Neptune's Castle

We found this driftwood shack on the beach last year.

We did a bit of remodeling because we're remodeling-type folk.

We embellished it a little with treasures we found.

We sang songs and beat drums on it.

We waited for the waves to come and carry it away.

I look at the Augusteum, and I think that perhaps my life has not actually been so chaotic, after all. It is merely this world that is chaotic, bringing changes to us all that nobody could have anticipated. The Augusteum warns me not to get attached to any obsolete ideas about who I am, what I represent, whom I belong to, or what function I may once have intended to serve. Yesterday I might have been a glorious monument to somebody, true enough - but tomorrow I could be a fireworks depository. Even in the Eternal City, says the silent Augusteum, one must always be prepared for riotous and endless waves of transformation.

- Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

A Little Romance

Can I just say one more time how mucha, mucha, mucha I love Youtube? Here's one of my favorite childhood movies - A Little Romance featuring a young Diane Lane and Theolonius Broussard. The opening features classic American films dubbed in French. John Wayne saying "Qu'est-ce que tu prefere?" just cracks me up. Kinda cheesy I guess. But I used to watch it obsessively. I could just buy the thing, but it's so much fun to watch it on my computer broken up into ten minutes pieces. Go figure.

National Pie Day

It's National Pie Day. Did you know this? One of you did and alerted me. Why National Pie Day?
Because back in 1986 (how's that for a long standing tradtion?) the American Pie Council wanted to acknowledge Crisco's 75th anniversary of "serving foods to families everywhere." I did not know Crisco was considered a food item. No, I did not. Will I bake a pie to commemorate Crisco? Hmmm. There's always room for pie, no? I'm going to see what I can whip up. I found a great recipe yesterday. Can you guess what kind? Bittersweet Chocolate Pecan. I guess this does not qualify as a "new" recipe.

I did have Quiche for lunch. That may be as close as we get to pie today. It's been very hectic in Spreenland so far. But I will save those details for another time.

Thanks T.

Stuck Inside the House with Runny Noses and Hacking Coughs

Thank G.O.D. for Boxes

and Stuffed Lobsters.

Yes. It's the dog's toy.

Ain't No Power Like...

I love pop-up books like this and books that feature ephemera like this. That's just one of the reasons I'm enjoying Project 1968. The blog chronicles the experiences of two women up to and during the 1968 Democratic Convention. Laura calls her new work a blog docu-novel. Check it out. It's an innovative use of the blog medium and an informative, entertaining read.

I think of something Albert Camus once said: he said beware of all veterans. And he didn't just mean war veterans, he meant anti-war veterans, veterans of our movement. Because although as one gets older one has certain insights and experiences to draw on, we're all scarred and conditioned by those experiences and by the times in which we were born and in which we live. And one of the things that I learned in the 60s and people like Clayton amongst others who taught me that was that every new generation comes along with new insights and new perspectives and that we really are all part of one another and all do need each other. - Dave Dellinger

Inspiration

Hunter S. Thompson, William S. Burroughs, Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, Cora Sandel, Tim Etchells, James Agee, Lester Bangs, Mary Overlie, Anne Bogart, Ariane Mnouchkine, Zeami Motokiyo, Tadashi Suzuki, Jacques LeCoq, Bob Fosse, Frank Lloyd Wright, Maya Lin, Frank Gehry, Jacques Derrida, Walker Evans, Andy Warhol, Chuck Close, Glenn Gould, Bach, David Byrne - especially "My Life In The Bush of Ghosts", Talking Heads, Brian Eno, Radiohead, Charles Mingus, Tom Waits, John Prine, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Paul D. Miller, John Lydon, The Clash, The Sex Pistols, Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, Soul Coughing, Mike Doughty, Bessie Smith, Nina Simone, Alberta Hunter, Bill Hicks, Andy Kaufman, David Cross, Bill Murray, Bourbon, Cemetaries and war memorials world-wide, The Berlin Wall, Sergei Eisenstein, Jean-luc Godard, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Kubrick, Bruce Lee films, Kinji Fukasaku, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Steven Soderbergh, Spike Lee, Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Jean Renoir, Jim Jarmusch, Coffee, Pilsbury Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies, chocolate cake, the bible, the aprocrypha, James Joyce, Batman 1960's TV Series, The Aventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, Peewee's Playhouse, overheard conversations, my kids, print material for cut-up/collage writing and images of people and spaces including, but not limited to- Adbusters, i-D, Dwell, self-help books, recipes, discarded lists, stuff I find on the ground or handed to me by random people on the street, maps, junk mail, a glass of water

