Category Archives: musings

random thoughts and contemplations

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Last week the Supreme Court of the US ruled that video games are protected by the First Amendment. They basically came to this conclusion because they compared video games to other forms of storytelling – such as oral traditions, (comic) books, film, and TV – and found that what is depicted in games is not that different from what we see, read, or hear in the other media (read the entire ruling here). They also pointed out that humanity has a long tradition of telling itself stories of violence, citing some fairytales as evidence.
A few days later there was this opinion piece in the New York Times by a medical student, describing how fairytales helped her come to terms with some of the strange cases and encounters she had to deal with in hospitals. From one of the Grimms’ versions of Cinderella (in which the two step-sisters have their eyes picked out by doves during Cinderella’s wedding) to Bluebeard’s chamber full of dead wives, fairytales describe weird and disturbing goings-on and try to analyze them without the help of Freud and other more modern theories. They are one of the basic mirrors our species holds up to itself in an attempt to understand and warn.
Today I found this excellent summary and analysis of the various Bluebeard versions by Terri Windling. It also describes how over time the depiction of the characters and the moral of the story changed. How a story of pluck and courage turned into a story about obedience. Go read it. And then you’ll understand why my first reaction to Charles Perrault’s morals of the story was “this sounds like he wrote something he heard about and didn’t quite understand what was going on and so tried to tack something on to the end.” A similar sentiment to the one Susan Sto-Helit has when she reads the fairytale of the clock-maker in Terry Pratchett’s Thief of Time.
I would also like to point you in the direction of Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes, simply because as a child I delighted in this irreverent re-telling of some of the best-known fairytales.

Go read all of that. And then go to the Gutenberg Project and read some fairytales. After all, they are some of the oldest stories we’ve been telling ourselves over and over again (Warning: some are pretty gruesome). And you might even want to try out a video game, the new narrative medium of choice for some.

Splendid Sunday

Today I’ve got two things to show you.

1) A few weeks back I planted some black beans (I let them sprout first) and they came up nicely.

Of the three plants that I have, one is already done with flowering and is now letting its pods dry, so I picked four pods off and shelled the beans. This yielded 16 beans! Hooray!

All my gardening happens inside the flat and there are no pollinating insects in said flat thanks to the bug screens we put in the windows. So, I chose beans because they are self-pollinating and required no tending besides a little watering and removal of old leaves.
I know that I won’t harvest enough beans for more than one meal (if that) but I like the idea of harvesting at least something.

2) After dinner I made churros. I got the recipe from the 50th issue of Donna Hay, so it’s not necessarily like any traditional recipes. But they were delicious anyway.

 

This is my version of the recipe (I winged it a little):

  • melt 50g of butter in a saucepan (but don’t let it brown)
  • add 1cup of water and let this boil
  • once it boils turn down the heat to low
  • add a mixture of 1cup flour, 1teaspoon baking powder and 1/4 cup sugar to the butter-water
  • stir until you’ve got a ball of goop
  • with an electric mixer beat two eggs into the goop until you’ve got a smooth dough
  • heat some oil in a wok or saucepan (it needs to be deep enough for the dough to swim on)… turn it to medium heat
  • using a bag with a nozzle (I’ve got something that looks like a childrens’ syringe) squirt strings of dough into the hot oil
  • fry the strings of dough until they are golden brown, take them out and let them sit on some kitchen paper
  • serve warm

I made skinny twisty churros… you can make them fatter and less twisty. I also melted some chocolate to dip them in. I’m sure they’d be great with maple syrup or honey.

Getting Started and Writing a To-Do-List

I’ve been playing around with WordPress and uploaded, deleted, and re-uploaded stuff. I’m sorting through my things to see what else I want to share in this space and jotting down ideas for posts on bits of paper.

Also, I added flattr-buttons to some of the stuff I’m sharing. (To find out what flattr is watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwvExIWf_Uc) I feel kinda silly doing so, but I figure since it’s all voluntary, I’ll let others decide whether they think my content is worth flattr-ing.

What else?
Oh! I get to write out a concept for a competition with a barbecue theme! That should be fun.
It looks like May will be busy. I spent the first week of the month in Berlin, I set up this site two days ago, I need to finish up a project this week, start a new one, write bills, update my mother’s website (tcm-nuernberg.de), and take a friend to the ballet at the end of the month.

I want to finish up some socks I’m knitting for my sister. She has also requested a shawl.
I really want to sit down and finish reading Edward Said’s Orientalism so I can have an opinion on it.

So, I think I’ll just get right on all of that.