mediocrity rules

well, it looks increasingly like mediocrity will not in fact rule, which is quite a relief, but of course, it's never over 'til it's over.  judith warner has a very interesting piece in today's NYT on that ever-worrying topic of sarah palin as the ultimate feminist. she suggests that palin and not hillary clinton offered the political breakthrough moment for women in this year--because "mediocrity is the privilege of those who have arrived." hillary is and always was the consummate over-achiever--sarah palin, a person who happened to be in the right place at the right time and now apparently even has the right wardrobe. (because if you have a look at this, you'll see she definitely DIDN'T have the right wardrobe before.)

and there ARE just people who you shake your head at and wonder how they've attained the position they've attained. i worked with one in my previous job. the boy was nice enough, but quite simply rubbish at his job. he's still in that job and i just heard that he's getting another promotion. it's a fact that everyone around him--his employees, his peers, his customers--everyone but his boss--sees him for what he is--an utter and complete mediocrity. but, because he's mostly harmless, he ends up rising. if you're a weak manager, it's easy to promote other weaklings and fun to hold down the strong and those weak sucks totally benefit from that.

but, i do have faith and i think that sarah palin is evidence, that those mediocrities eventually rise too far and then they crash and crash hard. it's really quite nice of sarah palin to take down mccain, who likely would have continued along the bush trajectory. because i've said for years that mccain was the one republican i could think of who i could vote for. thanks to her, that is no longer true.

perhaps this whole thing will give the republicans pause. they'll have to think about whether the direction they've gone in over the past 8 years is the right one. they'll have to think about whether it's ok that those right of the right loonies who used to be their fringe have now become their center. and that introspection can no doubt only be good for everyone (assuming republicans are capable of introspection--which is currently taking the form of the "blame game," big and bad and the election isn't even over). because regardless of which answer they come up with--we are a bunch of religious, right-wing, shoot-to-kill lunatics or we are fiscal conservatives who believe government should stay out of the people's way (a lot of good that did recently)--the democrats can only look good these days.

but now, i'm going back to my sewing projects, because i have to do something constructive in these times that feel so full of destructive rhetoric.

hope you all had a fabulous weekend.

p.s. i have a new political blogsite to add to my list of regular visits which include the huffington post and andrew sullivan's daily dish, it's called the daily beast and you all probably knew about it, but i didn't until today (thanks sis!).

through another's eyes

i wish you guys could read danish (i can think of only one reader who can and another one who can probably read norwegian, which is really like badly spelled and properly pronounced according to how it's spelled danish). what i actually love about living in denmark during my 3rd american presidential election is reading the coverage of the election in the danish (quality) press.  i would love to link to a whole list of great articles i've read lately (and i no doubt will), but it does seem a bit overwhelming to translate them. so, i will offer a synopsis and share some of the thoughts these great articles have led me to.

berlingske, which is, in my opinion, by far the best danish newspaper (tho' a recent redesign has given it a disturbing feel of one of those free-on-the-train papers) in terms of the writing itself, has a particular reporter in the US. i think i've probably mentioned him before. his name is poul høi and he lives in santa fe. during the first two elections i was here, he was berlingske's man in DC. apparently now he's achieved sufficient seniority and cachet (due to his brilliant writing) to be allowed to do whatever articles strike his fancy and to live in santa fe. not a bad gig, it would seem to me.

in yesterday's paper, he published the first of two articles from wasilla, home of sarah palin. he went there to try to get to the bottom of who she is by seeing where she came from. as i've said before, i have an addiction to writing in the margins of books and this article was so good that i actually had to underline and scribble all over it.

høi's analysis of the country of my birth helps me see it with new eyes. he's lived there about as long as i've lived here, so he has both an inside and an outside perspective. his descriptions are apt and often poetic, setting the scene:

• characterizing a weather change as the sort that demands a wagner overture.
• and wasilla as a town with no city planning, built according to the lowest common denominator--by kiosk owners, for kiosk owners and ruled by kiosk owners.
• walking into the local "mug shot saloon" he felt like the children in the narnia books--as if he'd stepped through a wardrobe, back in time, to a place with nicotine-colored hessian on the wall, populated by people who have seen it all, done it all and given up.
• describing churches being built according to the principles of plastic silverware architecture (engangsbestik-arkitektur).

