It's (Once Again) the End of the World As We Know It

I've been remiss, I know. I'll see if I can be a better blogger this coming week.

As an amuse-bouche for a good week, here's a late-night/early-morning treat for you: a weather forecast of doom from the San Jose Mercury News!

This is slightly sinister, no? I'm not sure what is even sunnier than sunny, but I don't think it's a good thing. What is "and then some"? A tanning bed? A UV storm? A supernova? Twenty-four hours of daylight? Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!

It's clearly going to be a week of Biblical significance in the Bay Area. I'll try to keep you posted.

"Tastes Like Vanessa..."

You know what I'd like to see today? How about supertan teen star ZacFron eating moisturizer?


Wish granted. Thanks, Do You Like It Like That?.

Eraserhead 2: The Geithnering

Following a suggestion from his old friend Keith, Fosco offers for your consideration: Jack Nance in David Lynch's Eraserhead and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.


Spooky, huh? I'd make a joke about something from the plot of Eraserhead, but

1. I have little confidence that many of my readers have seen it.
   
2. I don't really remember much about it myself.

To the best of my recollection, I think there was some dancing involved. And some horrible worm creatures. Actually, the film is probably not too much different from recent meetings at the Treasury.

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Wounding Your Cavaliers

It's Sunday and, if you are like me, you would like to see something beautiful.

I finds this strange Pre-Raphaelite painting to be oddly gorgeous. This is The Wounded Cavalier by the delightfully-named William Shakespeare Burton (1824-1916).

Although this was painted around 1855, the depicted scene is from the English Civil War. Personally, I think it's reasonable to read the painting allegorically; otherwise, I'm not sure how you explain the presence of the dour, Bible-holding Puritan who looks on disapprovingly. Oh Puritans, is there anything you don't hate? Also, an allegorical reading may help to account for such oddities as the broken blade stuck in the tree and the small butterfly that is perched on it. (But no, I'm not going to do the allegorical reading for you.) Also, why in the hell is there a tree running down the center of the painting? And why is the Puritan hiding behind it? These are the kinds of questions that, to my mind, make this a worthwhile painting.

As far as I can determine, this painting is in the permanent collection of the Guildhall Museum of Art in London (although it does not appear on their website). There is a smaller "study" for this painting in the Tate collection, although its colors are very different and it is (on the whole) much less appealing.

A note on the coloration. There are numerous images of this painting online and the colors are different in every one. As Fosco has never seen the original (nor is it, apparently, on display except by appointment), he has chosen the version that is most appealing to him. You may find this image to be a little "washed out," but Fosco much prefers the faint mist in this image to some of the gaudier versions.


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Would you care for the "Drum Roll of Colonial Fish"?

Please to be enjoying "Foodie Friday" here at Fosco Lives!

Fosco missed an important anniversary last Friday: the one hundredth birthday of the Futurist Manifesto. The Manifesto was published by F.T. Marinetti on the front page(!) of Le Figaro. As the BBC notes, the Manifesto seems like a strange thing to celebrate:

It called for the demolition of museums and libraries, contempt for women and the glorification of war, "the world's only hygiene".

It promoted "the beautiful ideas which kill" and claimed that beauty exists only in struggle - so why is the art world celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Futurist Manifesto?

Because when it appeared, on 20 February 1909, it was the first art manifesto of the 20th Century, paving the way for Vorticists, Surrealists, Dada-ists, and Situationists, as well as more recent cultural agitators like the Stuckists.

Sure, it's all a bit creepy and proto-fascistic, but don't you have to appreciate (even a little) a movement that so entirely attempts to revalue all values? Personally, Fosco has always loved tenet #4 of the Manifesto:

We affirm that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing car whose hood is adorned with great pipes, like serpents of explosive breath—a roaring car that seems to ride on grapeshot is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.

I can guarantee that Dale Earnhardt Jr. agrees with that one.

The best reason for us to talk about Futurism on "Foodie Friday" is Marinetti's 1932 publication of The Futurist Cookbook. There aren't many "isms" that provide their own recipes and there is no cookbook that is as amazingly bizarre and hilarious as this one. Actually, the genre confusion is part of the fun here: is this really a cookbook? Is this literature? Is it some kind of imaginary food-writing? Whatever it is, here is Fosco's favorite recipe (not that he's ever tried it, of course):

HEROIC WINTER DINNER (from the “Futurist Cookbook”, 1932)

A group of soldiers who at three o’clock on a January afternoon will have to get into a lorry to enter the line of fire at four, or go up in an aeroplane to bomb cities or counter-attack enemy flights, would seek in vain the perfect preparation for these in the grieving kiss of a mother, of a wife, of children or in re-reading passionate letters.

A dreamy walk is equally inappropriate. So is the reading of an amusing book. Instead these fighters sit down round a table where they are served a ‘DRUM ROLL OF COLONIAL FISH’ and some ‘RAW MEAT TORN BY TRUMPET BLASTS’.

