the heart shaped box

I Think I Like Lana del Ray

Let’s not confuse the incessant hooks in Lana del Ray’s songs with traditional talent. Her voice is unusual, but not necessarily pretty. It doesn’t accomplish any great feats, rather, she more steers her songs with vocal tricks and maneuvers. The production of her widely-hyped “Born to Die” is slick. Her lyrics are terrible.

 ”Now my life is sweet like cinnamon/Like a fucking dream I’m living in,” is the syrupy chorus that anchors ”Radio,” a song she seems to be singing to everyone who saw her Saturday Night Live performance. Newsflash: Cinnamon isn’t sweet, Lana. Neither is the potty mouth.

Lana seems to trade in dualities; she’s touting her success with a metaphor about spices, then following it up with an f-bomb. All this in a synthetic, cuter-than-Hello-Kitty whisper that could rival the nasal-effects of Britney Spears. Yet, her next verse, “I finally found you,” is delivered in the flat, yawning style popularized by Judy Garland. Intriguing, but—which is she?

I can see Lana del Ray being remixed and played at clubs—the beats are solid and her sometimes-breathy, little-girl voice is pure sex—but other times it sounds like she’s going for this tragic, lovelorn, my-man-doesn’t-love-me-but-that’s-okay because-we-are-going-to-do-drugs-and-have-sex, Amy Whinehouse thing. The fact that her lyricism is lazy makes this last attempt seem cheap.

And yet, the songs are still good. They’re annoying—nay—she’s annoying—but they’re catchy at the same time. The melodies are fresh. Her vocal modulations keep it interesting. The instrumentals tend to rush in at just the right moment; the total effect is rich. The number of radio-worthy songs on the record far outlists the duds.

I’m not sure this record will help make Lana del Rey entirely likeable. But, like Britney Spears and others of her ilk, I bet we’ll still respect her music. Unless it’s live.

Edward H. Diesing: 1927 - 2011

My beloved Grandpa Diesing passed away on Dec. 2. I wrote this eulogy for him and was honored to read it at his funeral.

The Grandpa I knew was a reserved, quiet man who was happy to listen and  observe. However, he was never short on offering wisdom when the time was right.

His lessons were as brief as advising me to keep a diary at the age of seven, so I could look back on my life later and remember it, he said. Later, as I grew up, he regularly emphasized the importance of an honorable work ethic.

Grandpa had a very fine-tuned sense of wrong and right, and he took effort to see that we understood their importance. It seemed that he was not nearly as concerned with my and my brother and sister’s superficial successes as much as he cared about who we were becoming as people.

I always was secretly confused as to how my Grandpa, who I rarely saw beyond the walls of his home, had so much confidence in who I was.

My Grandpa seemed to get a certain kind of joy out of his children and grandchildren, and I’m being honest when I say that joy was inspiring and at times infectious. I loved him for the simple ways in which he relished his life: his two helpings of desserts, his reliable comfort in beer and a football game, and his interest in our character development.

From what I’ve been told, my Grandpa was a self-made man who embraced hard work and responsibility. He carved out a life for his family. He adopted my father and loved him. He had a son with my Grandma: my Uncle Nick, whom he loved and lost after 27 years.

I was told that my Grandpa was one a graceful dancer and a pillar of physical strength. He beat multiple strokes and plethora of physical ailments with defiance. For years, he lived his life the way he pleased, when others might have been seriously hindered by these setbacks.

Grandpa also had a way of speaking bluntly and deliberately. He did not mince words. This endeared him to me most. He had an even way of looking at people, as if he held them all to the same standard. And, even though my Grandpa reserved an unforgettable sweetness for me, this generally equal treatment is how I knew he was truly a good man.

Grandpa, you were never lacking in kindness, concern, and a vested interest in my character. I’m thankful for your pride in me and your belief in my potential. I love you and will always miss you.

