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November 30, 2005
The Perils of the English Language
I like my international Basic Writers:
"We need to be aware, and then we can have a good experiment with a lot of boys!"
Fatal flaw: "experiment" and "experience" look awfully similar
"I find this work to be pertinent to what I saw as a child in Haiti."
Me: Wow, "pertinent." Good word.
Student: It is from French. I use it every time I can because I am sure of what it means.
"We all sat around the fire, singing, talking, and having good intercourse."
Fatal flaw: if you look up the Russian word for "fellowship" in the dictionary, the given English equivalent is "intercourse"
But what I like even more is that they laugh at these mistakes themselves...and then keep trying.
Posted by elissa at 03:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 29, 2005
The Fine Art of Nerd-Gifting
Shopping for a nerd is not easy.
The difficulties are multi-tiered. It is likely that your nerd already owns most of the technological delights he wants. Okay, so there are still a few gadgets that he casts longing eyes towards but, come on. You need to pay rent. Besides, even if you did have the budget, the shopping process itself is rife with peril. Perhaps you have witnessed from afar the soul-searching distillation of desired specifications, the fanatic perusal of user reviews, the studied inspection of rumors proclaiming the imminent arrival of The Latest Edition, and, finally, the purchase. Such finely-tuned thoroughness requires not only immense dedication to the gizmo -- which you, as a non-nerd likely lack -- but also demands fluency in a strange breed of acronymns, strings of letters that make no more sense written out than they do in abbreviation. Yes, that level of nerd-shopping is best left to the nerds themselves.
Yet, hope remains. As the daughter of one nerd and the wife of another, I've developed a kind of subversive nerd-gifting. Instead of hoping to miraculously hit upon that Very Cool Tech Gizmo in a half-blind grab, I tend to buy gifts that fall into one of 5 categories:
- Gifts to Surround Gizmos
- Gifts that Capitalize on the Power of "the Series"
- Gifts of Nerd-Affirming Apparel
- Gifts that Assist in Living Among the Technologically Sluggish
- Gifts that Make Me Laugh, Too
The last category, obviously, is my favorite. Currently, my test for nerd-appropriateness and self-gratification is simple: look for "USB" in the product title. The actual meaning, function, or explanation of the inner workings of said "USB" is unimportant. But as far as I can tell, if you can unexpectedly stick it into the USB port, then the thing at the other end stands a fair chance of being cool. Utilitarian gizmos -- fans, lights, coffee-warmers, and humidifiers -- practically quadruple in interestingness simply by virtue of running off of your USB port. And then there's that fascinating genre of USB trinkets whose desirability is based almost solely on their unlikely power source. Piggy FM Radio? Froggy massager? Christmas tree? Dancing Santa? Aquarium? You can't make these things up.
Now, which one do you think Noel would most appreciate?
Posted by elissa at 09:43 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 22, 2005
Fancy-Pants Beer
When we go out a fine watering hole with a flush selection of beers, I prefer to hoist all choice-making responsibility onto Noel's capable, curly-headed-capped shoulders. On a recent excursion to Hoppy's, he returned to the table with a dark, long-necked bottle, seemingly too small to be wine, but too stylish to be beer.
"What is that?" everyone asked, peering at the cream-colored label. Art noveau swirls looped cheerfully around...were those raspberries? It was a Lindeman's Framboise Lambic. Yes, it was a beer, and, yes, it did contain raspberries.
You may be wondering what a raspberry beer tastes like. And I will tell you, gentle reader, that it tastes like raspberries. Really, as Rebekah and I decided, it tastes like our girlhood conception of raspberry cordial, tangy, rich, and not at all bitter or snapping with alcohol.
The unexpected flavor only intensified my curiousity over what information the curlie-cued label was attempting to impart in its strange, foreign tongue. Lindeman's, it seems, is a family brewery located south of Brussels. Oh, and all their products are vegan. "Lambic" is a particular kind of beer, brewed in Belgium from 70% barley malt and 30% unmalted wheat and spontaneously fermented in the open air. You can't make these things up. Not all lambics are fruit-infused, but fruit lambics are among the more popular Belgian beers, with flavors ranging from the relatively tame raspberry, cherry, and currant, to the surprising banana, pineapple, apricot, plum, and lemon. Whew.
