Peg Duthie's Blog, page 59
January 23, 2013
in print
It doesn't get old, seeing my name in print. Today's mail brought me my copy of Sam Henderson's The House of Forever, which includes this:
It's also gratifying to see books I copyedited finally ready for the libraries and stores. Last week, I received my copy of Seeking a New Majority: The Republican Party and American Politics, 1960-1980. (I started work on the manuscript last January; academic publishing is not for the impatient.)
A friend on Twitter mentioned that today is National Handwriting Day. And, the price of US postage goes up next week. Time to scribble a few... :-)
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It's also gratifying to see books I copyedited finally ready for the libraries and stores. Last week, I received my copy of Seeking a New Majority: The Republican Party and American Politics, 1960-1980. (I started work on the manuscript last January; academic publishing is not for the impatient.)
A friend on Twitter mentioned that today is National Handwriting Day. And, the price of US postage goes up next week. Time to scribble a few... :-)
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January 15, 2013
pine nut cookies
Autobiography
Rain spits on Nashville
as I blur butter into sugar.
So much sweetness
starts out from grease and grit.
- pld
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January 13, 2013
"daisies, elephants, and flying fish"
[Subject line from Gary Kowalski's "An Alphabet of Gratitude," one of the readings at church today]
As this morning's lay leader, I lit the memorial candle for Shirley Ryberg, whose memorial service will be held on what would've been her 95th birthday. Shirley, Jan Robinson, and I put together a sermon back in 2009. Well into her 80s, she wrote biographies of the church's new members for the newsletter. Even when she could no longer read the hymnal, she still happily sang along, wordlessly caroling along and swaying to the music.
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As this morning's lay leader, I lit the memorial candle for Shirley Ryberg, whose memorial service will be held on what would've been her 95th birthday. Shirley, Jan Robinson, and I put together a sermon back in 2009. Well into her 80s, she wrote biographies of the church's new members for the newsletter. Even when she could no longer read the hymnal, she still happily sang along, wordlessly caroling along and swaying to the music.
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January 10, 2013
naming species, and remembering the names of women
As an indexer and copyeditor, I have a professional interest in how classification systems are maintained and how people agree on names (for each other, for categories, and for stray-items-that-aren't-easily-summarized-but-ARE-too-important-not-to-show-up-somewhere-in-the-index [she types, grinning]).
...which means I was captivated by the feature article in issue 22 of Allen Press's FrontMatter newsletter: Taxonomy Goes Digital: Nomenclatural Codes Embrace Online-Only Publication. It discusses some of the ways taxonomic names can be established -- that is, how plants, animals, algae, bacteria, fungi, viruses, and other organisms are formally labeled. (Put another way: if you want your name for a newly discovered or discussable critter to be recognized officially -- the better to talk about it with everyone else -- you have to publish and register the name properly [i.e., blogs and Facebook don't count, and until last year, neither did online-only journals]. Until I read this article, I hadn't given much thought to how the process was regulated, even though I'm excavating terminology wormholes all the time in my line of work. [You say vernacular, I say jargon, let's play rochambeau...])
It mentions the
Also on names: over at her blog, Mary lists the women mentioned in 100 Diagrams that Changed the World.
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...which means I was captivated by the feature article in issue 22 of Allen Press's FrontMatter newsletter: Taxonomy Goes Digital: Nomenclatural Codes Embrace Online-Only Publication. It discusses some of the ways taxonomic names can be established -- that is, how plants, animals, algae, bacteria, fungi, viruses, and other organisms are formally labeled. (Put another way: if you want your name for a newly discovered or discussable critter to be recognized officially -- the better to talk about it with everyone else -- you have to publish and register the name properly [i.e., blogs and Facebook don't count, and until last year, neither did online-only journals]. Until I read this article, I hadn't given much thought to how the process was regulated, even though I'm excavating terminology wormholes all the time in my line of work. [You say vernacular, I say jargon, let's play rochambeau...])
It mentions the
Also on names: over at her blog, Mary lists the women mentioned in 100 Diagrams that Changed the World.
comments
January 7, 2013
stubborn as tulips
Last fall, I put down several layers of newspaper and kraft paper underneath mulch, to deter weeds. One of the gardening sites I consulted reassured me that the tulips would have no trouble piercing through the layers when the time was right.