Some thoughts on food snobbery

“The ways in which these foods are eaten continue to be an enactment of class identity, with the vast majority buying cheap, eating poorly, and  getting fatter, while an etilated minority prate about gastronomy.” – Will Self, ”The Beautification of Our Daily Bread”, Harpers, July 20011

As a young person, I always found it amusing when I would encounter people who were snobbish about what music others chose to listen to. The way I saw it, music was personal and mainly served to entertain. It seemed as ludicrous and rhetorical to judge a person on what he or she chose to soothe or excite themselves to musically as it did to turn one’s nose up on what kind of sandwich he or she preferred for lunch. That was before I realized that people actually did turn their noses up on what kind of sandwiches others ate for lunch.

But I’ve come to understand these selective attitudes more with time. There is a certain reward to discovering that concepts that once seemed merely utilitarian can be art forms. And once you see something as art, it feels crude to treat it differently. You tend to disregard those who are afraid of sushi or listen to bands like Nickelback as people who don’t know what they’re missing.

Some of us feel we must be removed from others who can’t access similar high planes of musical sophistication and gastronomic style. How could we relate, we ask ourselves, to people who actually like Nickelback? Surely there is a primitive difference among us.

It’s been funny to slowly discover — and this recognition has been indeed slow because I was, admittedly, late to the foodie bandwagon — that such snobbery not only exists in the food realm but is perhaps more merciless than snobbery in fashion or music circles. Perhaps this is because it is less well-known and therefore can thrive with less of a chance of being exposed for what it is.

Now before I tear a new one into food elitism let me say that being passionate about one eats is a good thing. The level of detachment our culture displays about what we put in our bodies is certainly a problem and the mass industrialization of our diet has resulted in not only in a human health epidemic and the over-commoditization of animals, but a ripple-effect of economic and social concerns. We should be aware of how powerful our choices about what we buy and support really are, and it’s essential to have educated opinions about what choose to ingest and why.

But, passion for food is not the same as amassing a feeling of genuine superiority about one’s eating habits. Eating “ethically” (a debatable concept in itself) has become, in my circles at least, more about establishing identity than vouching nobly for a cause. We should all try to eat happy meat, if we choose to eat meat, favor sustainably-sourced ingredients over mass produced ones and embrace fruits and veggies as much as possible. That’s a given. But when our student-loan-addled, underemployed, credit card-debt overburdened selves become blithely used to overpriced lunches with ingredients whose descriptions run paragraphs-long; when we feel regularly entitled to treating ourselves to sumptuous brunches and elegant craft beers because we’re simply clinging to a notion of good taste, we are making a bigger statement about our class than our character.

I’m just talking about my generation here. I know there are worse folk out there; the kind who don’t really give a damn about where there food comes from; they just want to look trendy. And there are those who have managed to flip the whole elitism thing on its head and make locally sourced, healthy food a totally social, accessible, won’t-empty-your-pocketbook DIY thing.

But the quagmire my generation finds itself in is one of half-baked concern. We like the idea of being passionate about government and global politics, but we really care more about entertaining ourselves and the fascinating web of self image. We’d rather read blogs than newspapers; rather sit in our apartments and form skeptical opinions of the state of our society and not actually move to do anything to change it; we’d hop on a president-elect bandwagon because it’s cool and buy cheap clothes from chains that promote slave-labor because their products are affordable and make us look that certain shade of unfussy and effortless; we’d muster up an especially picky, stick-up-our-asses long list of demands from a Starbucks barista on a daily basis to make ourselves feel special.

Valuing what we eat, instead of pretending to value what we eat—can be the first step in moving beyond this.

The Lonely Forest: Now and Then

A year and a half ago, I reviewed a band called We Were Promised Jetpacks at a newer music venue here in Chicago called Lincoln Hall. They were good, but I wasn’t excited to go out and review them that night. I had been having some personal problems regarding a boyfriend and his philandering.

What made the night different than other nights I covered bands was that I had arranged to meet the photographer, Mike, before the show for a drink. I often covered shows alone, and was sick of it. We had a few gin and tonics at the hall’s upstairs bar and talked shop.

The first of the three acts that night was forgettable. The second act was not.