then, with historical perspective, he reminds us of the divide in the republican party between the goldwater-types and the wallace-types (tho' wallace was a so-called dixiecrat (democrat turned independent), he inspired an entire generation of right of the right republicans). the divide between intellectual and down home (we know this now as the real and the fake america). he talks about sarah palin's mediocre grades (sound familiar?) and her need to move from college to college in order to finally collect a degree in sports journalism. he talks about the teachers who had no recollection of her. he discusses her bizarre anti-intellectualism--if she couldn't be a leader among the educated, she would by god lead the uneducated against the educated. serving on the local city council was her way up the ladder, then she stomped on those who helped her in and ran against them, mobilizing the "wal-mart moms," which worked for her all the way to the governor's mansion (there are apparently a LOT of those in alaska).

in short, høj masterfully weaves together fifty years of history of american politics, cultural analysis and a feel for the present into the conclusion that sarah palin is in actuality a natural and even inevitable conclusion...once republicans admired people like abraham lincoln and winston churchill, today those on the pedestal are joe six-pack and joe the plumber. sarah palin is, like george w. bush before her, simply the embodiment of this zeitgeist.  as poul høj says in his blog entry this week, if you cross lipstick with a pitbull long enough, you eventually do get a pitbull with lipstick.

all of this makes me realize that those of us now fake americans--the ones who bothered to get higher education and a passport--simply must stage a revolt. we've sat back long enough, not really believing that this is where reality was headed and thinking these people were too moronic to bother arguing with.  it's so, so, so important to vote obama. our right to be intellectual or even just to be thinking and thoughtful in our decision-making depends on it. we must show this woman the way back to her wal-mart. if she's going to give back all that valentino anyway, she'll need some new, more affordable clothes.

when it's morning here

it's so entertaining these days to get up in the morning and see what madness has happened while i slept. just think, only 14 more days of this.  what will i do for entertainment when it's all over? i guess we'll probably still watch hannah montana from 7:10-7:40, since we have a tween in the house.  but in all seriousness, even tho' i am a night owl, i'm still 6-9 hours ahead of events in the US, so lots happens after i go to sleep and the reverberations are still buzzing through the blogosphere when i get up.

let's have a little rundown:

1. sarah palin's $150,000 shopping spree, including $75,000 at neiman marcus. hmmm, i wonder how many other hockey moms and joe six-packs she ran into while she was there? i also wonder what her old clothes were like that she needed to go all imelda to that extent? perhaps tho', she was just trying to stimulate the economy.  good on ya, sarah!
   
2. in new mexico, you can be drunk when you vote (is THAT how people will bring themselves to vote mcpalin?), but not wearing a t-shirt with a political message. especially if it says "obama."
3. this morning, on CNN i saw a story about electronic voting machines in west virginia that just "happened" to switch votes to mccain, despite the obama line being clearly pressed by voters. officials claimed there were no irregularities and an especially dopey official was trotted out to assure viewers that even if he, who happened to be republican, wanted to tamper with the machines, he sure didn't know how. yeah. right. strangely, i can find no link to this piece on the CNN website.
4. sarah palin flies her kids around on alaska's tab. for personal travel, like watching daddy's snowmobile race. (this one seems familiar, i think it reared its head a few weeks ago too, either that or i dreamed it.)
5. sarah palin thinks that the vice president runs the US senate, going so far as to say that "if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom..." call me crazy, but when i apply for a job, i try to know what it actually entails. and who is brandon anyway? joe the plumber's son?

happily, i'm back to finding this all very amusing. which is good, because i was hanging out between suicidal and homicidal in recent days and that's not a fun place to be. for me or anyone around me.

the procession of simulacra

until recently i thought that, in addition to (the quite stunning achievement of) bringing the entire world economy to its knees, bush had managed to kill postmodernity. it's just not cool to be postmodern anymore. after real planes crash into real skyscrapers and bring them down and the US engages in real wars against an elusive foe who remains at large in a mountain hideout and a guy named saddam who wasn't really involved, but had the disadvantage of having wronged dubya's daddy, it just seemed like there was no more room for unreality and the simulacra and the simulation. those buildings collapsing were simply all too real.

