February 23, 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just finished Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms a couple of days ago. I hadn't read him since I was in my teens or early 20s, and while I found the sensibility informing the novel rather foreign, I admired the cleanness of the prose, and the author's attention to the prose's rhythms. I was always aware of that attentiveness: I never felt like he lapsed and settled for something less than what he wanted. Though his work is often described as understated, this unwavering focus gives it an intensity, a rigor, that I found wearying at times, but nonetheless fascinating, and occasionally gripping, notably in the final chapters.

February 18, 2022

My latest interview made the front cover!

 

Direct link to the interview: Pittsburgh City Paper interview

February 14, 2022

The highlight of my Sunday was not the Super Bowl, which I had on only for the final hour, mostly in the background while I washed dishes, and only because All Creatures Great and Small doesn't particularly interest me. The highlight of my Sunday was hearing the PSO perform Stravinsky's Firebird Suite at the end of a long, rich program. It had been a few years since I'd heard it, and I'd forgotten how magical the first section, "Dance of the Firebird," is, how beautiful the melancholic throb of the "Berceuse" is, how achingly gorgeous the transition from it to the finale is, and how magnificent the ending is. I succeeded in not weeping -- but it was a close call.

February 9, 2022

Indian (subcontinent) meal this week with two firsts:

(1) Fresh turmeric root: It's the minced orange stuff between thumb and forefinger, next to the minced yellow stuff (ginger root). It has a slightly sweet flavor fresh, and leaves your fingers (and whatever your fingers touch) a pretty orangey yellow. It's not as potent as beets in that regard, thankfully.

(2-3) Fresh lotus root: I'd used canned root in the past. Fresh, it's unsurprisingly crisper and, well, doesn't taste like it came from a can.

February 4, 2022

The first rule of Pgh weather forecasting is never trust Pgh weather forecasting.