There was a cute guitarist, and we made eye contact a few times. I didn’t read too much into it; as a band it’s hard not to see the people who are in the front row, especially those who are writing furtively in notebooks. After their transcendent set, I went to the ladies room while Mike went about introducing himself to the band. He struck up a conversation with Tony, the aforementioned guitarist, after We Were Promised Jetpack’s performance. Apparently, Mike later relayed to me excitedly, Tony the guitarist had “noticed” me. (I honestly think Mike was just trying to help ease my troubled heart that night.)

When I returned from the bathroom, Tony, Mike and I chatted for awhile at the bar. Tony’s band had just been signed to Columbia records a few days prior. He was excited and had a healthy sense of humility about it. We talked about how things would change for them; how lucky they were; what he ate for dinner last night. I left the bar that night wondering if I should have left a phone number and, more importantly, how long it would take before they became insanely famous.

Fast forward to August 2011—-my romantic troubles have been replaced by a happy relationship and The Lonely Forest has likely more than fulfilled Tony’s dreams. I hear them on KEXP every few days, and the other night they played on Jimmy Kimmel live. 

Way to go, Tony.

This weather reminds me of a tempermental child. It sulks for a few frigid months, gets immediately happy, frenzied and overheated, then wets its pants.

Read my review of Wanda Jackson in Chicago!

“When Wanda Jackson arrived onstage Tuesday night at Lincoln Hall roughly 20 minutes after her scheduled performance, the 73-year-old singer handled the situation in a manner uncharacteristic of perhaps any generation but hers: She apologized.”

Continue reading.

Coal, global warming, and handmade stationary!

So it’s been a little while on the DIY project posting front. Let me apologize for that. I have a new computer, and although I’ve been taking on some awesome projects — like making new paper out of my shredded junk mail, and baking chocolate cake in jelly jars — I lack the ability to compress the pictures I’ve taken of them. You’ll get to see the images in good time, but for now, a written blog will have to suffice.

I read a pretty swell article on carbon-capture in coal plants from the December issue of The Atlantic this evening. I’d recommend reading the piece — not for the author’s tendency to suffuse his points with rambly paragraphs seemingly only intended to fulfill a sleep-inducing word count — but its gist, which he could have more-or-less said in about a page. Allow me to try:

Coal, as a means of producing energy, isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Even though its carbon outputs are insane, we depend on it too much to even entertain the idea of lessening our use of it. (Our usage grows even as we innovate greener energy sources, and the breakneck industrialization of countries like China aren’t going to minimize that consumption much.) 

To combat coal’s enormous carbon emissions, some plants are implementing carbon sequestration techniques, where they infuse up to 90 percent of the gas into deep within the Earth’s surface so it won’t reach the atmosphere. And China — a burgeoning country with more coal plants to build than to retrofit and a determination that the United States can’t seem to match — has the will and resources to experiment with this method more effectively than the one fledgling Texas plant that has mustered up the same plans within our borders. China is leading the helm of this technology’s implementation, which is good for the globe. But why can’t the States step it up a notch?

In a particularly rambly segment, author James Fallows mentions just how much carbon dioxide humans pump into the air each year: 37 billion tons (and rising). Sheesh. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of erratic, unexplainable weather and this sense of impending geological doom. If we’re not going to take some serious legislative action against or carbon emissions, it looks like more of us are JUST going to have to start making stationary out of our junk mail.

I won’t put the Atlantic article in the shredder pile.

Statement of Purpose

It’s around the one-year anniversary of this blog, so I want to clarify what this blog is to some of the newer readers I’ve gotten.

A.) This is not your momma’s foodie blog.

I am not a sophisticated cook. I am not a patient cook. I am not a well-funded cook. This is a collection of quick ways to make dishes if you’re creative, broke and/or curious.

B.) I’m not going to waste your time with recipes.

If you want to learn how I did something, leave a comment or, even better, take your best guess! The ad-hoc spirit that keeps me experimenting over my stove is the life force behind this operation. If you copy someone else’s idea verbatim, it’s not really yours.

C.) I want — but will fail — to be DIY all over!

I reblog stuff lots. It’s fun. Until I start collecting checks from Google ads, I cannot take my Tumblr contraption too seriously.