“DRUM ROLL OF COLONIAL FISH”: Poached mullet marinated for twenty-four hours in a sauce of milk, rosolio liqueur, capers and red pepper. Just before serving the fish open it and stuff it with date jam interspersed with discs of banana and slices of pineapple. It will then be eaten to a continuous rolling of drums.

“RAW MEAT TORN BY TRUMPET BLASTS”: cut a perfect cube of beef. Pass an electric current
through it, then marinate it for twenty-four hours in a mixture of rum, cognac and white vermouth. Remove itfrom the mixture and serve on a bed of red pepper, black pepper and snow. Each mouthful is to be chewed carefully for one minute, and each mouthful is divided from the next by vehement blasts on the trumpet blown
by the eater himself.

When it is time for the Peralzarsi; the soldiers are served plates of ripe persimmons, pomegranates, and blood oranges. While these disappear into their mouths, some very sweet perfumes of roses, jasmine, honeysuckle and acacia flowers will be sprayed around the room, the nostalgic and decadent sweetness of which will be roughly rejected by the soldiers who rush like lightning to put their gas masks on.

The moment they are about to leave they swallow the Throat–Explosion, a solid liquid consisting of a pellet of Parmesan cheese steeped in Marsala.

Of course, the question of how seriously to take this is part of the proper enjoyment of the Futurists (at least for contemporary readers). The strange thing is how similar this kind of recipe is to the actual contemporary culinary practice of chefs like Grant Achatz or Homaro Cantu.

If this kind of food writing thrills you, you may enjoy even more the setting of the Marinetti's cookbook to music! American composer Aaron Jay Kernis has written The Four Seasons of Futurist Cuisine for string quartet and narrator. A recording is available on this CD.


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There's a place...

"Music Monday" concludes.

When Fosco was in college, the subway trains on the Red Line of Boston's T would enter Harvard Square Station (outbound) by marking a wide underground curve. The high-pitched squeal of the tires(?) that you heard in the cars during this maneuver always seemed strangely musical to Fosco and some of his friends--as if the T were doing a piece by Ligeti. Fosco's most musical roommate would even sometimes pretend to conduct the screeches (yeah, he was pretentious like that).

But little did Fosco know that other subways around the country play actual musical compositions. From the NY Times:

The first three notes of the song "Somewhere" from "West Side Story" can be heard underground on some 2, 4 and 5 lines when they depart. This began in 2000 when new cars were introduced, though virgin ears are still discovering the melody today.

You have to love the Times for an article like this--and a long article, at that!

Of course, this just confirms Fosco's opinions about Bernstein's compositions: so annoying that even a subway train could have written them.

Alien Infiltrates White House?

Yesterday, Gawker did a thing on some recent official White House photos. While glancing through them, Fosco's eyes were drawn to something strange. Here is the pic:


I've circled the thing that bothers me (on the far right, behind President O). Now Fosco doesn't know much about interior decorating or antique furniture (he leaves that to people more qualified), but what exactly is that thing? It looks like a wok on legs. And not very sturdy, oddly ugly legs at that. Now I'm sure that that thing is a very very expensive thing. And probably a very very old thing. But I still don't understand what it is and what it is doing there. It's like some sort of proto-organic life form.

Can anyone enlighten me?

"Wonder Years" Sex Scandal

From British tabloid The Sun, we have this creepy story:

Boy dad Alfie Patten yesterday admitted he does not know how much nappies cost — but said: “I think it’s a lot.”

Baby-faced Alfie, who is 13 but looks more like eight, became a father four days ago when his girlfriend Chantelle Steadman gave birth to 7lb 3oz Maisie Roxanne.

He told how he and Chantelle, 15, decided against an abortion after discovering she was pregnant.

Alfie, who looks like nothing so much as a very young Fred Savage, is four feet tall. Four feet tall.

Here is the picture of this nontraditional family:

I don't know about you, but for me there is absolutely no way to look at this picture and interpret it accurately: all I can see is a young woman with her two children. It's completely impossible for me to see those two crazy kids as a romantic couple.

In related news, the Octomom has offered to adopt all three of them.

[In less-related news, E! Online is actually running a poll as to who is the hotter MILF: Octomom or Angelina Jolie. Aside from the sheer stupidity of the question (Angelina Jolie is indisputably one of the hottest humans on earth), isn't it also in poor taste? I mean, for goodness sake, the Octomom is mentally ill! Should we really be calling her a MILF? Ugh.]

The Surreal Life

I don't watch the Grammys. I don't know who MIA is and I don't care. I've already read plenty of criticism of her pregnancy costume. And I have no intention of reading anything more about her, even this article in the NY Times.

But I do have a well-attuned antenna for the absurd and I think you just have to appreciate the breathtaking strangeness of our world when you see a story teaser like this one (from the Times online front page):

There's just something deliciously bizarre about a rapper named MIA, wearing a polka dot pregnancy panel, being accused of promoting a violent guerrilla faction in a tiny Asian nation. There is something very surreal about globalization, no?