The maven was right:
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The maven was right:
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January 6, 2013
cooking/dining notes
This morning's first lesson: unadulterated almond extract in hot milk is nasty. Like, rinse-the-burning-off-my-tongue-NOW nasty. Guess I'll be making almond syrup before my next try.
Last night, the BYM and I finally opened the bottle of Epineuil Burgundy we'd picked up in Paris over a year ago (November 2011). We'd intended to drink it in our hotel room or by the Seine, but didn't get around to that, so it came back with us. It tasted lighter than I expected, but it was fine -- and it was nice to be reminded of our walks around St.-Germain-des-Prés. For dinner, I broiled two steaks with strips of red bell pepper, and made cream of cauliflower soup. Later, I baked a pan of gingerbread.
I joke a lot about my camera being my external brain, but there's a lot about last year I wouldn't remember without the help of my albums, including what I was cooking:
(salmon-potato gateau, tatsoi, and bubbly, New Year's Eve, 2011)
I didn't bother with pictures during this year's celebration -- sometimes wielding a camera keeps me from being fully present, and mine doesn't have a working flash, so evening pics tend to be more miss than hit. Also, I found myself feeling both annoyed and pitying at Chickie Wah Wah's, at certain audience members who seemed far more keen on getting snapshots/video than paying attention to the music (that they were shouldering their way to the front and being in my way colored my attitude, of course. Although it was fun seeing Deacon John play to the lens, and I had a great view of DJ and the other soloists' reflections in a side mirror).
Anyway, for New Year's Eve dinner, I helped Saz out with shelling/deveining shrimp, dicing peppers, and slicing pears, and for brunch the following day we went to Elizabeth's. I could have done with far less sweet pepper jelly on my chicken livers, but it was a beauty of a morning nonetheless.
As is today -- it's chillier up here, but the sun's out, and I'm about to pour myself a cup of coffee, put away yesterday's dishes, and get to work.
comments
Last night, the BYM and I finally opened the bottle of Epineuil Burgundy we'd picked up in Paris over a year ago (November 2011). We'd intended to drink it in our hotel room or by the Seine, but didn't get around to that, so it came back with us. It tasted lighter than I expected, but it was fine -- and it was nice to be reminded of our walks around St.-Germain-des-Prés. For dinner, I broiled two steaks with strips of red bell pepper, and made cream of cauliflower soup. Later, I baked a pan of gingerbread.
I joke a lot about my camera being my external brain, but there's a lot about last year I wouldn't remember without the help of my albums, including what I was cooking:
(salmon-potato gateau, tatsoi, and bubbly, New Year's Eve, 2011)
I didn't bother with pictures during this year's celebration -- sometimes wielding a camera keeps me from being fully present, and mine doesn't have a working flash, so evening pics tend to be more miss than hit. Also, I found myself feeling both annoyed and pitying at Chickie Wah Wah's, at certain audience members who seemed far more keen on getting snapshots/video than paying attention to the music (that they were shouldering their way to the front and being in my way colored my attitude, of course. Although it was fun seeing Deacon John play to the lens, and I had a great view of DJ and the other soloists' reflections in a side mirror).
Anyway, for New Year's Eve dinner, I helped Saz out with shelling/deveining shrimp, dicing peppers, and slicing pears, and for brunch the following day we went to Elizabeth's. I could have done with far less sweet pepper jelly on my chicken livers, but it was a beauty of a morning nonetheless.
As is today -- it's chillier up here, but the sun's out, and I'm about to pour myself a cup of coffee, put away yesterday's dishes, and get to work.
comments
January 3, 2013
on mirlitons and beer
Last week, the Beautiful Young Man and I drove to New Orleans to visit Saz and some other folks. We saw some of Eudora Welty's pins (*) while in Jackson, peered at the Windsor Ruins in the rain, and said hi to the carnivorous plants and other inhabitants of the kiddie garden chez Longue Vue.
On New Year's Eve, I helped Saz with some of the prep for shrimp creole. There was sparkling wine and an Abita pale ale and coffee... and we still decided to turn in before midnight.
Before we headed home, Saz handed us a bag full of grapefruits and Meyer lemons, which she'd grown in the back yard of her office. She added a mirliton, a squash popular in creole cooking:
It's kind of spiky -- I used a potholder to protect my hands as I peeled it. Raw, it tastes like underripe honeydew. I roasted it last night and will probably mash the remains for lunch. It has been worth its weight in entertainment alone -- the BYM has a very eloquent suspicious glare, and he was aiming it a-plenty at the mirliton during its brief residence on our kitchen counter.
