lick, the civilized world

confessions of a neglectful mind

February 8, 2010 · Leave a Comment

leaving for lebanon, i was a woman in a hurry. days would bleed into weeks, and i would swim in a sea of to dos, each demanding attention, each wailing to be crossed off the list.

and then, i arrived in that spectacularly wondrous levantine city by the mediterranean, and all was well. the days still bled into weeks. mafi mishkele. pas problem. no big deal. but then, these weeks, they began bleeding into months.

this, in retrospect, is where the trouble started.

living in lebanon, i grew apart with my most cherished ritual: checking the news every morning. it crept up on me rather unexpectedly. it began with a mild frustration at the unreliable internet connection (true story: when we asked for wireless internet, the landlady gave us internet chords long enough to reach every and all corners of the house. no need for wireless internet. problem solved lebanon style. and this is suppose to be one of the better higher end apartments in hamra. true. story).

note the chords connecting alexa’s robots to their mothers:

then i became accustomed to being in the dark. then slowly, i began to revel in the not knowing. it was sort of romantic, hearing of michael jackson’s death over the radio, in some taxi winding through the streets of hamra late at night – instead of getting an instant news alert in your inbox. it afforded you the grief of knowing for sure, without doubt. by hearing it over the radio drifting in and out of sleep and sobriety, you could give yourself the benefit of the doubt. somehow prolong the mystery and the awe.

anyways, i began to relish this new found game of playing dumb. in truth, i still don’t know what happened with the health care bill down in the states.

when i came back to toronto, i picked up where i left off and continued on with the constantly-being-connected.

but then the lost news began creeping up on me. for instance: brittany murphy? dead? no one told me! i only found out while flipping through the television a few weeks back (fine, last night) when a larry king live programme with the words – in big fat block letters – “DEATH OF BRITTANY MURPHY” caught my eye.

or that senator from virginia (or carolina? if so which one?) who had an affair with an argentinian woman (or was she bolivian?)? he even declared to the press that he had found his soul mate? i am majoring in international relations. how did i miss this?

and then came the worst. much to my embarassment, only recently did i learn of david rohde’s release. you know, the nytimes reporter who was kidnapped by the taliban last november only to be released sometime last june. thanks to the media blackout that included wikipedia, i had no way of knowing that he had indeed been kidnapped, let alone released. this is particularly mortifying for someone who professes to be interested in journalism. it’s kind of like being in publishing and not knowing about the arrival of ipad. or being a toyota owner and not hearing about the recall. or going to the laundromat without change. or being bill clinton and forgetting to mentally undress cute young interns.

these are the punishments of neglecting your google news alerts. oh cruel, fast-paced, tweeting, blogging, and real-time updating world.

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thank god…

February 3, 2010 · Leave a Comment

…the world has ernest hemingway!

an artist i interviewed once mused that at the end of it all, it always seems to come down to moby dick or hemingway. and yes, he is misogynistic and self-centered, and yet, i feel such bond with this man who was a novelist in war times.

despite his human failings, he is bound to leave an indelible mark on your mind, and that is a good thing.

an account of how he starts his mornings (“never empty but filling as when you have made love to someone you love”) makes me smile.

key west years with pauline hemingway:

below is a scene from long lunches at la consula (home of the affluent american expat bill davis) in malaga, spain (home of picasso too!) with the then wife mary. davis’ young son recounts that hemingway did not sleep well and would love be found up before day break out in the veranda that opened up to the mediterranean sea and the andalucian mountainscapes (beautiful). here, he would rise at 6 in the morning, and would work until 10 o’clock. he was researching and writing a story on spain’s great matadors for life magazine – what came of this would be the last writings to be published in hemingway’s life time. beverley bentley – who later married norman mailer – took this photo. it is particularly sobering as it marks the last summer before his death, i think:

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mac & cheese mondays

February 1, 2010 · Leave a Comment

recipe for bowl full of mac & brie cheese delicious.

other more heart-y health-y snacks?

kale chips!

1. pre heat oven to 350
2. tear kale
3. add olive oil and kale to pan
4. sprinkle salt
5. bake until kale is chip-py (10-15 min.)

grapefruits!

1. also pre heat oven to 350
2. half grapefruit
3. precut grapefruit
4. sprinkle brown sugar all over
5. bake until grapefruit is molten orange (10-15 min.)
6. enter grapefruit heaven

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see you in the new year!

January 29, 2010 · Leave a Comment

off to vancouver tomorrow morning. the taxi is coming at 4,45 a.m. to whisk me away for an early morning flight. i’ve been having these terrible and lucid dreams where i somehow miss my flight and end up in samoa or the the island of nehru and i can’t reach my parents because they are either off sans telephone (they are called a “mobile” phone for a reason! sigh) or i am out of skype credits. i am particularly anxious since my mother had the ingenious/awful idea of coordinating all our flights so that all members of my family are flying into vancouver int’l airport in and around 9 o’clock.

anyways: i fly back to t.o. after lunar new year, so i guess i see you in the new year, yes?

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passions and professions

January 28, 2010 · 1 Comment

please read this article from nytimes on writer john bowe and consider the following:

1. is it just me, or are you also convinced that the reporter is madly falling in love with the writer (“..later, in one of several late night phone calls when mr. bowe seemed less guarded…”). she also spends two paragraphs talking about the actual book (americans talk about love) before willingly and dreamily entering bachelor land of florid wall decor. you can almost hear her giggling at all his new york deadpan jokes.
2. john bowe is such an easy sell: he is not just for “women with a soft spot for social issues.” a man who put up with julian schnabel and wrote “basquiat” and uses mortar and pestle for preparing dinner? please.
3. kidding aside, this article directly references a talk i had with my friend while coursing through the holiday season in holland. rianne shares this deeply insightful observation. ready? so: this society urges us to focus on our professional careers, to do everything in our power to establish ourselves as productive members of this economy and to be gainfully employed, to climb to teh top and stay there. and yet, it is only after years have passed and only after it is too late to change the tide, that you will be criticized for being blinded by fame, and for not pursuing the great passions of your life. we live in a schizophrenic world that professional growth leave no room for passionate embrace. we live in a world where even willing writers cannot seem to find love.

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