what kinds of things were going on the classroom. Waldorf schools do a lot of things right, and they actually seem to work pretty well—in terms of producing happy and successful adults, at least. Their success in producing psychic warriors seems minimal.

Nines

2010-02-05T19:33:54+00:00

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Rainy blur

2010-02-05T02:45:51+00:00

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More on Preschool

2010-02-05T02:19:15+00:00

I should have mentioned that there are a few preschool to grade school options I find extremely tempting. For instance, the schools that offer language immersion programs in Spanish or in Mandarin. These are appealing because they take advantage of children’s amazing facility with language acquisition—an ability that drops off some time before puberty—and because they offer something I just can’t replicate at home. I’m quite confident in my ability to tutor Robin in early academics, and pretty confident that we can round out his social experiences through sports, art/music classes, and other kinds of group activities; but I can’t give him fluency in a second language. Even enrolling him in supplemental language classes wouldn’t begin to approach the benefits of immersion learning.

Unfortunately these language immersion schools are highly competitive, and getting Robin into one of them would require running the parental rat-race that I’m so keen to avoid. They’re also not cheap. San Francisco does have public elementary schools with immersion programs (Starr King is one), so if we’re still in the city when Robin’s ready for grade school we might try our chance in the lottery for a place at one of those. If we’re in Oakland, I’ll have to do some research to determine if there’s anything similar there.

The other preschool option I find tempting is the half-day, two day a week program at the San Francisco Waldorf School. (Oakland has a Waldorf school too.) Oh, but Waldorf—my conflicted take on Waldorf is going to require its own post.

Cognitive Science and Early Education

2010-02-05T01:48:36+00:00

So I’ve been meaning to post more about early education: it’s a keen interest of mine, since I’m still planning to homeschool Robin at least for the early years. I read most of what I can come across on the subject, but I haven’t written much about it since I’m arriving at my understanding in a scattershot fashion.

It doesn’t help that the science of early education is, as far as I can tell, in a very rudimentary state. There’s little consensus about even the most basic educational strategies. For example, some educators advocate early, intensively focused academic work, while others advocate introducing these subjects only to older children who will grasp them quickly. In America, the social consensus seems to mostly be swinging towards the first position: when it comes to school, more is better, and it can’t start too early.

The trend toward early testing and academic programs is typified by preschools that require IQ tests for entry: some in children as young as two years old. This world is probably craziest in New York—here’s an excellent article describing the lengths to which New York parents are going to groom their children for kindergarten admission tests—but San Francisco is not far behind. And the insanity does not begin with kindergarten. In the Bay Area, the elite preschools (oh yes, there are elite preschools) have waiting lists so long parents are signing up when their children are in utero. I have seen threads on local parenting forums debating which hospital parents should choose in order to maximize their chances of getting into these competitive preschools—which are, of course, so competitive only because they are “feeder schools” for the more exclusive private schools.

Anyway, most of the early-testing-and-rigorous-academics crowd call on Science to justify their programs. Testing is scientific (never mind the debate over IQ, and the question of whether administering constant tests to children has a negative affect on their educational outcomes). You even get annoying articles like this one, which uses the terms “neuroscience” and “cognitive science” liberally, even though the actual neuroscience in the piece is pretty much limited to a little sidebar graphic of the brain. Instead what the article is really about is the suggestion that kids who study math early—wait for it—improve in math. But this is in comparison to children in low-performing schools whose “classes devote mere minutes a day to math instruction or no time at all.” There’s no discussion of how the children who are put through abstract math drills in the early grades end up comparing to, say, children in a Montessori program whose introduction to mathematical concepts comes through directed, sensorial play, and who are encouraged to proceed at their own paces.

In the article we are also told that “schools in about a dozen states have begun to use a program intended to accelerate the development of young students’ frontal lobes, improving self-control in class”: but we are not told the specifics of this program or any evidence that it may be effective. But, you know—it’s Science!

