Lit Bits-6/25/2014

Ally says:

Every Life Has A Soundtrack

When I think back on what made me pick that comic up that day in Midtown Comics, I can’t remember if it was the cover or the title.

Maybe a little of both.

I suppose it doesn’t really matter. Because inside I found a story that rang true from the first few notes….which happened to be from Debaser by Pixies….

“Gonna grow….up to be…be a Debaser.”

MixTape by Brad Abraham contains a cast of characters that reminded me of the kind of person I was in high school – the kind of people my friends were: Unsure. Sarcastic. And constantly using music as a means of communication. This was back at a time when my ability to say 'I like you,' 'I’m sorry,' 'I’m wrong,' and especially 'I love you' – were all better said in the words of someone else, set to a tune you’d never forget.

The first arc of MixTape deals with our main core characters:

Jim Abbott, 17 – Soundtrack: Pixies, Joy Division, REM

Terry Allison, 17 – Soundtrack: Bands you’ll hear about in about a year from now

Lorelei Cross, 17 - Soundtrack: The Smiths, The Cure, the Clash, Kate Bush, Madonna (only in secret)

Noel Dunlop, 17 – Soundtrack : Beastie Boys, INXS, Depeche Mode, New Order

Siobhan King, 17 – Soundtrack: Who cares? She’s back from Europe!

One of the great things about MixTape is that each issue centers on a different character in this core group. One of my favorites was issue 4, which centers around Siobhan, Jim’s love interest. Without giving too much away Siobhan’s story more than any other, details the power of music, the way it gives us a language like a tow rope to scale and navigate the dangerous landscape of high school, love and heartbreak. Siobhan’s sister, who is leaving for Seattle, gives her a single parting gift. A record (I won't tell you which one - read it yourself) and a note: “Every life has a soundtrack, babe. I found yours.”

Look, I've got an older sister. All my music came from her. I understand the power of a bequeathed album especially as a parting gift. I won't lie. I got all teary-eyed.

It is with one part humor, one part heartbreak and one part nostalgia that Brad Abraham weaves this coming of age story. Marco Gervasio and Jok create beautiful stark black and white panels, complete with all the visual “feels” that Abraham crafted for his characters.

I started reading comics late. I wasn’t hooked as a kid by The Capes so I’ve always gravitated to the more independent stream. Comics about regular people managing their life. MixTape is exactly that.

At the end of the series, the ultimate question is asked:

What song do you want them to play at your funeral?

Me? I haven’t decided yet. Today, I’m going with Wave of Mutilation.

“You think I’m dead, but I sailed away. On a wave of mutilation, wave of mutilation.”

Do yourself a favor and check out Brad’s work. 

And follow him. You won’t be disappointed. 

PS....On a side note: Ipods sort of suck don't they? I mean, playlists just aren't the same, are they? I used to spend hours making mix tapes for my friends - passing it to them in the halls in class. And then later on when we got together, all we did was talk about music. Look, I know people wax poetic about the 90's all the time but it was a bit of a high water mark wasn't it? It was a different time. I think that's what Brad does best. He brings you right back there, back when music was everything. 


Aleathia says:

Did you ever have a story that stayed with you for the whole of your life?  A story that crossed your path at just the right time in your personal growth that it affected you deeply?  Yeah, I thought so.  

The fall I turned 14 I started high school.  My teacher Mr. Grinnell assigned this book for a report.  At that point I had never heard of Shirley Jackson.  At first glance one would think this would be a story of winning, of good luck.  When I finished this story I was horrified.  Did things like this really happen?

I grew up in a series of small towns where people helped each other like good neighbors should and everyone knew everyone else's business.  I had never been exposed to the idea of stoning.  It haunted me as a young teenager and I later went to the library (we didn't have the luxury of the internet) and looked up stoning and read about the cultures that implored this method of dealing with things.  That was 27 years ago and this book still haunts me.  

I am not sure they assign this book in school anymore with the world being so politically correct, but kids should read this book to understand the true definition of hard times and hard decisions, to understand the sense of horrid duty.  Shirley Jackson was an amazing writer.  I think she gets overlooked a lot.  Give the old girl a try.

Let's Go Somewhere-6/24/2014 Boston Harbor

Aleathia says:

It's been quite a few years since I went to Boston Harbor, but it was still a very memorable trip.  I took my daughter to the New England Aquarium which is right on the wharf.  This aquarium is one of the best I have ever been to and they recently added a Harbor Walk and a new fur seal enclosure that is outside.

