The Weekend
Sep. 16th, 2013 06:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraPoor me: I hab a code.
Came on with amazing rapidity, like a Stephen King killer virus: One minute I was sitting on the train, staring across the wide river at the grey prominences that are West Point and wondering why the Revolutionary War is so much less interesting, say, than the Civil War; the next minute, I was sneezing convulsively. When I finally stopped, I was sick/sick/sick.
But already on the train. Already in transit.
Had a fun session with the FWB. He is a sweetie, and good at his hobby. Was moved inexplicably by a box of 1950s science fiction magazines that had been moved from the depths of a closet in preparation for the Great Paint-Off, 60 year old issues of Astounding, If, and Galaxy.
"Those are in remarkably good condition," I told him. "Could be worth something. Where'd you get them? Were they yours?"
"I guess they were," he said. "I don't really remember."
And I had this kind of momentary vision of him as this bright, pugnacious kid, twisting uncomfortably under his doting mama's relentless gaze.
Fun hanging out en famille too because I really like DeeDee and Nadia. Nadia showed me something that was one of the funniest things I'd ever seen, videos of humans recreating their favorite moments from the Sims.
When I left, my plans were to go straight to Manhattan to spend the afternoon wandering around the Egyptian wing of the Met, but after walking two blocks, it was obvious to me that I was really ill, that I needed to go home. This year's version of "home", of course, lay 85 miles away at the other end of a tromp along the Bronx's busiest thoroughfare and a long train ride. There were moments when I thought, I'm not going to make this, I'm going to die in transit, but eventually I got back. Quaffed a quart of orange juice. Slept for 12 hours.
Still feeling quite ill, and no doubt will feel iller as the day progresses. But at least that phase of utter disorientation is over.
One really odd thing about colds – I don't actually stop smelling things. What happens instead is that my nose switches over from olfactory to tactile processing. It's an odd phenomenon. I can feel those volatile odorants tickle my receptors, but they don't trigger the neurological processing mechanism they're supposed to trigger.
Also finished Michael Pollan's Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation in transit. I wanted so much to like this book, but ultimately I didn't. I'm trying to think why. Pollan explores the historical, cultural and nutrition contexts of food preparation through the examination of four foods, each correlated with one of the primal elements. Thus, we have barbecue (fire), pot cooking (water), bread (air), and cheese and beer (earth.)
He makes some rather interesting points about cooking as the ultimate act of rebellion against the industrial complex. It is odd that these days cooking is something that people with money and leisure indulge in, but that is nonetheless true. Time and money, though, are two of the things that are in short supply for most 99 percenters. Pollan teeters dangerous on bwana-ism here: If you shiftless folk didn't watch so much TV then you'd have time to cook! But, you know, people watch TV because they're exhausted.
All ricochets back to Marx's central point, I suppose: The worst thing about capitalism is that it alienates people from the fruits of their labor. In counteracting this, Pollan's book is magnificent. He writes about the biochemistry behind various cooking processes lyrically and wondrously.
Hokay! I'm sneezing again.
Back to bed.
Came on with amazing rapidity, like a Stephen King killer virus: One minute I was sitting on the train, staring across the wide river at the grey prominences that are West Point and wondering why the Revolutionary War is so much less interesting, say, than the Civil War; the next minute, I was sneezing convulsively. When I finally stopped, I was sick/sick/sick.
But already on the train. Already in transit.
Had a fun session with the FWB. He is a sweetie, and good at his hobby. Was moved inexplicably by a box of 1950s science fiction magazines that had been moved from the depths of a closet in preparation for the Great Paint-Off, 60 year old issues of Astounding, If, and Galaxy.
"Those are in remarkably good condition," I told him. "Could be worth something. Where'd you get them? Were they yours?"
"I guess they were," he said. "I don't really remember."
And I had this kind of momentary vision of him as this bright, pugnacious kid, twisting uncomfortably under his doting mama's relentless gaze.
Fun hanging out en famille too because I really like DeeDee and Nadia. Nadia showed me something that was one of the funniest things I'd ever seen, videos of humans recreating their favorite moments from the Sims.
When I left, my plans were to go straight to Manhattan to spend the afternoon wandering around the Egyptian wing of the Met, but after walking two blocks, it was obvious to me that I was really ill, that I needed to go home. This year's version of "home", of course, lay 85 miles away at the other end of a tromp along the Bronx's busiest thoroughfare and a long train ride. There were moments when I thought, I'm not going to make this, I'm going to die in transit, but eventually I got back. Quaffed a quart of orange juice. Slept for 12 hours.
Still feeling quite ill, and no doubt will feel iller as the day progresses. But at least that phase of utter disorientation is over.
One really odd thing about colds – I don't actually stop smelling things. What happens instead is that my nose switches over from olfactory to tactile processing. It's an odd phenomenon. I can feel those volatile odorants tickle my receptors, but they don't trigger the neurological processing mechanism they're supposed to trigger.
Also finished Michael Pollan's Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation in transit. I wanted so much to like this book, but ultimately I didn't. I'm trying to think why. Pollan explores the historical, cultural and nutrition contexts of food preparation through the examination of four foods, each correlated with one of the primal elements. Thus, we have barbecue (fire), pot cooking (water), bread (air), and cheese and beer (earth.)
He makes some rather interesting points about cooking as the ultimate act of rebellion against the industrial complex. It is odd that these days cooking is something that people with money and leisure indulge in, but that is nonetheless true. Time and money, though, are two of the things that are in short supply for most 99 percenters. Pollan teeters dangerous on bwana-ism here: If you shiftless folk didn't watch so much TV then you'd have time to cook! But, you know, people watch TV because they're exhausted.
All ricochets back to Marx's central point, I suppose: The worst thing about capitalism is that it alienates people from the fruits of their labor. In counteracting this, Pollan's book is magnificent. He writes about the biochemistry behind various cooking processes lyrically and wondrously.
Hokay! I'm sneezing again.
Back to bed.
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no subject
Date: 2013-09-16 12:04 pm (UTC)And sometime (not this week, which is probably a good idea anyway) you can come over, so I can challenge capitalism the Michael Pollan way.
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Date: 2013-09-21 02:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-16 04:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-21 02:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-16 06:13 pm (UTC)Feel better soon!
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Date: 2013-09-16 10:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-23 01:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-21 02:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-16 06:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-21 02:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-17 01:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-21 02:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-17 02:50 am (UTC)What is a session like with this guy? --curious. Is he pugnacious now? Fun covers a lot of ground.
The four element makes me think of myth criticism, which looks for seasons. We are estranged from an earlier, better experience of the world I think it's real. Cooking though, never would've thought of that as an expression of this alienation but it does work.