Robin is getting close to the age when other children will be starting preschool (most start admitting kids when they’re 2 and 9 months). I don’t want him to miss out by staying home, but I remain skeptical of the long-term benefits of early academic drilling. I think I’ve mentioned before that kids in Sweden don’t start primary school until age 7 (though younger children are guaranteed a place in public daycare), and even then the first year is devoted to socialization and play. The Swedes seem to turn out fine.

And call me paranoid, but I’ve come to believe that a lot of the emphasis on early education, universal pre-school, longer school years, and extra homework after school hours is a veiled attempt to get children—especially poorer children, and especially poorer non-white children—out of their parents’ hands as early as possible and for as long as possible, because the home environment is now assumed to be destructive. The research on preschool, for instance, indicates that it is far more beneficial for low-income children than for children from high-income homes. But at the same time, kids who spend a lot of time in schools and day care have a higher rate of behavioral problems than kids who get more family time.

I don’t doubt that kids who focus on academics early learn something from their study. I doubt whether those benefits persist over time, in comparison to children who come to the subject later but possibly better-equipped to handle the material. I doubt whether subjecting toddlers to a battery of tests is a good way to encourage enthusiastic learners and independent thinkers. And the only thing I’m sure of is that, for all the shouting about Science!, there really hasn’t been enough of it when it comes to early education.

Writer Blather (or, What Else I’ve Been Up To)

2010-02-02T17:57:42+00:00

So, I recently completed one of my long-held goals—to finish a novel-length project. Actually as originally phrased the goal was “to use my time off work to write a novel,” but, surprise, it turns out that childcare, cooking, and housekeeping do not actually constitute “time off work.” Anyhoo! A couple years later than planned, I actually did manage to finish my first novel.

I pushed it on everybody I could reach, and when a few of them actually read the thing, I used their comments to do a second draft. Now I’ve fixed everything that’s easily fixable, and I’m left with structural weaknesses that I don’t know how to fix—the main one being that, okay, I had this idea where I wanted to show the heroine kind of gradually pulling aside the veil of mundane life to reveal this fantastic world lurking just beneath the surface. It sounds cool when I put it like that, but another way of putting it is “the action is slow to start.”

The first big fight scene is on page 61, which may well be too late for a story that ends up as a swashbuckling tale of adventure. I’ve tried to put in enough conflict, foreshadowing, and Intimations of Weirdness to keep the reader hooked through the early chapters, but I just don’t know if it’s enough. The problem is that what’s going on in place of the sword-fights during those first 61 pages is stuff that needs to happen anyway: important characters being introduced, my heroine’s personality being established, and a rhythm of mundane life getting set up so that it can be blown to bits on page 61. Also, during the rest of the book the heroine is forced to balance the requirements of her ordinary life (making the rent, getting along in the office) with her extracurricular duties as Magickal-Mystical Guardian of the City, and I think this provides a source of extra tension and humor. So I just don’t know how to compress the first 61 pages.

Maybe I should tell you what the book is about? Here’s the pitch:

Viveka Janssen isn’t a dragonslayer. She’s a practical Midwestern girl brought to San Francisco by the prospect of an entry-level PR job, and her greatest ambitions involve finding an apartment and making a good impression at work. But Viv’s sensible nature will be shaken when she comes into possession of the legendary sword Excalibur, and must suddenly learn a new role as the modern-day Lady of the Lake. As she peels back the layers that separate her ordinary life from the world of fairy tales, she finds herself thrust into a shadow war between human civilization and the forces of wild magic.

Soon, as Viv struggles to understand the powers of the sword, the plans of her enemies, and the intricacies of office politics, she also finds herself romantically involved with a crusading reporter…who may himself be more than he seems. And come Monday morning, Viv still has to make it to work on time.

If anybody who I haven’t already importuned to critique the thing would be willing to take a look at it and give me feedback, just let me know. (Also, anyone who has a first draft but would like the second, let me know that too.) I’m especially eager to get feedback about whether or not the opening chapters are boring, and any suggestions for ratcheting up the tension.

In the meantime, I’m doing exactly what I probably shouldn’t: throwing my hands in the air and calling it done because I just don’t know how to work on it any more. Instead, I’m tossing it at agents and seeing if any part of it will stick.