however, i have had to admit in recent weeks that postmodernism (which i always had quite a soft spot for (reality is, after all, frequently inaccurate)) is alive and well.  just a quick reminder as to one of the main tenants of postmodernity, from our good old friend frederic jameson,--there is "a new kind of superficiality and depthlessness" present in the postmodern condition. additionally, there is a blurring of lines between reality and unreality (that's my favorite part). to try to make it tangible--does the constructed "america" represented by disneyland end up more real than the real america? hmm....i think it might be better to turn to the "real" world to explain what i'm getting at...

consider, sarah palin's appearance on SNL. an appearance in which she attempted to take the piss with the one taking the piss with her. incidentally, i read an article in which tina fey said that she had never really known of a satirical sketch of a political figure where it was possible to lift virtually the entire dialogue directly from what the politician said without tweeking it at all for humorous effect. tina fey does sarah palin better than palin herself does. now THAT's postmodern.  as baudrilliard (one of the kings of postmodern theory) says, "...an implosion of meaning. this is where simulation begins." lines are blurred and politics is entertainment. the mocked becomes the mocker and the mocker the mocked. reality blurs into the unrecognizable.

another example is all of this talk about the "real" america (which seems to mean the bits that will vote for mcpalin). it's so absurd now that there is a "real" virginia and an unreal one (don't really know where west virginia fits into that equation). and a pro-america america and one (apparently the part that can actually THINK) that's the anti-america america (damn those of us who went to U of C). see, postmodern:  at once in and not in. the center has shifted and we can no longer identify what's real and what's unreal.

but, don't take my word for it, check out jon stewart:

teasing meaning and significance from the chaotic stream of daily contingencies

dear sabin,


you’re only seven and you’re growing up mostly danish, so i’m not sure that you understand the significance of this american election. you’ve watched with me on BBC and CNN, but i realize you don’t really comprehend it. i hope that one day you will. one of the things that i have worried about with you growing up outside the US is that you won’t be instilled with the good bits of the american dream...that part where you believe so much in yourself and your abilities that anything can happen.


for a long time now, i haven’t really believed in that...i’ve felt much more ashamed to be american than anything. although many cite sept. 11, 2001 as the beginning of the end, for me, it started with the whole clinton-monica lewinsky thing followed by the debacle of the 2000 election and the resulting eight years of bush. it hasn’t been good for my identity, nor has it been good for me knowing what identity i hoped you would have.


but now, with the election of barack obama, it all feels different. it feels like hope has returned to the world. and with it my pride in being an american. i haven’t felt proud of that for a very long time. it’s strange how pride comes back intact in one fell swoop. i literally no longer feel the need to hide my passport as i stand in line for passport control.


don’t get me wrong, those people who found their voices during the bush years...people who are hyper-religious, people who believe jesus was hanging out with the dinosaurs, people who think that evolution is just a fluffy science thing that masks the “truth” of the bible, and especially people who would compromise a woman’s right to choose what happens in and around her own body...they were always there. it’s just that bush and those who brought him to power...the aptly named (because it means ass in danish) karl rove and the dark lord dick cheney...made it ok for those people to speak up and be the loudest voices, spreading their bigotry and narrow-mindedness. those people who made sarah palin not only possible but logical as a VP candidate. those people who were afraid of other nationalities, didn't have passports and who weren’t really aware that there were other countries...those people were in power during your entire lifetime. and that gave me pause. because i wanted you to have the good parts of growing up american...especially the part about not believing there were any limitations if you worked for your dreams.


and i worried about you growing up danish, because the government that’s been in power in denmark since your birth has been equally if not more mediocre. no big ideas, actually not even any medium-sized ideas...only small minds and small thinking, anti-intellectualism..the ultimate in mediocre. not to mention afraid of the other. of which i have feared you would be classified with a foreign mother. so, what kind of world had we brought you into? i have to admit it has worried me. rather a lot.