There's not much else to report at the moment -- I'm contending with an almost-bout of flu (i.e., things haven't gotten ooky yet, but everything aches) and the usual turn-of-the-year paperwork, sketching out the start of some new poems, and working (the current project includes discussions of cannibalism and kinky nuns in 18th-century Spanish literature. My job rules).
I'm also still reading through the papers and books I collected on my drive through Florida and the Carolinas a month ago. One of the best pieces has been Julie Johnson's Hang Up the Hangover, which concludes with this advice:
[* Eudora's writing process was to type out a draft of her story and then to slice up the pages and rearrange them, as if piecing a quilt:
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On New Year's Eve, I helped Saz with some of the prep for shrimp creole. There was sparkling wine and an Abita pale ale and coffee... and we still decided to turn in before midnight.
Before we headed home, Saz handed us a bag full of grapefruits and Meyer lemons, which she'd grown in the back yard of her office. She added a mirliton, a squash popular in creole cooking:
It's kind of spiky -- I used a potholder to protect my hands as I peeled it. Raw, it tastes like underripe honeydew. I roasted it last night and will probably mash the remains for lunch. It has been worth its weight in entertainment alone -- the BYM has a very eloquent suspicious glare, and he was aiming it a-plenty at the mirliton during its brief residence on our kitchen counter.
There's not much else to report at the moment -- I'm contending with an almost-bout of flu (i.e., things haven't gotten ooky yet, but everything aches) and the usual turn-of-the-year paperwork, sketching out the start of some new poems, and working (the current project includes discussions of cannibalism and kinky nuns in 18th-century Spanish literature. My job rules).
I'm also still reading through the papers and books I collected on my drive through Florida and the Carolinas a month ago. One of the best pieces has been Julie Johnson's Hang Up the Hangover, which concludes with this advice:
When you wake up hurting, drink as much water or juice as you can hold. Take something for the headache, but not aspirin, which is tough on an already-distressed tum. If you're a caffeine addict, have a little tea. You don't want to add a caffeine-withdrawal headache to the one you already have. And swallow some vitamins, particularly B-complex and C.
Now, stay horizontal. Don't make any important decisions, and don't brood on the wreckage that is your life. You're in no fit state.
Instead, think back to the night before the morning after. You drank too much beer. If it was bad beer to boot, you deserve the pain. You ignored your limits, and you're cheap, too. If you were drinking the good stuff, you didn't stay sober enough to give it the respect it deserves. It's time to absorb the most valuable lesson that quality beer has to offer: Drink better and drink less. When you're feeling up for a brew again, go for the best, and learn to savor it.
[* Eudora's writing process was to type out a draft of her story and then to slice up the pages and rearrange them, as if piecing a quilt:
]
I revise with scissors and pins. Pasting is too slow, and you can't undo it, but with pins you can move things from anywhere to anywhere, and that's what I really love doing--putting things in their best and proper place, revealing things at the time when they matter most. Often I shift things from the very beginning to the very end. Small things--one fact, one word--but things important to me. (Paris Review)
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December 21, 2012
*waving from the workshop*
Earlier this afternoon, my dog continued ripping the guts out of her old Santa toy and then started dry heaving.
My state of mind isn't quite that bad, but things are a bit crunchety here wrt the time-space continuum, which (as many of you know) I have an ongoing lovers' quarrel with at the best of times. So sharing my notes and snapshots of the archives, bookstores, chapels, graveyards, and restaurants I visited on my way back from Miami (via Jacksonville, Charleston, and various cities in North Carolina) will have to wait until the new year.
As it happens, I'm booked through January work-wise, so it'll be nice to go through the sheaves during breaks from citation-herding. Plus many of you are still in the thick of your own elfish/elven plots...
But speaking of elven plots -- there is no escape! [click the images to enlarge]
I went to the Karpeles Museum in Charleston to look at the Doyle, Sayers, and Fleming manuscripts they had on display there. I'll write more about that later, but the salient point is that the building used to be a Methodist church in a rather run-down part of the city, and the stalls in the women's bathroom are papered accordingly, with flocks of angels ... and, inside one door, a very detailed family tree lifted from LOTR. LOL.