The agent search is a weird thing. It’s possible to submit to editors directly, without an agent, but editors prefer working with agents because they act as gatekeepers (weeding out most of the worst drek) and often as a first-pass editor. Also, agents do a lot for writers besides just submitting the work and handling the contract details, and they almost always pay for themselves. I’d like an agent if I could get one.

The funny thing about submitting to agents is that they almost never want to see what you’ve written—at least, not right away. What they want to see is a one-page query letter describing what you’ve written. (My query is built around the pitch I excerpted above.) I guess most would-be writers are just so bad that it’s obvious from a few paragraphs? Anyway, if the agents like a query, they’ll ask for what’s called a “partial”—the first 30 to 50 pages. If they like the partial, they’ll ask for the full. Then they may or may not offer to represent you.

So, my dithering over the first 61 pages really ought to be dithering over the first 30 to 50, because that’s the range of a “partial.” This is why so many contemporary fantasy novels open with a fight scene or a dead body; you have 30 pages to hook your agent. Which is, to be honest, perfectly fair, because frankly you only have one page to hook your reader.

I do have conflict in my opening pages. It’s just not sword-fighting conflict. It’s the conflict of a young woman navigating a new city, trying to find an apartment and not be late for her first day of work. Oh and meanwhile this crazy lady hands her a big sword and tells her she’s supposed to be the Lady of the Lake. I like that set-up, but I recognize that pulling it off is going to require some extremely engaging writing, and I just can’t tell whether or not mine is doing the job.

In the past couple weeks I’ve submitted queries to fifteen agents. Four of them have sent back form rejections (”Thank you for thinking of us, but we do not feel that this project is right for us at this time”). Three of them have asked for partials, and the rest I haven’t heard back from yet. These are actually pretty great statistics. I found a couple of agents that keep stats on the queries they receive: one got 327 queries in a week, and requested partials for 4; the other got 208 queries in a week, and requested partials for 1. So I’m definitely beating those odds.

What worries me is that, of the four who sent form rejections, three of them had asked to see the first 5-10 pages along with the query letter. The other one, and the three who requested partials, had asked to see the query only. So I’m afraid it’s entirely possible that my query letter is strong but my opening pages are weak.

Still, getting those requests for partials has been kind of thrilling. Getting a request for a full would be extremely thrilling, but I’m not holding my breath: most agents ask for 4 to 6 weeks to review submitted material. So, I have a lot of time to obsess over those first 61 pages.

And, oh god, the house deal: it’s still dragging on but I can’t bear to talk about it. So there’s that.

Birthing Traditions of the Maya

2010-02-01T23:42:05+00:00

So, I recently stumbled across a scholarly article: “Pathways of Decision Making Among Yucatan Traditional Birth Attendants,” Journal of Midwifery & Women’s Health July-August 2004. The authors are Barbara A. Anderson, E.N. Anderson, Tracy Franklin and Aurora Dzib-Xihum de Cen. Anyway, I thought it sounded awesome so I got the article.

It is pretty interesting. It centers around interviews with six Mayan-speaking parteras serving rural villages in the Yucatan. It talks about what their role is in childbirth and how they respond to various complications: herbal baths and a traditional form of massage called sobada are, along with prayer, common responses. (Interestingly enough, soaking tubs and massage are two of the most commonly recommended strategies for managing labor among Bay Area moms and doulas as well.)

My favorite passage from the article is this one:

The parteras favored adolescent motherhood. “Men don’t want old women. By age 20, her body will not open up,” said Lucia. They placed strong emphasis on nutrition during pregnancy. “The mother must eat even if she vomits. Otherwise, the baby is born skinny,” explained Alicia. They all agreed that the husband must provide foods that the pregnant woman craves or else he would be responsible if the baby died. There was good consistency in the identification of the most important foods to consume during pregnancy: chicken, eggs mixed with orange juice, squash, and chocolate.