All that to say that this fancy-pants beer was a strange bedfellow for the dim, smokey room, retro booth, french fries, and chicken fingers. But hey, perhaps this is what drinking postmodernly is all about.
Posted by elissa at 11:51 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 18, 2005
Childhood Throwback: Kaguyahime
As I drove up the mountain this morning, the full moon still hung in the sky, white and perfectly round. It reminded me of a favorite childhood story, Kaguyahime, a Japanese folktale.
(As I finished writing this I think I realized for the first time just how sad this story is. As a little girl, I think I just got caught up in the unutterable coolness of being a moon princess.)
Continue reading "Childhood Throwback: Kaguyahime"
Posted by elissa at 06:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 16, 2005
The Happy Shiny Things in My Life are Either Food, Colors, or Books
- Bouncing bits of color. (Thanks, Kodachrome Nights.)
- This book is on it's way to me. Huzzah!
- I'm going to be drinking flowers soon.
- This is brilliant. And, yes, it's Nickel Creek covering Britney Spears.
- I got to devour a bag of these.
- And Noel bought me two pints of this. Ah.
Posted by elissa at 03:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
In Which Elissa Attempts to Take a Sick Day and Succeeds Only Partially
My husband says that I don't know how to actually take a sick day. He's probably right.
Monday morning, I woke up with a blazingly sore throat and a head seemingly stuffed with soggy kleenex. I moaned and complained but steadfastly refused all of Noel's suggestions that I stay home from work. "I can't today," I told him. "I'd mess up too many schedules and I'd feel worse. I'll take a sick day tomorrow."
This made very little sense to his curl-adored, western head, but to my Japanese-infused and thus community-oriented psyche, it was the the most logical route. Mondays are one of my longest work days, and by not going I would stand up a slew of students who I knew had deadlines. I would miss German class. And I would be doing this all without giving anyone warning. The entire half of my Japanese self smothered my American mind which, at the time, was trying to argue that sick days are to be taken on the day you get sick, not the day following.
Clearly, though, the most reasonable thing would be to slog through the day, get everything in order for Tuesday, and then crash and recuperate. I talked through six hours of conferences, e-mailed homework assignments to my Tuesday students, alerted Dr. Wildeman that I would be dead to the world the following day, readjusted the schedule, and left a sign. Banking on the hope of my impending sick day, I even briefly attending a birthday party (shout-out to Rebekah) at Hoppy's, a perfect example of zen-like mastery of mind over matter.
(I will admit, though, that a beer assisted the situation.)
And then, with all things in order and all people accounted for and notified, I took my sick day.
Thanks, I do feel better now.
Posted by elissa at 02:39 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
November 14, 2005
Drink Me
When you really get down to it, there are but a few things in life that are equally swell as, say, having a beer named after you. Well, let's qualify that. If you, like me, are one of those souls who completely missed out on the personalizing-extravaganza of late eighties because your name was too unusual to be carved into bubble letters, woven into bracelets, or stamped on diaries... then having a beer bear your moniker is an inestimable thrill.
The first time that I saw "Elissa IPA" on the Saint Arnold Brewing Company's website I spontaneously performed an elaborate jig on my bedroom floor. There was my name -- beginning with an "e" and sandwiching a double "s" -- stamped on some liquid product for all the world (or at least Texas) to see and purchase. Even better, the mind behind this brilliant branding device was the Saint Arnold Brewing Company, a Houston-based microbrewery that concocts some of my favorite ales. Really, the situation could only be improved if I could actually drink some of myself. But, sadly, Saint Arnold's is only sold in Texas and I, at the time of my serendipitous discovery, was in Hawaii.
Noel, however, was in Texas, and he did not disappoint. When he proposed a few weeks later, we toasted not over champagne, but over Elissa IPA.