Another delight was the Stowe Garden's orchid "tree":
(16 ft. tall. 300 orchids. An aside to Nashvillians: my Cheekwood membership covered admission to the garden and three museums, and would've covered the NC Arboretum if I'd had time for it.)
And here's me with an old pal on the Green in downtown Charlotte:
Wishing you all a smooth end to the year (or a crackletastic one, if you're into fireworks and other happy kabooms), and a happy and healthy 2013 ahead.
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My state of mind isn't quite that bad, but things are a bit crunchety here wrt the time-space continuum, which (as many of you know) I have an ongoing lovers' quarrel with at the best of times. So sharing my notes and snapshots of the archives, bookstores, chapels, graveyards, and restaurants I visited on my way back from Miami (via Jacksonville, Charleston, and various cities in North Carolina) will have to wait until the new year.
As it happens, I'm booked through January work-wise, so it'll be nice to go through the sheaves during breaks from citation-herding. Plus many of you are still in the thick of your own elfish/elven plots...
But speaking of elven plots -- there is no escape! [click the images to enlarge]
I went to the Karpeles Museum in Charleston to look at the Doyle, Sayers, and Fleming manuscripts they had on display there. I'll write more about that later, but the salient point is that the building used to be a Methodist church in a rather run-down part of the city, and the stalls in the women's bathroom are papered accordingly, with flocks of angels ... and, inside one door, a very detailed family tree lifted from LOTR. LOL.
Another delight was the Stowe Garden's orchid "tree":
(16 ft. tall. 300 orchids. An aside to Nashvillians: my Cheekwood membership covered admission to the garden and three museums, and would've covered the NC Arboretum if I'd had time for it.)
And here's me with an old pal on the Green in downtown Charlotte:
Wishing you all a smooth end to the year (or a crackletastic one, if you're into fireworks and other happy kabooms), and a happy and healthy 2013 ahead.
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December 1, 2012
Friday in Miami
* one workout
* two big detour-loops (once when picking up roomie at airport, once on our way back from Key Biscayne to the hotel. Florida, your signage sucks).
* a glass of Malbec, lamb samosas, lamb biryani, and shrimp apna curry. And freshly fried papadum w/bright red peppers, at Ayesha (thanks, Tripadvisor!).
* tennis! (and bubble tea)
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* two big detour-loops (once when picking up roomie at airport, once on our way back from Key Biscayne to the hotel. Florida, your signage sucks).
* a glass of Malbec, lamb samosas, lamb biryani, and shrimp apna curry. And freshly fried papadum w/bright red peppers, at Ayesha (thanks, Tripadvisor!).
* tennis! (and bubble tea)
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November 30, 2012
on my car stereo...
...on my first day of vacation:
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Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.
- Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 1
(The episodes in my CD folder were downloaded from MobyDickBigRead.com. Chapter 1 is read by Tilda Swinton.)
I've been on the road since Tuesday. The trip so far:
Miles covered: 1000+, including an unholy number of detours and u-turns (Miami rush-hour traffic was not fun. On the plus side, I found a Spanglish station [95.7 FM] that careened from beauty and nutrition tips to a mashup of Gangnam style/"Hammer Time"...)
Chapters of Moby Dick listened to: 53
Workouts: 2
Discoveries/highlights:
* I don't like parasailing and I'm too uncoordinated to water-ski. Tubing, however, requires no technique and isn't too many hundred feet up in the air, and was therefore totally awesome.
* I was underwhelmed by the music and plot of Orchid (the performers were fine, but I do have Nashville standards, and covers of Madonna and George Michael do not do thing one for me at all), but I was impressed at the setup of the Pleasure Garden (for a cluster of pop-ups, it's very impressive, and seeing the Ruinart logo everywhere brought back happy memories of visiting Reims three years ago), and seeing the acrobats, aerialists, and burlesque dancing was wonderful. Especially Kitty Bang Bang, an incredible dancer who is also a fire-eater. She started out by putting out a cigarette on her tongue and eventually set fire to her nipple tassels and twirled them. I felt a touch sorry for whomever had to follow her sets.
* Woke up with awful hair. Working out for 30 minutes somehow seems to have fixed it. Let that be a lesson to me. ;-)
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