Although I’m well past twenty, I agree heartily with that bit about the husband being responsible for running to the corner store at 10:30 to get chocolate ice cream. It’s ancient wisdom of the Maya, you can’t argue with that. Also, I was inspired by this piece to eat another bowl of the leftover squash soup that’s sitting in the fridge, so, go me.

Art Cars

2010-02-01T01:34:12+00:00

Art cars. You know the ones I mean: the highly decorated cars you see on the road, or around the neighborhood if you live in a hipster district. Maybe it's a car decorated to look like a shark, or covered with Fischer-Price toys, or a scale replica of a Goliath beetle that's constructing a clockwork time machine. You know the ones I mean.

There aren't enough superstitions about them. I hope to help with that.

1. If you break into an art car, you will have bad luck for one year, and bad taste in music for the rest of your life.
2. If you eat ice cream in an art car, that ice cream will lose its innocence.
3. After all the people leave Burning Man, the art cars remain, wandering lonely, wondering why the desert is suddenly so empty.
4. If you're stuck in traffic behind an art car on your way to work, you will soon lose your job and get a new one. Depending on how much you like your current job, this may be a blessing or a curse.
5. If a librarian drives an art car, you can attain enlightenment just by talking with him or her.
6. If you get into a car accident with an art car, no matter how large or small, you won't have any dreams for a week.
7. If two art cars collide, the drivers exchange destinies.
8. Dogs and cats cannot smell art cars.
9. Art cars can cure warts and hiccups, but no one is sure how.
10. Every minute you sit in an art car as a passenger, all your enemies spend three minutes in an elevator.
11. If you make a VW bug into an art car, it will come to life, and also never forgive you.

And that is how the pecan pie turned into a blender.

Take One

2010-01-31T21:05:52+00:00

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It's a rough night in San Francisco

2010-01-30T08:10:41+00:00

I've been hearing and seeing sirens all night long in this crazy town.

A lot of sailors must be following to their doom about now.

Sympathy for the Hipster

2010-01-29T19:47:10+00:00

So, I recently stumbled across the Unhappy Hipsters blog, which for the most part I think is great: it takes images from Dwell magazine and gives them captions that turns the trendy design-and-lifestyle layouts into evocative vignettes, little short-short stories about alienation and modernity. I tend to like blogs that do this, take an image and build a story around it: I love, for instance, the “Secret Life of Dresses” series on A Dress A Day. And I don’t, personally, much like modern architecture or design—to me all those shiny, graywashed, hard-edged surfaces seem antiseptic and even anti-human, although I understand that some people find them soothing and restful, or alternatively “interesting” and “challenging”—so I’m fairly sympathetic to a blog that takes a snarky look at that aesthetic.

But having recommended Unhappy Hipsters, I want to also talk about that word “hipster,” which has recently exploded in usage. For example see latfh.com, which is mostly about mocking kids who are having fun with their clothes. In fact a large part of the the “hipster” sneer seems to be a cut at people who take too much interest and enjoyment in a certain subject. Somebody on the New York Times comment section, for instance, called me a “fucking hipster” when I said I liked dark chocolate.

So a hipster is somebody who just likes trendy things, right, except where “trendy” is defined relating not to mass culture but to the specific trends of a young urban demographic. But here’s the thing—only people in that demographic would recognize the trends. Only somebody who’s familiar with the bands, the food, the festivals, the fashion, would have the capacity to recognize and to object to certain preferences on the grounds that they are overdone or too popular. And only somebody who actually worries about whether or not their own tastes are suitably idiosyncratic would even think to insult somebody else on that basis.

Therefore, the people who devised use of the word “hipster” as an insult (in its current popular usage) are clearly OTHER HIPSTERS. Nobody else knows or cares enough about the subcultures in question to police authenticity in this way. Nobody else gives a shit about what’s really cool and what’s overplayed and poser-y. And in the end, it comes down to making fun of people for what they enjoy, which is petty and mean.

So I guess this is an elaborate “no YOU are” to that dude in the nytimes.com comment section? And also, I like Unhappy Hipsters for the stories it creates, but I think the title of the blog probably says a lot more about the people who created it than it does about people who happen to like Dwell magazine.

