Simply Recipes: Sausage Brunch Casserole Recipe
Elise comes through with another classic that's handy to have on file.
Breakfast Casserole…MMMM
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Monthly Archives: December 2006
What We Did Yesterday
David and I celebrated Jewish Christmas yesterday with my in-laws; we went to a movie and then drove around looking for a Chinese restaurant that was open. Actually, we never did, but a sports bar was open, so that's where we ended up eating.
The movie was "The Good Shepherd," which was extremely layered and nuanced. You really had to pay attention to details, and the foreshadowing was there for the ending, but it was so subtle that when I pointed it out to my husband David, he was amazed. Matt Damon's performance as CIA man Edward Wilson was masterful; you'd think he was a cold-hearted, soulless bastard except for his love of playacting and poetry.
Robert DeNiro appears as William Sullivan, a character based on the real-life founder of the OSS, "Wild Bill" Donovan. DeNiro's direction is masterful – the film runs a bit long at the end, but there's a lot of ground to cover, a lot of hidden layers to uncover, so I couldn't fault him there.
Damn, good movie. I'm still trying to work out what the significance of the title was – there's a lot of religious symbolism going on… ah. Got it. He's a Yale man, a member of Skull and Bones, and is present a couple of times when the Wiffenpoof Song is being sung, a traditional Yale song. His own son as an adult is a member of the Yale glee choir. The last verse is also a comment on what spies, especially well-connected Ivy League spies, can expect in eternity, and Edward as the eventual spymaster of CIA is the "good shepherd." His KGB adversaries probably code named him "Mother" for the same reason.
The Wiffenpoofs' Song
To the tables down at Mory's,
To the place where Louis dwells,
To the dear old Temple Bar we love so well,
Sing the Wiffenpoofs assembled
With their glasses raised on high,
And the magic of their singing casts its spell.Yes, the magic of their singing
Of the songs we love so well,
"Shall I wasting," and "Mavourneen,"
And the rest;
We will seranade our Louis
While life and voice shall last,
Then we'll pass and be forgotten with the rest.
We're poor little lambs who have lost our way:
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We're little lost sheep who have gone astray:
Baa! Baa! Baa!Gentlemen songsters off on a spree,
Damned from here to eternity:
God have mercy on such as we:
Baa! Baa! Baa!
There's a good review here that doesn't give too much away.
The LeeVees:Goyim Friends:Hanukkah Rocks[3:16]
Schism: It’s Always Something
At Axis of Episcopal Split, an Anti-Gay Nigerian
In case anyone is missing the point about the coming schism in the Episcopal Church, currently it's about homosexuality and biblical inerrancy. 40 years ago, it was about women's ordination and bibilical inerrancy. 20 years before that, it was about civil rights and biblical inerrancy. 100 years before that, it was slavery… and biblical inerrancy. Really, it's always something about biblical inerrancy, but that's not sexy enough.
[tags]Episcopal[/tags]
links for 2006-12-23
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Supposed to be difficult to obtain quickly or on the hop in Britain
The Birth of a New Christmas Tradition
Andrew Plus: Mythbusters Christmas Contraption
We've already watched this episode twice. Here's a highlight reel. Go monkeys!
Little Love In Falls Church For The Falls Church
Falls Church News-Press – Editorial: No Surprise To Us Locals
The Falls Church Episcopal Church is now front page news all over the world for its vote, announced Sunday, to formally defect from the Episcopal denomination. But the 10,500 folks in the tiny City of Falls Church have had the Falls Church Episcopal — with its membership drawn from the wider region almost a third the size of their whole town — not only in their midst, but “in their faces” for much of the last 20 years since the church took a decidedly right-wing turn.
Many in the Falls Church school system recall its influence beginning almost that long ago, churning evangelical zeal among young people, in particular. An aggressive youth program in the 1990s preached to high schoolers that their parents had made too many compromises with the world and were hardly role models for the kind of holy warriors they could become. We listened to some of these sermons, ourselves, throwbacks to notions from the 1960s counterculture era when the mantra was, “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” Parents of Jewish students were alarmed that their youngsters were being drawn into a church where it is claimed that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation.
Still, the countless high school essays that eschewed personal introspection to gush explicitly of personal relations with Christ, along with not infrequent claims on high school fields and courts that God was responsible for one team (our team!) winning and another suffering ignominious defeat, could be construed as mere nuisances. On the other hand, the stacking of family life education committees in the school system to block modern sex ed curricula, and a campaign to vilify a high school advisor for allowing his student newspaper editorial board to publish a free ad for a non-profit group offering counseling to young gays were more serious intrusions in the City’s daily life.
Maybe it's no coincidence that the 2 large churches in Virginia that recently defected from the Episcopall church to align with the ultra-conservative Nigerian Anglican church have non-standard names. Most churches in our denomination follow a similar name convention – St. Somebody's Episcopal, or Grace Episcopal, or some such. Not these two – although they're historical bodies who've been part of the American Episcopal denomination for centuries, their usual names are The Falls Church and Truro Church. "Episcopal" is an afterthought in their names, especially in their stance in the last 20 years, when they became so much more conservative and un-Anglican in their views on the inerrancy of the Bible and teh evul gay agenda. Convenient for them, since they won't have to spend much to change their signage.
mediatinker.com: Yes! And…
The other day I was listening to an interview with an author on NPR when a call-in comment made me stop and think. This caller, John from Chicago, explained the powerful creative tool he learned from doing improv comedy.