The penguin exhibit was one of our favorites.  We could seem them from the first level and we could also walk up the circular walkway and see them from above as we moved on to another level in the aquarium. They were insanely playful and put on a great show. 

We this beautiful Manta Ray along with many other species of fish.  The way the tanks are set up it is easy to see any number of species swimming by.  We could have stayed there for hours waiting to see what came around the corner next.

It was especially interesting for us both to see this Nurse Shark up so close and personal.

Chloe's favorite part was waiting for Myrtle the Turtle.  She is a beautiful sea turtle and they have a special waiting spot a the top of the aquarium where people can come and watch her being fed.  There is a keeper there that helps tell the history of sea turtles.  It is a crowd pleaser.

Along with the usual sights at the aquarium, children can play in tide pools which allow them some hands on action with sea life.  It is definitely a great adventure and worth the trip.

After we finished with the aquarium we walked over to Simon's IMAX Theatre for a 3D showing of under sea life.

Let's just say it was a hit.

A short walk away through several parks and fountains you can get to Faneuil Hall Marketplace which is also home to the famous Quincy Marketplace.  This place is teaming with people....tourists, locals, street performers, musicians, acrobats, and vendors.  There are shops inside and out.  There is food for any type of appetite.

They also have historical tours of Boston that pick up in this area of the wharf and will drop you off at places that forged our country.  When you are done investigating you can wait for the next trolley and move on to a new location.  We sadly didn't have enough energy to get through that portion, but I would surely go back and see it again.  Have fun!

Music Monday-6/23/2014 Bi-Polar Mixed Tape

Aleathia says:

It is birthday week folks....yeah, the whole week!  What could be more fun than a mixed tape to mark this day?  I am going to share the Bi-Polar Mix which is good for those times when things move to the crazy side.

Bi-Polar Mix

1. Amos Lee-Ease Back

2. Wilco-How to Fight Loneliness

3. Tori Amos-Happy Phantoms

4. The Felice Brothers-Katie Dear

5. Sim Redmond Band-Pieces

6. Ray Charles/Norah Jones-Here We Go Again

7. Meryn Cadell-The Wait

8. Ween-Push Th' Little Daisies

9. Tokyo Police Club-Shoulders & Arms

10. We Are Scientists-It's A Hit

11.The Vines-Get Free

12. She Wants Revenge-I Don't Want to Fall In Love

13. Jon Spencer Blues Explosion-Bellbottoms

OM-6/22/2014 Suffering and Happiness

Aleathia says:

"Suffering and Happiness" by the Dalai Lama

"We are each the center of our own universe.  We establish east, west, north, and south, as well as up and down, all in relation to our own location.  The self can be seen as the fundamental framework by which we understand and relate to the whole of existence.

Suffering, which we can think of as our own individual samsara, and happiness, which is our freedom from that suffering, stem ultimately from our notion of self.  My suffering results from my indulgence in self-centered behavior.  And that behavior propels me to act in ways that cause me more suffering.  I seem to go round and round within the cycle of rebirths which constitute my samsara.  My pursuit of happiness arises from my wish to be free from suffering."

Quills and Frills-6/21/2014 Writing Prompt

Ally says:

The River Fell in Love

Maybe it was the boots. Or the clothes, or the current.

It probably didn’t matter. The first time the water closed over his head, he almost laughed, a smile underwater, the green swish swash of the river slipping between his teeth and patting his tongue, but then he came back up, spitting an arc of green water into the sky. It hit the setting sun at the peak and then broke apart splattering like rain back into the low waves. Each drop chasing after its sister, pit, pit, pit.

The fluidity of water always amazed him. The way it came apart and back together, the way it finds itself, recognized its other, like mercury does.

All the water in the world leaked out of a cracked meteorite when the earth was a firestorm – a raging baby ball of a planet. It was cooled by this liquid life, flowing out like the yolk of an egg cracked over the pan. Water, water everywhere.

He titled back, trying to float. A body at rest. His feet, boot-clad, dipped down and back and down and back, a boat – his whole body a vessel adrift. Inside he was mostly water and he could feel that water pushing against his skin, calling out to its other. The river and his water-blood reached out, touching fingertips, tearful like teenage lovers being wrenched apart.

His head went under again. The river smiled. The river played him a song – not one of lovers or heroes, which is usually the only kind of song the river likes to play but instead under a fat yellow moon the river played him a song about a boy, afloat; a boy, under a blackness punched through with starlight. A boy just like you, the river sang.

His feet go down first, weighed down in his river-soaked socks and boots. It pulls at him teasingly, like a lover begging him not to leave the bed at the sound of the telephone in the kitchen. Stay, she says. Wait, she says, giggling and he laughs too, stalks of river grass pulled from the bank tickle his cheek.