The Database

2010-01-29T08:31:48+00:00

"No no no," said the cat, "I assure you that my interest in mice is not food-related. I'm an indoor cat. I eat cat food. Still, I have this fascination with mice that is probably instinctual, but I take it in a new direction. My goal is to identify, name and catalog all the world's mice. And that's why I learned to talk."

Live-Blogging the State of the Union Address

2010-01-28T03:21:10+00:00

5:56 pm:

Sam isn’t home yet, but Robin is sitting on my lap to watch the State of the Union speech webcast from the New York Times. He seemed very interested when I caught a glimpse of the First Lady in the crowd and gasped, “oooh! Is she wearing purple?”

“Ooo!” Robin said.

Then the Congress whoever-he-is-guy announced the arrival of the President’s Cabinet. “Is the hot one, Peter Orzag, there?” I wondered aloud. “Not that we care. He’s a bit of a dog.”

“Woof woof!” said Robin.

Best. Political commentator. Ever!

(Slithery Lizard, by contrast, has gone to sleep. Her commentary is perhaps the most trenchant.)

6:25: I find myself persistently distracted by Joe Biden, over the President’s right shoulder. How does he decide when to nod gravely, when to purse his lips, when to cast his eyes skyward? It must be pretty hard to know you’re on national TV and yet not be able to do anything but vary your facial expression by minute degrees.

Nancy Pelosi, of course, doesn’t have that problem, her face having been frozen into that of an Egyptian death-mask decades ago. And I say this as a person who likes Nancy Pelosi.

6:28: President Obama said “railroads,” more than once! Even so, Robin is bored and wants kiwis.

6:35: Robin is crying (I guess he didn’t want kiwis after all?) but I’m pretty happy with the President’s insistence on pointing out that this broken country is one he inherited. Yet he’s following this with boilerplate jingoism. Yes? Are you going to keep talking about how much Bush sucked or are you going to finally do something about it, Mr. President? Talk about health care, and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. MY TODDLER DEMANDS IT.

6:37: My god, they just booed him for suggesting that climate change exists. Listen, I know there’s maaaayyyybe some slight room for arguing that climate change is or is not man-caused. But that it exists? Only utter morons—and apparently Republican Congresscritters—are willing to stake out that position. I can’t frickin’ believe that our nation has come to this.

6:49: The pizza came (yyyeaaahhh, I’ve already broken the meal plan I drew up just a few hours ago), and the elevator is still broken, so we had to walk down and get it. Apparently Obama is talking about health care now? And again he’s underlining that it’s really Bush’s fault. That’s all very well, but you still have to pass health care reform, you know that right?

I dunno, maybe I missed it because I was stuffing my mouth with pizza, but I don’t get that he knows it.

6:54: Sam is home now and adding his own translation. President Obama: the deficit was blah blah blah when I took office. Sam: “‘When I took office’ means ‘when Jackass left’.” President Obama: bipartisan commission on deficit shot down by Congress, therefore I’ll do it by executive order. Sam: “I can do this committee thing that nobody likes by executive order, but ask me about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and I’m suddenly powerless.”

7:03: Invoking the Republicans’ conscience. Good luck with that.

7:06: Al-Qaeda spiders? Dear God no!

7:07: Complete withdrawal from Iraq by August? Really? I don’t believe it. I just don’t. Talk’s cheap, Mr. President, and you’ve promised a lot. I’m judging you by your accomplishments instead.

7:13: This year, he says, for Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. “This year.” Again—I’m gonna believe it when I see it.

7:16: “No wonder there’s so much disappointment.” Ya think? Pass the frickin’ health care bill. Close Gitmo. End Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Until you do the things you promised to do, Mr. President, I am no longer impressed by speeches.

7:20 Blah blah god bless america blah blah blah.

