I love cooking. Cooking, for me, is one part improvisation, one part nurturing, and a giant dollop of getting to kick everyone else out of the kitchen so I can play with sharp things. Baking, though? Baking is an arcane art, a real-life alchemy with bizarre rules that need to be followed to the letter lest your cake become biscuits. I view its practitioners with a kind of suspicious awe- if they can master this, then what else can they do*? Fortunately, over at Crumbs for Little Birds, The Super Alice has given the world a quick guide to pain-free home baking.
This next link and this here paragraph are going to rate a wee TW for talk of terminal illnesses and assisted dying. In The Good Short Life, Dudley Clendinen talks about his joy in his life and his decision not to ‘stick around for the back half of Lou’, as he calls Lou Gehrig’s disease. While the piece as a whole is wonderful, loving and immensely life-affirming, one thing that struck me as incredibly sad is the fact that if he doesn’t want to see his disease to the end, then he needs to, in this words, ‘act while my hands still work’. To me, one of the most profound arguments for assisted dying is that it allows people to stick around that little bit longer if they choose. Not having to worry about being able to carry it out oneself might give a person an extra few weeks or months of good, happy life. And don’t people deserve that?
This next link gets a TW as well, this time for talk of child abuse. My wonderful adopted sister Amanda Harper responds to the Cloyne report into clerical child sex abuse. Amanda is an abuse survivor from the Cloyne diocese. Please do read what she has to say, if that’s a thing that’s do-able for you.
Via Skepchick, two linklets: A quick FAQ on the whole ElevatorGate business from Rebecca Watson. And with the day that’s in it, an essential article on why Harry Potter should really all be about Hermione Granger.
And with that, off I go to pack. Not just for the Very Long Walk. I’m also moving out of this house this week. AARGGHHHHH.
*The fact that the Statistician is also an excellent baker only confirms this. And you’ll never believe what she can do with a small square piece of paper.
What does TW stand for? My best guess is that it’s something warning?
Good guess!
TW stands for ‘trigger warning’. It’s used to label discussions which run the risk of ‘triggering’ people’s PTSD and whatnot, with a short description of the areas being discussed. This allows people with PTSD (and other similar conditions/situations which make it difficult to read about or discuss particular issues) to make an informed decision on whether they want, or are able to, read and discuss a particular topic.
Handy, when you’re talking about Heavy Stuff!
When the time comes around to fight, the boys are like, “oh wow, look at this thing that happened! Isn’t that crazy?” Meanwhile Hermione is like, “idiots, I figured that out like 5 books ago. CAN YOU PLEASE FOCUS.”
AHAHAHA. I agree completely the books should be about Hermione, named after Hermione, and centered around Hermione.
However, I kind of feel weird about people judging Ron and Hermione’s and Ron’s relationship. I know, I know, they’re only characters but that is sort of a douchey thing to do. =/ I doubt Hermione would be very happy with us if we kept talking smack about the husband she loves.
Couldn’t agree more! That bit really bugged me as well-especially in how it focused on how the author perceives Ron’s physical attractiveness. Last I heard, that was a subjective thing. And an incredibly inappropriate thing to judge others on.
So long as we are doing rewrites, I have always thought Moby-Dick should have focused more on the whale instead of those dull anthropods Ishmael, Ahab, Starbuck (though he did invent coffee) and the rest. All their machinations and interactions are driven by the whale. He is their raison d’etre, and yet what do we know of his abyssal life? While the men are convening those tedious “gams” with other ships’ crews, is he carousing with his fellow cetaceans? Opining with octopi? Suborning some shrimp? The whale is totally hot, by the way, and only a size-ist would gainsay me, He is white of course, and while I would prefer a whale of color as the protagonist, we have to give diversity credits to Melville for the harpooners: Queequeg (extra points for his tribal tattoos) the Pacific Islander, Fedallah the Parsi, Tashtego the Native American etc. And while we are at this, how about A la recherche du temps perdu? The hell with the Narrator, Charles Swann and even the Baron de Charlus. I say it is all about Francoise the maid.
I believe that this is why people invented fanfic 😉
Did not know about fanfic. Thanks! Just went there and read an hilarious emendation to Great Expectations: a poetic rumination by Miss Havisham (whom I love and whose housekeeping principles I have adopted), entitled “By the Way He’s Left Me.”
Thanks for the links! That argument for assisted dying is a very good one, and one that I think I don’t see voiced often enough. And I’m really glad I read the response to the Cloyne report–it’s something very important to keep in mind and publicize.
I got a great kick out of the Hermione article, but now it’s got me thinking. Although I responded with a “Hell yeah!” to nearly all the points (again, excepting the Ron thing), I’m not sure if it would be better if the books/movies were about Hermione, or if she’d been the one at the center of all the attention and support. What was so beautiful about Hermione is that, rather than making things about herself, she does whatever she decides needs to be done–for her friends, for the world, for the house elves, and so on. She just takes on the burdens and the work and keeps going with no self-aggrandizement, and that’s something that (please no one tear into me for saying this) I feel is a typically feminine way of going about things. It’s a feminine strength, and one that needs more credit, but certainly doesn’t need to be changed or less frequently represented. I think Hermione’s whole role is a wonderful thing, and I think that she makes the books/movies wonderful largely because of that. I feel like J.K. Rowling knew exactly what she was doing in developing that character and her situation.
Thanks for posting the Dudley Clendinen article. I hadn’t read it when it was originally published, but I’ve now taken some time to respond to it on my own blog.
I look forward to reading more of your posts.
Best,
Dan
My response to the article you posted is here:
http://www.yabottherobot.com/2011/11/10/to-live-to-die/