Stay, she coos, pulling at the sheets that have tangled his naked waist, tripping him up, running a long sharp finger down his spine. Not enough to hurt but enough to leave just a white scrape through the finest layer of his skin. A mark.

A claiming.

The sky shimmers now, light shifting, reflected again and again, in each individual drop. His shirt floats up over his head and he tries to shed it but it proves too stubborn. His legs twist with the current and again the river smiles, lifting her boy in a dance. A tumbling dance. Over and under and over and under and dip and lean and bend and sway. He is a good dancer and learns the steps quickly and the river is pleased and pretends she is as vast as her mother, the ocean, and she does the same pirouette – the same cartwheel, head, legs, head, legs that she has seen her mother do. Twirl, my beautiful boy, twirl.

The boy jerks, spasms, once, then again. The river reaches inside, kisses him, on the lips, into the mouth, down the throat, the river kisses deep again and again. The boy closes his eyes and when he opens them but the moon is gone, the water dark on all sides, the planet indescribably old.

He feels the river hug him, hard, pressing against his sides. He tries to turn away from her kisses, but she twirls him again, and tells him she is in love. She pulls off one shoe and he bobs for a second, close to the surface. He can see the moon again, briefly, before the moon becomes just another spot that floats before his eyes, just another drop of water separated and then rejoined in a message whispered between this world and the Nothingness. High above, the moon looks down at him and smiles. The moon is always happy when his daughters find new love. Everyone deserves to be loved, the moon, thinks, tilting his eyes from the fading boy and returning his gaze to all that never ending blackness. 


Aleathia says:

In 1993 my friends took me to a hot spring for my birthday that required a river crossing.  I nearly drown.  It was an eye opening experience that spawned a novella which will someday turn into a novel.  But today, you get a poem.



Vestige

I am a flesh accordion
being put away for the night
as cold water seeps over and under
my feet simultaneously.  It is mercury.
I rise up, levitate, as if a cheap trick
at the magician’s fingers.

I am a river bottom vestige
when my body quietly slips
beneath a watery sky,
from ink to ink, writing an epitaph
on the rocks with my knees
about a life not yet lived.

Aleathia Drehmer

Art Bomb-6/20/2014 Cy Twombly

Aleathia says:

Cy Twombly died in July 2011 shortly after I was able to see his sculpture collection at the Chicago Museum of Art.  He died before I even made it home.  I heard about it on the road and was stricken with sadness at his passing.

Cy was an American painter and sculptor who studied in Boston.  In his lifetime, he served several times in the Army where he was a cryptologist.  This talent would later find its way to his work and be very influential.

In the mid 90's I took an art class at North Seattle Community College just for fun.  I also took Botany and Creative Writing.  I was making attempts to create my own identity.  My professor in art was a young woman and her favorite artist was Ellsworth Kelly whose work was bright and blocky and vibrant.  The highlight of the class was a private tour she arrange for our class at the Seattle Art Museum....only it wasn't in the main gallery halls, but in the back room.  We had a private showing of pieces not on display.  One of these works was an 8 foot painting by Twombly.

The other students made fun of it and said it looked as if a kindergartner created it right before nap time.  I could see the teacher was hurt by this, but she said nothing.  I stood and examined this piece for a long time. It was mostly different shades of white with red markings, but it had texture and dimension.  The innocent scribbles meant something.  They were cryptograms, hidden messages.  He was trying to tell us something about ourselves and we weren't listening.

I never forgot that moment or what my professor shared with us.  She had passion and tried desperately to make a mark on us.  I'm not sure how many of the students cared about that private showing, but it made me feel special.  It started a love of Twombly.

Twombly had a wonderful, playful, colorful period when he did Peonies and other flowers.  His work is always recognizable and distinct.  His work is part of the permanent collections at the New York Museum of Modern Art as well as the Louvre in Paris.  If you get a chance to see his work up close and personal you should do it.  It has much more meaning when you can experience the texture and time it takes to create simplicity.

Foodies-6/19/2014 Mac n' Cheese, Shepherd's Pie

Ally says:

When my mother's little brother, Tom was a young lad, he left the harrowed streets of New York City and chased a job down in Texas. There, he met his first wife. The marriage didn't last but ironically enough his first wife gave my family something more powerful than vows about death do you part.

She gave us southern-style Macaroni and Cheese.

Now this was no easy feat. My mother constantly harangued her sister in law trying to find out exactly how the recipe worked. What was in that baked golden cheesy goodness? What is this mysterious sauce? Like most people my mother believe macaroni and cheese was covered in breadcrumbs, right? That's how we do it above the Mason Dixon line and it's certainly never been a problem. But what my aunt made was something entirely different. Something creamy and crunchy at the same time - with an crust unlike anything my family had known. After weeks of harassment she finally relented.

So here you go: My Ex-Aunt's Famous Southern-Style Macaroni and Cheese

1 package of elbow noodles
2 - 2 1/2 bricks of extra sharp cheddar (nothing BUT extra sharp), grated
milk
butter
flour (we'll get into quantities later. This isn't science. It's an art)

Preheat oven to 350. Cook the noodles until they are al dente. Strain and set aside. Grate the cheese. On average we use about 2 - 2 1/2 bricks but it's not a bad thing to have a little on the plate to pick at while you're cooking. What? It's cheese for pete's sake!

EDIT: My husband just reminded me to remind you guys to spray the bottom of the pan with a non-stick spray. Guess what I always forget to to do?

Layer the noodles and cheese in a 2 1/2 quart corning ware dish. First noodles, then sprinkle on the cheese, then noodles, the cheese. You get it, right? End with cheese.

It should look like this:

Now here's the tricky part. Making the sauce.

So there's no real quantity here. Basically pour some milk into a sauce pan (you don't need a ton, you're only going to pour it over what you got here. I would say maybe a cup and a spit) add some butter (like a spoonful or two) and heat it over a low flame (enough to melt the butter). Then add flour (2 tablespoons or so) until it's a thick white sauce. You need to keep stirring the thing the whole time. Too much flour and it will go chunky. You can undo that by adding more milk. You don't want it too runny or too thick. Like Goldilocks says, make it "just right." Toss in some salt and pepper.

(When my husband makes this - he adds Parmesan cheese - just in case the TWO BRICKS of extra sharp aren't enough. That said, it's delicious. When my mother makes it she puts the butter in first. I start with the milk. *shrug* As long as you get something like what's pictured below you're fine.)

Dribble the sauce over the dish. Use a knife to puncture the layers so that it drips down a bit. You just sort of stick the knife in and wiggle it about a bit so that the stuff seeps down. (Can you tell I've never written a recipe before?)

Your end result will look something like this:

Toss it in the oven. I usually let it cook for about 45 minutes to 1 hour. I peek around 45 minutes to see if it's getting nice and brown. It really depends on how crunchy and burnt you want the top to be. On average, when I pull it out, it looks something like this:

So there you go. There's the recipe that my mother had to beg and plead to get my ex-Aunt to share. And I just put it on the Internet.

Ain't family grand?

Happy eating, kids.


Aleathia says:

In keeping with Ally's family recipe gig, I'm going to share one that my mother passed down to me.  It is pretty simple and I don't really have an exact recipe to follow.  My mother didn't really pass it down either.  I just watched patiently every time she made it until it was committed to memory.  It is a dish called Shepherd's Pie.  In history is was known as a Cottage Pie and stems from British history.  It is basic, a meat pie (usually lamb), crusted with mashed potatoes. It is a hearty dish.  It feels like home.

My mother passed away in January and family decided they wanted to meet at my grandmother's.  She was not up to making food so I told her I would make a Shepherd's Pie.  It is simple and can feed many.  She told me that she had never had this dish and that my mother had promised her over the years she would make it for her.  My mother never got that chance, so in her honor at her wake dinner, I made this glorious dish of my childhood.  It struck me funny really as I had always thought the dish was passed down from my grandmother to my mother.  In the end, it is our dish--something of a tradition we created in our own family that I keep current in mine.

Shepherd's Pie

Ground Beef (how much depends on the casserole dish you are using and how many you are feeding.  A pound will feed about 4)

2 cans of yellow corn, drained

Mashed Potatoes (again, how many potatoes you need depends on the casserole dish.  I always have leftovers, they always get eaten)

Salt
Pepper
Butter


Preheat oven 350 degrees.

In a skillet, brown the ground beef until fully cooked.  Season with salt and pepper.  Drain the grease from the beef.  Line the beef in the bottom of the casserole dish.

While the meat is cooking, start the potatoes for the mash. Make your mashed potatoes as you would for any function.  This is what makes each Shepherd's Pie unique.

Layer the 2 cans of drained corn over the beef evenly.  Spread the prepared mashed potatoes over the corn.Spread a little semi-melted butter over the potatoes before placing in the oven.  Place the pie in the oven for about 20-30 minutes.  You are basically re-heating the dish.  Serve and watch your guests hanker for more.