Strike TV Club

Check out Alan Sepinwall's Strike TV Club. The first show he offers up is the pilot for Cupid. Cupid was one of my favorite TV shows. First, great writing. Intelligent, witty. The references fly like a Gilmore Girls Marathon. I like a show where I have to reach to catch things. Secondly, Jeremy Piven. I love to watch him perform because it always looks like he's having so much fun. In Cupid, Piven plays Eros, the God of Love, kicked to the curb by the Olympians and given the task of uniting 100 couples before he can return to Mount Olympus. Or is he? I would have loved to see the pitch for this series.

First Pie of the New Year.

I'm not a big fan of Pecan pie, but you wouldn't know it from this blog - half of the pie recipes I have on here are for pecan pie. In fact, it is the same pie recipe posted twice. But honestly, Chocolate Pecan Pie with Bourbon - it's mighty tasty. And, over the past two years, I've mastered the technique for making them. I made two CPP's avec Bourbon for Christmas and they were absolute perfection. Well, there was too much Bourbon. I never thought I would say such a thing but - unequivocally - 4Tbs of Bourbon is beyond my tolerance (in pie). Texture-wise though, these pies were light and moist. I took a bite and it almost made me cry. If I sit here and use my incredible powers of concentration, I start to well up from the memory of those pies. But I am a professionally trained actor and I spent a lot of money so I would be able to do fancy stuff like make myself cry over the memory of pie. I don't advise it.

For New Year's I made - guess what? Pecan Pie. But with a twist - German Chocolate Pecan Pie. I saw a picture of this in the Rachel Ray magazine and it oozed yummy goodness so I had to give it a try. This is the easiest pecan pie recipe ever and it is indeed, scrumptious. Rachel Ray is a beloved figure in our household. My daughter, Olivia, loves 30 Minute Meals, but it confuses her that Rachel changes her shirt every thirty minutes. "Why did her change her shirt?" "She must have gotten chili on it." Olivia thinks Rach is our neighbor. Yep. "Where is her bedroom, Mommy? When can we have dinner at her house?" I let this go on because frankly, it is so charming and precious. She'll hate me one day for it I'm sure.

New Year. New Rules.
Given that it's My Bill Murray Year, I'm compelled to make some changes. I must. There. I've said it. I must. There are a lot of pies out there and they must be tried. They Must. So, one of my resolutions for the New Year is to branch out pie-wise. Expect to see some posts about fruit pies.

No. That's not all. Oh no. I'm going to make friends with the Internet this year. I'm going to be chatting it up regularly. Internet: you are my new best friend. I'm going to spill and consume your energy like a needy, undervalued girlfriend. But my self-esteem will remain intact, know why Internet? Because I'm in charge and you are a disembodied figment of my imagination, kind of. Plus, you apparently have no way of responding. Let's keep that channel going one way shall we? Hmm?

My Bill Murray Year

Any year that begins with a dream where Karl Rove hands you toilet paper underneath the bathroom stall !in the women's room! and, as you proceed to take care of business, the Rove toilet paper turns to gummy worms in your hands which you must then force down the crapper because "for chrissake's woman it's evidence!" is a year when you bet your sweet bippy you better be upping your game. Likewise, any year where, in the same dream, Bill Murray appears on a glittering gold space ship which he deftly lands and then that very space ship - razzle dazzle! - transforms into a bar where Bill is your personal mixologist who proceeds to offer you martinis and sing lounge songs as you sit on a barstool looking smashing in your red cocktail dress is a year where the world is going to be on your string. You bet. Go 2008!

So what will I do with it? Stay Tuned.