Quickening

2010-01-28T01:30:14+00:00

I’ve been feeling the wee tadpole (actually a Wee Bell Pepper, according to my pregnancy guides) move about for a few weeks now, but today she (we still don’t know, but I’m going to optimistically say “she”) must be swimming closer to the surface: when I’m sitting down, I can feel her kicking where at the part where my protruding lower stomach leans against my lap. It actually feels less like a kick and more like a slow, prolonged dragging. I think I’ll call her Slithery Lizard for now.

What’s for Dinner

2010-01-27T21:38:35+00:00

This week in our box we got: a butternut squash (nooooo!), carrots, cilantro, collard greens, lettuce, chard, three leeks, and six kiwis. I also have a cabbage, a big leek, three butternut squashes, and some potatoes left over from last week. I had trouble using everything up last week, partly because the elevator in our apartment is broken, making grocery shopping is a huge pain—wrestling a toddler, a stroller, and a bag of groceries up five flights of stairs is an experience I try to avoid.

Yesterday Robin and I walked to the park, which was nice, and then, when he wanted to stay there forever, I had to haul a kicking and screaming toddler all the way home and up the stairs, which was not nice at all. I’m not doing that again, so today we’re staying in, and Robin gets to play the ClickStart. Naturally, today is the first sunny day in a week. Maybe I’ll break down and try taking him for a shorter walk.

I never got around to making the butternut squash soup last week, meaning that I am now the not-very-proud owner of four squashes, and tonight would probably be an excellent time to make a couple of them into soup. We can have a salad too with the lettuce and carrots. Tomorrow, if the elevator is fixed, I’ll go looking for corned beef to cook with the cabbage and potatoes.

Last time I was at the store I noticed they had some okra—it was from Nicaragua, I think, so not local in the least, but if it’s still there I’ll break down and buy it so that I can cook it with tomatoes and cilantro for a lunch.

Friday we can have that polenta with chard recipe that I love, using a couple of the leeks; Saturday is cook’s night off; and Sunday I’ll plan to make pork chops smothered in collard greens and spicy gravy (I can work in the other leeks here too). And then I’m pretty sure we’ll have enough corned beef left over for Monday and Tuesday.

the piano

2010-01-27T04:12:10+00:00

The caveman was infuriated with me.

Look, he said, We started using language so we could be better people. Hunt better or live longer or have a stronger family, that kind of thing. Keep safe from predators. Every time you use language for another purpose you just make us more angry with our righteous and unquestionable caveman fury.

"What," I replied, "so you patented language use or something?"

Then he hit me with a stick.

On Lomography

2010-01-24T18:03:23+00:00

I’ve known Sarah Zucker for some time through her photography online. her essay, On Lomography echoes many of the sentiments regarding “Lomography” that I’ve been feeling.

Other “Lomographers” inspired me to begin capturing intimate and mundane moments in my life on film. I shared my photos on lomo.org and lomo.us, two online bulletin boards, and shared visions with other lomographers. We started an occasional tradition of “LOMOCrawls”, photo get-togethers open to anyone with a creative eye and any sort of camera.

The best description I’ve found for what Lomography means to me is online at http://www.intransient.com/lomography/.

The LOMO is well suited to my style of photography but any camera works well, as long as you take it with you everywhere and just shoot – don’t try to think your way through the shot.

While we were shooting, experimenting, and exploring non-photography, Lomography became a Big Business. When I purchased my first LOMO from a Russian seller on eBay in 2000, Lomography was a relatively unknown niche in photography. Now, there are retail Lomography storefronts in major cities, big-name retailers and impressive markups. Thanks to the Lomographic Society, I’m sure some hipsters are shooting with film for the first time.

My problem with Lomography is this: spontaneous photography isn’t tied to a brand. Nor is creative vision. You can take wonderful “Lomographs” with a camera phone, toy camera, junk store camera or SLR using the same “rules of Lomography”.

You can’t sell creativity, just the tools to enable it.

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Change of Plans

2010-01-22T01:26:43+00:00

I snapped this picture of Robin at the rainy park. Note that he’s holding Boo in one hand and a train in the other; this is very common. Sometimes he tries to bring even more toys with him when we go out, which results in some fairly hilarious juggling as he clutches all of his treasures to his chest.

