The Confabulist writes about vertical food, this time in orange. Vertical stacking: of people, ideas, of books or food, it’s orderly and efficient and delights me to no end despite my natural tendancy towards chaos. Corbusier would be proud.
Plan Voisin, 1925
Gave completely uninspired lecture about school finance reform in Ed 50 today. I swear it may be the mostest boringist topic on the face of the planet. And I spent way too long on the powerpoint for it. Google imaging photos of the Governor at 4 in the morning so 20 year olds can have a bit of a laugh. I settled on this one, one we used for Theory last year:
Total Recall:
The Election of Arnold Schwarzenegger and California’s Reaction to the Postmodern Condition (Horror vaccui or a return to the meta-narrative?)
I was complaining about prepping for it yesterday but Tilty said hey! this is your thing, you’re lecturing about your thing. Well, I hate that this is my thing. I went back to grad school so that this wouldn’t be my thing. And here I am again…I kind of do like the teaching part though…
I have fabuloso pictures of the chocolate chip cheesecake that we made for Dyer’s birthday, but dude, I’m done. 3 1/2 hrs of sleep isn’t enough, and I’ve got a warm bed calling. Also, I’ve started das Parfum. I can’t put it down and if the film turns out to be as good as the book I’ll be in heaven. Haha. Hmmm.
My roommate and I were having study break dance party the other day. We moved with grace and finesse to I left my wallet in El Segundo. The running man never looked so French-Canadian.
I was wearing my hot pink and not-trying-to-be-ironic Pennsylvania State Envirothon t-shirt, from like, 1989, and Dyer screamed, hey! I did the Envirothon too!
I said, hey! No way, I was the Eco-Meet bird-call identification champion, beat that! He said hey! I bet you weren’t in the Science Olympiad! I said hey! Holy fuck, I was! We were state champions, I have medals and shit! He said hey! I do too!
Oh damn, what a couple of geeks. In the same house. Doing urban planning study break hip hop dance party. Admitting our high-school triumphs with pride. IT WAS F*ING GREAT.
Happy Birthday Eric Dyer!
Semi-secretly Dyer and I have been exploring the seductive deliciousness that is the Spam. One Saturday morning we had it Filipino style: with garlic-fried rice, and eggs over easy. It was perfectly crusty and dark golden brown on the outside, porky and tender on the inside. Here’s how it starts:
first you fight over the perfectly crispy bits
Then, you take spoon and fork, and address the egg: chop it up, chop it up, chop it up. Add soy sauce, mixy mixy. Using the spoon, tear off chunks of the meaty goodness and eat with perfect allocation of eggy garlic-fried rice:
note spoonular third-world technique
The only thing missing for a true Filipino breakfast experience was the pitcher of Tang, the salted dried anchovies, and the pan de sal with Kraft singles slices. Oh, well. Next time.
hey, astronauts drink it
Our friends with taste and proper upbringing were horrified and look at us in puzzlement when we talk about it. If they only knew about the smoky saltiness of it all, its tender and crispy delicious delightfulness, the way it just lures one in….
Desyl chloride
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It’s a wonder that I get any action at all, really. Considering.
She neglects to save the post. She screams the bad words. She blogs the food:
I trained Dyer to make me my morning cappuccino but I had to make it myself today. Boo.
For dinner, the teriyaki tofu: too pineappley. And the sesame garlic asparagus. Very perfect.
And! I got! my clogs! today! YAY for Dansko! And yes, I’m wearing them with my striped socks. I don’t care if it embarrasses you.
Dyer says that I link too much. I say you DON’T HAVE TO CLICK ON EVERYTHING, white boy. Fuck and you. Y gracias por la cerveza. Goddammit.
Tonight, carrot-ginger chickpea soup to make up for last night’s naughty-but-needed steak behavior. Pure yumminess. The steak, I mean. As was the company, with his euro-techno-zip-up-Sprockets look and his messy blond hair and his hands, his hands. The soup was okay.
And completely unrelated to last night, (except that I could see their giant-ass building from the living room window) a tidbit from the good folks at the RAND corporation:
The research team (which included researchers from the New Orleans area) created a “broken windows index” to examine the possible association of neighborhood deterioration and high-risk sexual behavior and gonorrhea rates in 55 New Orleans neighborhoods. The index is a scale representing conditions in the neighborhood, and it accounts for such problems as trash, abandoned cars, graffiti, and homes and schools in poor repair. Researchers mapped all cases of gonorrhea between 1994 and 1996 and calculated the rate of disease by neighborhood “block group” (each block group consisted of several city blocks as designated by the U.S. Census). Using data from the 1990 U.S. Census and 1995 updates, they determined the relationship between gonorrhea rates, neighborhood deterioration, and poverty and other demographic characteristics.
where gonorrhea comes from
The broken windows index was found to be a significant predictor of gonorrhea rates. Poor neighborhoods with high broken windows scores had significantly higher gonorrhea rates than did poor neighborhoods with low broken windows scores. Indeed, the level of neighborhood deterioration as measured by the broken windows index was a better predictor of neighborhood gonorrhea rates than were demographic characteristics as measured by a poverty index.
And a nice flow chart to make it look all official-like:
P.S. Don’t ask me why I’m googling gonorrhea. I’m NOT.
Furtive blogging from office hours not such good idea as one tends to forget to pick up PPD Department sub-district design guidelines from Ed Department group printer which is improper use of blah blah, but when have I started to care about that anyway, just should look like I’m actually reviewing project/paper proposals from kiddies instead of reading Berlin blogs all morning and thinking about him and how much longer I have to sit here instead of going there.
In Berlin we were an island unto ourselves, as brief as it was, and now there is distance and responsibilities and other stuff, but tonight, I am his again and all those things will be forgotten.
Algorithmic walking is probably one of the best ways to explore an unfamiliar city. Or to have a nice walk. Which has somehow become a movement. Or a reason to stay in academia too long.
Here is a great example of one in Berlin, where the walker took a photo every twelve minutes, starting at the infamous Marzahn, at S-bahnhof Springpfuhl.
And here’s how to do that urban exploration haiku.
PS. If anyone wants to buy me a GPS unit for my birthday, it’s on November 6th.