but somehow, in my mind, the election of barack obama in the US changes everything. it’s a return to an intellectual politics. (at least it feels like that right now.) it’s a return to ideas. it’s a return to sanity. it’s a return to a world that acknowledges (and even just realizes) that there are a whole lot of other countries out there and holds a passport. it’s a return to thinking and logic. it’s a return to the silence of those radical right wingers (at least i hope it is), a space in which they don’t feel it’s ok to spread their hate and narrow-mindedness and try to force their version of god and their morality down everyone else's throat. it’s a return to the good parts of the american dream. and it makes me worry less about the world you will inherit and inhabit.


but for you to understand it, perhaps i need to share with you with some thoughts from the guardian weekend edition (8.11.08) on what the election of barack obama seems to mean for the world...


“when, at 8:01 p.m., pacific time, CNN called the race for obama, we collapsed...the champagne, whose presence in the fridge i had thought to be ominously bad karma, was opened. no toast. just ‘thank god, thank god, thank god’,’ spoken by four devout atheists.” --jonathan raban . (i took the title of this post from his article as well.)


“for the last eight years, it’s been hard to keep the flame alive. those of us who have admired america since childhood--seeing it as endlessly fascinating, brimming with energy and founded on the deeply radical ideal of self-government--felt increasingly beleaguered after 2001. how to admire the land of ‘you’re with us or against us,’ embodied by a president with a cowboy swagger, waging a fraudulent war and threatening to choke the planet by belching out a quarter of the world’s CO2 and damn the consequences? america became bush country, its national symbol no longer the statue of liberty but abu ghraib. the flame was sputtering out.” --jonathan freedland


“palin may despise the cities and the coasts, the new yorks and californias and the university towns--but that is the america that the rest of the world treasures. and now it is in the ascendant.” --jonathan freedland


i think through the election process, especially since the naming of sarah palin as mccain’s VP, she is what provoked me most. probably, if i’m honest, because she in many ways, reminded me of me...a failed beauty queen who hopped from one university to another before finally gathering a degree. although my geography is better than hers, and i did eventually complete more than one degree and earn a fulbirght, would i really have been any smarter? or less ambitious? or less anxious to prove my small town background was good enough? i was left with the overwhelming feeling of wanting more and expecting more. and hoping there was more. after all, i know i wouldn't make a good vice president. this self-knowledge seemed to be disturbingly lacking in her.


i was a hillary supporter, mostly because i have a soft spot in my heart for bill. i heard him speak at commencement at the university of chicago in 1999 and could understand why monica lewinsky did what she did. he is such a dynamic individual, and although weak as a person, an embodiment of the good parts of the american dream. in a way, i felt it was hillary’s turn. and i was heartened to think that along with hillary, we would get bill. but somehow it’s different with obama and it’s become ok for me that he ended up the candidate and that he won. more than ok, actually. it’s the beginning of something new. a sense of hope and a return to all that’s good about the american dream.


it isn’t going to be easy. the world you will inherit will be a different one. energy consumption will change, banking will change, the way you travel and how you spend your money will be different. but, i hope that you will be able to consider the entire world your home. but i also hope that you will feel a tie to a particular place that you consider your base...because a home is important. wherever it is, be that place denmark or the US (hopefully some of both, because you are the product of both). or perhaps it will be another place, should your parents choose to move you to norway or singapore. whatever the place, i hope that it will be a space in which you can be the thinking, intellectual being that i already see in you. i want so much for that space to be free for you to inhabit.


whatever may happen, i am more filled with hope now because of the election of barack obama. whatever he proves to do in the coming years, this moment of hope, this very one, is an important one. for us and for you and for the future. please treasure that and hold onto it for the future, no matter what else happens.