"Yes! And…"
Whoa. Two words that affirm and springboard to more ideas. How simple. I can see that these two words will create a spark in my creative projects – and in my business and personal life, too.
Let's all say it together (good and loud now):
"Yes! And…"
Aha!! My brother-in-law Mitch will recognize this, as he's taken improv classes off and on for some years now. He's described this very game/concept/ethic to me before. I'll try to find out what show it was specfically so I can link it here later.
Mitch has also mentioned that "Yes! And…" is useful in conversation, in brainstorming meetings, and so on.
We saw a little improv recently at the holiday party for my husband David's company, and there was one scene that fell pretty flat because the one guy just would not give his partner anything to work with – the stuff he said was funny enough in a dorky way on its own, but instead of "Yes! And…" it was more like "I got nothing except this hot wet mess in my hand. Here you go."
links for 2006-12-22
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Make Xmas paper from Flickr photos!
Doctor Who: Sometimes, He’s Out
Television Without Pity » Doctor Who » Fear Her
Rose and the Doctor head to London 2012 for the Olympics, only to find themselves on a suburban street where the children are disappearing. After a bunch of herrings both red and anvilicious, it is discovered that one lonely little girl named Chloe is responsible: she pulls her neighbors into her art by drawing them. Shes also got her mean scary demonic dad locked up in a very scary picture in her closet. After a billion years of gumshoe and lots of sardonic twitticisms, it is discovered that the girl is actually
possessed by a colony of tiny aliens called the “Isolus,” whose separation from their mothership drink has caused them to go shit nuts. Chloe draws the Doctor and TARDIS in as well, leaving Rose to save the day. She does this, and meanwhile Chloe and her mum sing “Kookaburra” at Mean Dad until he goes away. Then the Doctor reappears, grabs the Olympic torch, and things get stupid. Considering that next weeks double-header is the season finale, this is a shit way to go out. But most of the episode is pretty awesome,
even for all the cheese at the end — the effects are neat-looking, and the performances — especially those of Chloe, her mom, and Rose — are fun to watch. The fun of being Doctor and Companion again after last week is infectious, if claustrophobic, and its nice to see Rose react to the Doctors absence with something other than total meltdown. And theres a happy ending, which is getting rarer all the time. Not recommended, but a good close to the story before the final denouement.
The TWoP reviewer didn’t much like this episode, and neither did we. Okay at first, creepy in an interesting way, and then about the time Rose thinks she’s worked it out and saved the Doctor (I do like how our Rose is capable of saving herself, not to mention the Timelord) the episode goes badly downhill. Yes, it’s a good twist that the evil demonic daddy drawing has been freed, but it’s a bad twist when it turns out that you can defeat him by huddling together and singing the kookaburra song, because laughter
and happiness always beat evil bad demonic daddies.
Meh.
Although we thought it was funny that the Isolus hitched a ride and a warm-up in the Olympic Torch, it was groan-inducing when the Doctor stepped in as a last-second replacement.
Meh.
I suppose “final denouement” means we can look forward to more Big Badness to come. I’m only vaguely aware of upcoming personnel changes, so we’ll tune in next time to see how the finale plays out. We only just started liking David Tennant in the role, though. It took several episodes – actually, most of the season – to get where we accepted him as “the Doctor” and not just as “the new guy that replaced the totally awesome Christopher Eccleston.”
Imagery: Sumo
In November of 1993, I visited Japan for 2 weeks. It was a big adventure; my friend Debbie was living in Nagoya then and the original plan was that we’d take off for a few days together and then I’d be on my own. The plan changed when Debbie had a family emergency, and she left me in the hands of some friends of hers.
I spent a lot of time at first getting used to living in a Japanese apartment, exploring Nagoya via subway, and watching a lot of Japanese TV. Then after a few days of culture shock and visiting temples and viewing autumn leaves with some of Debbie’s friends, I headed off to a couple of the other islands. I had to, because if I hadn’t, I would have spent the entire 2 weeks watching the sumo tournament that was then taking place.
I got into it because although I couldn’t understand what was going on, I could understand victory and defeat, formality and spectacle, juggernaut and underdog. And also, the English-language daily Japan Times explained what had gone on the night before, and I was pretty well hooked on the sport. Also, I had attended a party at someone’s home where sumo was on the TV, and everyone cheered wildly when a hotly favored, huge American champion named Konishiki was
taken down by a much smaller man. The tournament was eventually won by another American, Akebono.
There are a lot of stats and pictures here.
The other day, I was looking at a website that featured caganer, the pooping peasant figurine that people in Catalan love to put in their Nativity scenes, and there was a sumo one.
The crouching stance really lends itself to the, uh, imagery.
I went looking on YouTube for sumo videos, and it seems that unless you want to look at teenage girls hopping around in inflatable suits running into each other, you won’t find real bouts or other authentic sumo events unless you use a specific wrestler’s name in the tag search. Once you find them, there’s all kinds of stuff, but not organized by date or tournament.
That’s when I remembered my little mobile phone photo of the sumo bike accessory – we were in Aspen for the day, looking around, and it caught my eye. I think it’s a horn, or makes some kind of incredibly rude farting-go-very-fast sound.
It must be funny as hell to ride around looking up its backside.
Still, I have a lot of respect for Sumo and may even try to watch the upcoming January tournament, if it comes up on TiVo.