Unfortunately, a moment after I took this shot, Robin climbed back into his stroller—his signal for I’m done here, Mom. It was windy and wet and his teeth were chattering, even though he was wearing a couple of warm layers under his rain slicker.

So we went home. We didn’t even go to the grocery store, meaning that I am not cooking tacos tonight. Instead I made an order for Indian delivery—mmm, warm spicy filling curries and naan. Perfect for a cold and wet evening.

Oh, here are the Very Orange Oranges. They are even more orange in real life.

What’s for Dinner

2010-01-21T18:49:51+00:00

I’m strangely uninspired by this week’s vegetables, even though we got a bag of the most beautiful little dark-red fingerling potatoes, and I love potatoes. I also love cabbage, but we’ve seen a lot of it lately, so another two heads of cabbage in the box were not greeted with delight. The box also held two more butternut squashes, bringing my total to three since I was already burned out on squash and had one leftover from previous weeks. Three squashes. Bleh.

We also got carrots, collard greens, three leeks, a bag of bok choy (I’m sick of bok choy too!), a bunch of cilantro, and six oranges of astonishing color. (The color is orange, obvs, but it’s a remarkably deep and bright orange that I don’t trust the camera to capture.)

Last night I used half of the carrots and potatoes, and one of the cabbages, in a boiled vegetable dinner tossed with butter, salt, and crispy bacon bits. It was simple and good. Tonight I’m going to use the cilantro and make tacos. Tomorrow I’ll make some more butternut squash soup, with a salad on the side. The bok choy will go into a stir-fry over the weekend, and I might try and see if I can find corned beef at the grocery store to go with the rest of the potatoes, carrots, and cabbage. Then on Monday we’ll have collard greens and baked sweet potatoes. I’ll still have a couple of squashes left over, but that’s okay.

It’s been rain-rain-raining lately (which is all to the good, as we’ve had a three year drought and are facing water rationing this summer). Robin and I stayed inside the last two days and he’s been climbing the walls. Today we’ll suit up in our rain gear and head to the park. I’ll try and get some pictures of him in his cute froggie boots.

Wow. Just.. Wow.

2010-01-21T07:23:25+00:00

Why, yes. Those are indeed fish. In a barrel.

Three and a half years ago, I posted a quick little rant about some pump 'n' dump website operator named Nicholas A. Czuczko.

Today, this supergenius emails me a DMCA pre-takedown:

To whom this will concern:

As a media organization, I'm sure you value your trademarks and copyrighted material. Be advised I am requesting removal (as soon as possible) of copyrighted and trademarked material under U.S. Law that I own from your site. The webpage is:

http://wcw.bignose.org/index.php?/archives/24-The-SEC-has-my-favorite-RSS-feed.html

Since there are no backlinks to the page, the material seems to have no editorial value to your website.

I have documented that your website has been publishing this content without permission since 2006.

Although this request is meant to be a friendly request, I am advising you that I will file a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) take-down notice, and all other necessary steps to have this content removed from your website, if not done in a timely manner. Thank you ahead of time and your timely removal of my copyrighted and trademarked material from your website.

Sincerely,

Nicholas A. Czuczko

Removal Request - Copyright & Trademark Infringement Take-Down Request
Nicholas A. Czuczko, 20. January, 2010

Wow. Just.. Wow.

Nicholas, although this was a friendly rant, I am advising you that I will mock your full SEC complaint [PDF] and that even a toothless Bush-era commission ordered you to disgorge $1,552,463 in ill-gotten gains, probably if I find the time, but especially if you file an actual 'take-down notice' in something like a timely manner.

Thank you for being such a lackwit. Your email buffoonery just made my day. If you'd like a beer some time, give me a call.

But you're buying.

Oh, and speaking of copyright: photo by Alaskan Dude under Creative Commons license.

Update: looks like our intrepid idiot has been peppering the interwebs with this bogus boilerplate.