Now, I will make one minor allowances. As you might have guessed by now, the brew is not actually named after me personally. IPAs were brewed with a high alcohol content in order to keep the beer fresh on its long journey from England to India. "Tall ships" were used to carry the cargo. Thus, the Elissa IPA is named after the tall ship "Elissa" (which, of course was named after me...or Dido.)
Still, I think I have ample reason to ask for one of these when we go back to Houston for Thanksgiving. After all, I've waited twenty-three years to get something with my name on it. And this is way cooler than some woven bracelet.
Posted by elissa at 06:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 10, 2005
The Deconstruction of the Figure-Ground Relationship, or Witty Photographs
Traditional western art -- with its interest in creating three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional plane -- dictates a specific relationship between the figure (the main object of the painting) and the ground (everything else). The figure sits on the ground, in the ground, distinct from the ground. The average snapshot also echoes this relationship, with the figure being separated from the background by perspective, lighting, color, or sharpness. Look through your photo album for pictures of your last vacation. You are standing on the beach, in front of the Capitol, in a boat. You are a figure in space.
The Japanese were never as fascinated by this idea of inserting figures into space. Japanese ukiyo-e prints treat the paper as flat. There is little concern for illusionism, resulting in artworks that function as designs rather than mirrors of reality. There is no sense of progressing into space. Instead, a clump of peonies floats on a gold background. The crisp outlines of a tree, a river, and a bird give no hint of atmosphere or spatial relationship. The white of snow on tree branches dissolves seamlessly into the white of a blank background.
All that to say: while Noel was finishing his interviews at Carnegie-Mellon on Tuesday, I wandered between campuses, snapping pictures in the flat, gray, Pittsburgh light. While tremendously unexciting, this lighting also functioned as the great deconstructor of plane and space by removing one of the key ways that our minds perceive depth. Statues -- three-dimensional forms -- became decorative silhouettes that could be layered on decorative backgrounds as if making a collage of magazine cut-outs. And I discovered something: while depth-less photography is rarely praised, it does allow you to play with reality and scale in a weird, witty, almost surreal way.
The gist of all this formal theory is simple: look at the pictures and see for yourself. Sometimes, flat is just funnier.
Posted by elissa at 02:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 09, 2005
Apologies to and for Pittsburgh
We've returned from Pittsburgh -- and visiting Carnegie-Mellon and Pitt as prospective students -- impressed. The city was far smaller and cleaner than we had glumly predicted and overflowed with weird reminders of the industry-driven affluence of earlier times. The names "Carnegie," "Mellon," "Frick," and "Heinz" are plastered on innumerable buildings, and the architecture and collections that bear their monikers reflect a younger America still trying to figure out the ways and means of establishing a legacy. The result is the intricate gothic architecture of the Heinz Memorial Chapel and Pitt's Cathedral of Learning (yes, we know it's quaintly modernist), the rolling greenways spliced between cream-colored brick buildings, countless statues memorializing historical figures who have no real connection to Pittsburgh, and two odd art collections that are unabashed copies of European masterworks. Other pluses include housing prices comparable to St. Elmo, wide, walkable sidewalks, and Yuenglings on draft for $1 all day, every day at many a fine establishment.
Pittsburgh, I'm sorry I doubted you. If you'll have us, we just might be excited about returning.
Posted by elissa at 10:39 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
November 02, 2005
Sin Strongly
If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter (2. Peter 3:13) are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign. It suffices that through God's glory we have recognized the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day. Do you think such an exalted Lamb paid merely a small price with a meager sacrifice for our sins? Pray hard for you are quite a sinner.
Reading Luther always reminds me of how lightly I often take my sin. He pins me, ashamed, when he connects my flippancy with a correspondingly low view of mercy. How odd -- but how needful -- to pray for the grace to "sin strongly." It is not a call to sin more egregiously, but to believe all my sins to be egregious rather than trifling; apart from His illuminating mercy I would not even recognize the strength of my own nature.
Posted by elissa at 03:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack