Archive for February, 2010
2
I’ve made pork tenderloin before many times, but it was always hard to tell when it got done, and whether it would be juicy or a log of shoe leather by the end. I also could never seem to get a nice crust on the outside. So finally I decided to get down to learning how to do it right. The recipe I used tonight came from Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home, which is a sizable compendium of classic French recipes generously annotated by both Julia Child and Jacques Pepin. The recipe is simply called Sautéed Pork Filet or Tenderloin. It was pretty standard, following your classic “sear, bake, and make sauce” procedure. However this time around I made sure to follow the recipe to the letter. And when I deviated, I noted what went differently, why, and how I fixed it. As a result I think tonight’s pork tenderloin was the best I’ve ever made.
I learned a bunch of things in the process, so I shall write them down here in case you too might find them useful. What follows is my version of the recipe, adopted from and even more thoroughly annotated than J&J’s version (if such a thing were possible).
I first learned of Krzysztof Wodiczko and his work when he came to speak at the MFA. A friend and I escaped the Museum School during our lunch break to hear him talk. At the time (I think it was the middle of junior year), I was having serious doubts (again) about art’s ability to make an impact on people at all and whether I would be able to do anything meaningful or relevant to society as an artist. Seeing Wodiczko’s work helped mitigate these doubts a great deal, if not put a decisive end to them.
Polish-born artist Krzysztof Wodiczko is best known for his large-scale video projections of everyday people onto monuments and other public edifices. These projections often portray these ordinary volunteers candidly telling stories of their lives and experiences, usually centered around painful ordeal or personal suffering. His work has been installed and shown in public spaces in over a dozen countries, ranging from the town squares of authoritarian governments to right here on our National Mall in D.C. Wodiczko also designs technological devices or machines worn on the body that help construct situations in which people can share their personal stories with others.
Nearly all of Wodiczko’s work follows a socio-political theme. For instance, in his monumental projections work, he chooses to film people whose lives have intersected with war, conflict, homelessness, social inequity, gang violence. In all these works, the melding of private and public spheres is immediately obvious.
But it sure is addictive. I was skeptical at first, but within moments ended up embroiled in this:
And that is just a single Buzz. So… yeah.
I’m surprised at how quickly everyone seemed to jump on the Buzz bandwagon. Normally, at least amongst the folks I know, there’s a period of skepticism that follows the announcement of a new technology or service. Then the few technology junkies will bravely step forward to try it out, and if it’s good, they’ll hook everybody else in. This did not happen with Buzz. Everyone jumped on Buzz at the same time. All day I was pummeled with posts from people far and wide, not all tech junkies either. Most were friends that I haven’t spoken to in a long long time. Suddenly we were chatting like we just saw each other yesterday. It was fantastic. Facebook has never even come close to bringing me in touch with so many friends in such a short time.
So that’s the good side of Buzz. The bad side is… well, all day it was like this constant, incessant, um, buzz in the background, sabotaging my every attempt to be productive. I filtered out Buzz announcements in my Inbox. I turned off new Buzz notifications. It was no use. I felt drawn to it like a… bee to honey. That was awful. Oh yeah, and the pun-tastic simile was pretty bad too.
I saw Avatar, and thought it was GREAT.
Granted, it was totally predictable about 10 minutes in. And yes, none of the characters were believable or showed any true development; all were just flat caricatures of good and evil. Okay, I’ll even admit that was some pretty heavy-handed moral posturing that I was just smacked upside the head with, even though I’m one of them despicable “tree-hugger” types. =P
But are these actually faults? Or were they entirely on purpose?
All in all, I think Avatar is really just a 2.5-hour-long allegory disguised as a movie. And if this is indeed the case, then all of those “faults” suddenly seem to make sense.
Total Recall: How the E-Memory Revolution Will Change Everything by Gordon Bell
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This work is part personal journal, part manifesto, and part self-help book. Essentially, Gordon Bell tries to make a good case for the “inevitable revolution” towards “Total Recall” (caps, mind you) that will “force” us to “adapt” to it. His diction gives you a good sense of what’s to come, sigh.
If you can stomach his single-mindedly evangelical agenda, you’ll find that this book pursues some interesting ideas about the implications of recording as many details of one’s life as possible. And not just in writing, but in photos, sound, video, drawings, scanned documents, GPS locations, chat logs, pedometer readings, etc. etc.