I do not know if that would be the case here if Czuczko were to issue a DMCA takedown notice, but anyone who has considered issuing a DMCA takedown notice should consider whether this might apply to them. I suggest that the interested reader see the decision in Online Policy Group v. Diebold, Inc. [PDF], 337 F.Supp.2d 1195 (N.D. Cal. 2004).

An open letter to Nicholas Czuczko
Michael Goode, 20. January, 2010

Mr. Goode not only provides links to the SEC complaint, but also to the unopposed summary judgment against him [PDF, cf also this link to same].

Is Czuczko trying to raise the Google rank of pages pointing to his misdeeds, or is he just stupid?

But I repeat myself.

Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim on lomography.com

2010-01-20T00:06:40+00:00

The Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim is a wonderful little plastic toy camera. At first glance, it looks like any other $2 junk shoppe camera, but the devil is in the details.

The UW&S has a 22mm lens – that’s wider than any DSLR zoom or digital point and shoot. Normally, to get that wide, you’d need to get a semi-pro DSLR lens!

If you like things wide, nay, ultra wide, the camera to bring with you is the Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim. This simple point & shoot plastic camera brings the wide, wide world of a 22mm field of view to you in a small package perfect for your pocket. Its fixed f/11 aperture assures you of incredible depth of field and makes sure everything, front and back, is in focus. Make sure to shoot mostly in the sun though: for greater contrast and even incredible flares!

More at the Lomographic Society.

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merovingian @ 2010-01-19T02:18:00

2010-01-19T10:19:01+00:00

The way I understand it, most of the people working for electronic privacy didn't really get degrees in law or politics or even computers. They taught themselves all these things.

So, you know, it's a battle between the Autodidacts and the Panopticons.

Mezzanine

2010-01-18T03:00:59+00:00

Posted via email from poindexter, WHO? (Mobile Edition)

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It’s Not The Photographer, It’s The Camera!

2010-01-17T02:23:29+00:00

I enjoy reading the high end DSLR discussion boards on the internet. Those gearheads go ape over minute differences in “chromatic aberration” and “barrel distortion”. They peep at pixels in Photoshop to see if their lens is able to give them a sharp image blown up to the size of the side of a barn. But all they seem to ever shoot pictures of is brick walls and cans of soda at varying distances lined up on their dining room table!

I think if you are going to make a fetish over camera equipment, it should be junk store cameras, not DSLRs. There’s something about a fifty year old scratched up plastic lens that makes magic happen. The proof is on exhibit at JunkStoreCameras.com.

Marcy Merrill, a professional photographer, has been accumulating cameras at swap meets and thrift stores and running rolls of film though them to see what comes out. She has captured some remarkably atmospheric images and each one is accompanied by a photo of the two dollar plastic camera that took it. Check it out…

[ Marcy Merrill's Junk Store Cameras via boing boing ]

Update… Gizmodo picked this up, too. You go, Marcy!

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What’s for Dinner

2010-01-14T19:11:10+00:00

This week in our box we got broccoli, cabbage, kale, a bunch of carrots, two leeks, two heads of bok choy, a big butternut squash, five kiwis, and lots of little satsumas: Robin was thrilled with these, as last week’s navel oranges seemed a bit under-ripe, and he didn’t like them. He scarfed down about ten of the satsumas as soon as I took them out of the box, though.

Tonight I want to make caldo verde using the kale and leeks, and tomorrow night we’ll have pork chops along with squash and apple bake.

Saturday I’m playing D&D with friends, so dinner will be leftovers or delivery, but Sunday I’ll make Greek cabbage pie.

I’m planning to use the bok choy sauteed with garlic and stirred into some ramen as a quick-and-easy lunch for Robin and me. I was thinking the broccoli and carrots could go into Sam’s Mr. Bento as a lunch for him, along with some dip and crackers or bread.

So for Monday I’ll be free to make anything I feel like—I’ll try to stop by the fish counter and see what’s fresh. And then Tuesday we’ll eat up any leftovers from the week.

Gristleism!

2010-01-14T03:12:46+00:00

Posted via email from poindexter, WHO? (Mobile Edition)

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