Giving Thanks...And other Strange Tales

So, I'm here to wish all of you a much belated happy Thanksgiving. I know you've been waiting with baited breath to know about what I ate on that fateful day, not to mention whether or not I got my special martini! Well, you asked for it, you got it.

For the martini, you can go to Gargoyles. This place has a good bar, excellent cocktails, and good food. Bring some money. You're gonna need it.

Ah Thanksgiving! Well, I made crispy roasted duck with a black-currant and port wine gravy. It was divine, I might add. To wash it down, we drank a good Cotes du Rhone. Ducks have a preponderance of fat, most of which you can use as a base for other things (sauces, soups, stews) later on if you jar it in an airtight container. We also ate a sausage and apple stuffing (baked separately, to make it crisp and avoid salmonella) sweet potato casserole, and roasted vegetable salad with a truffle vinaigrette. All in all, a most excellent meal.

I have not updated for some time, partially because I am struggling to keep my head above the rising tide of paper that composes the end of the semester. Too much to write, too little time to do it. You can look forward to longer posts after the 16th, when all of this madness will be over.

In the meantime, may I humbly wish you all a Cheerful Holiday Season, whichever one you happen to be fond of celebrating. I happen to like Festivus, but that may just be me :) Whatever you do, eat something delicious. I'll also be posting a list of amazing books for your gift-giving ease, for that special, nerdy someone in your life. But all of that will have to wait for another day!

I bid you peace.

Last night I watched The Orphan. Hilarious. Why are little kids so damn creepy? The concept was good and the acting was good, but it was a little bit like they let monkeys write the last quarter of the script. Or maybe, they let some top-shit studio execs. write it. Either way, it was great until the end, where it got totally ridiculous. Go and see it for free, and make sure you have friends who know how to MST3k properly (yes, I just used that as a verb).

Well, for the want of other idle conversation, my thoughts turn to what I've eaten. I had a pretty lackluster sandwich last night from Angelina's in Somerville. However, my friends had some truffled goat cheese (that is, goat cheese laced with pieces of truffle) that blew my mind. Now, the thing I don't understand about Boston is the copious amounts of shitty pizza. I can get better pizza in my hometown of Greensboro, NC than I've been able to get here. If anyone can find me decent pizza in this city, please let me know. What seems to predominate are paltry examples of NY style pizza with none of the good, fresh ingredients or excellently prepared dough. Also, would it kill anyone to have a brick oven, or a wood even, or a clay oven? (all of which, by the way, we have in Greensboro).

I haven't drunk anything interesting recently, but I'm hoping to this evening. What I'd really like is a decent martini, the way that Bond takes it: Gordon's Dry Gin, Vodka, and Lillet Blanc. Yes, that would hit the spot after a long weekend of thesis proposal writing. If you have suggestions about the best place to get a decent martini, you let me know.

Well that's all for now, folks.

Hell

The single most exciting thing to happen to medieval/cultural studies has to be this:

Not only does this look like a fantastic game, but it also represents one of the most extensive appropriations of medieval literature I've ever seen. The combination of conventional RPG with the Divine Comedy seems to me to have highly interesting applications for other cultural productions. For more example, see Jeffrey Cohen's amazing blog. I also love The Tudors.

I also just got back from Puerto Rico and the American Society of Theatre Research (ASTR) Conference. I ate a lot in Puerto Rico, and of all the things I ate, the flank steak was probably the best. What would typically be a throwaway piece of meat, or just for stew, was tender and delicious. In addition, the double-fried plantains were fantastic. Now, plantains are easy to make. They should be sliced on a grade, fried in olive oil until brown, pulled out and crushed down, and then fried again. Salt liberally and serve with aioli.

Of course, Puerto Rico is also known for its rum. However, this is like no rum you have ever drunk before. Forget Bacardi. Really and seriously forget about it. I went on the Bacardi Rum Tour while I was in Puerto Rico, and I can tell you that it both glosses over the imperialistic history of the Bacardi family (as well as the fact that the sugarcane plantations were run by slaves) and is the most uninformative tour of anything I have ever been on. The tour guides are patronizing and the tourists are intolerable. Additionally, the clear disparity in wealth between the factory area and the the surrounding community made me believe that not much has changed in a little over 100 years. So much for them.

I hope to test out the Dante game as soon as it comes out. I wish it was coming out for Christmas. That's what I want.

Shakespeareans: Part 2

Last night on a bus, tired and going home. Buddhist monks in the front of the bus and white trash in the back. The contrast blew my mind a little.

This post won't be about Shakespeare. This post will be about the fact that I spent almost twenty hours in a small room with no windows in the past two days. Admittedly, that was partly my fault. I decided it was a good idea to move my books there and then work to the point that I started seeing things.

I worked on a presentation and a thesis proposal. The former got done, while the latter festers in a state of disrepair. That reminds me strongly of my life right now. Festering in a state of disrepair.