(composed on KL804 MNL-AMS, nov. 9, 2008)

it's a debacle

yesterday i consumed two double lattes on an empty stomach and then didn't eat lunch. this was not good. by the time i got home, i was nauseated and shaky. and then, i flipped on the t.v. and the bad news kept pouring in--another bank being taken over, sarah palin's debacle of an interview with katie couric. we watched the house vote on the bail-out package on BBC world and then watched stocks plummet. all of that, coupled with the excess caffeine gave me fitful sleep.

it astounds me how much damage one man can do to the entire world in just eight short years. i remember after the whole debacle (that's my word for this posting, apparently) of the 2000 election with the hanging chads and the banana republic voting practices in florida, thinking, well, dubya seems harmless enough after all. perhaps a bit dumber than a box of rocks, but overall quite harmless. two wars, a couple of hurricanes, an unimaginable financial crisis, a deficit that could make a sane man insane and a melted polar ice cap later, it seems i couldn't have been more wrong.

we listened last night to an in-depth reportage just after our 9 p.m. evening news on DR1. a reporter in the US talked to a lot of ordinary people in chicago who were having mortgage-related troubles. the woman in the studio kept asking him how it could have happened? she, like many, simply couldn't get her head around it. why didn't people see that endlessly remortgaging their house with sub-prime mortgages wasn't sustainable in the long run? why didn't the banks who gave these mortgages see it? was it because they were just selling them on to the next bank, so they didn't really care whether people legitimately qualified or not? it does seem incomprehensible. and yet there are a lot of ordinary people in a whole lot of trouble.

my overwhelming feeling is one of being relieved that when husband and i met, he was tied to his army job and i was a mere graduate student, thus i came to live in his country rather than him coming to live in mine. thankfully we live in a country where the realkredit (appropriate name, now that i think about it) institutions which grant mortgages are sensibly regulated and where their employees are not dependent upon sneaking your loan through for their own livelihood. yes, house prices were a bit inflated (especially apartments in copenhagen), and that market has come down to more sensible levels over the past year or so, but you just don't hear about people sitting in a house that's now worth less than the mortgage they hold on it.

husband has this rather harsh theory that the problems in this world really started when the masses got money. prior to that, decisions were made by an elite that, for the most part, were well-educated and well-read (they being the only ones who could read, for all intents and purposes). but, the masses got money and along with it, they wanted the right to decide things. this has caused an enormous dumbing down of the world to meet a lower common denominator, rather than raising the bar and expecting that with the decision-making power should come responsibility for becoming informed and educating oneself.  case in point: sarah palin, ordinary (and i do mean ordinary) person as potential vice president.

this election is very important. but whoever wins is screwed and frankly, so is the world. i think either way, we're looking at a one-term president, because no one can possibly excel with what they're being handed by bush and his clueless crew. they got us into this mess in eight short years, but who will get us out and how long will it take? meanwhile, the world looks on in shock, as if staring at the smoking remains of a train wreck. unfortunately, it's all too real. and, as paul valéry once said, "the trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be."

we likey the linkies

i have lots of things on my mind this morning. everything from the latest sarah palin-enduced madness (more about that in a minute) to the nobel prize for literature (more about that too) to iceland's collapse (i wonder if that means a big sale at magasin du nord?) to my new mac paint pots in constructivist (love the 1913 russian connotation of that) and blackground to going out for drinks & dinner with a good friend this evening to finding a cafe to settle down in to write this afternoon (i need a change of scenery) to TtV photos and macro lenses (more about that in a minute as well) to twitter (it's such fun--like mini-blogging) to a fabulous sandwich i just invented--tuna salad with roasted garlic pepper on a wholesome wasa cracker that's smeared with creamy danish blue cheese, to sitting down and learning to knit in earnest.  and that's an awful lot to think about on a friday morning.

i read this morning in information (the intellectual danish newspaper) that a former bush campaign guy (castellanos--guy who did his campaign ads and is now a commentator on CNN) says that sarah palin is the future of the republican party. i had heard it on BBC World the other day as well, but had blocked it out (the mind has a wonderful way of doing that with things it can't comprehend).  i don't actually know whether to laugh or cry. in a way, it's excellent, as it undoubtedly spells doom for the republicans. but mostly, it's a totally worrying development. if she is really the future then the world is in big trouble. or perhaps we are simply witnessing the decline of the american empire. i suppose it was similar in the twilight hours of the roman empire as well...watching a great power fade into if not obscurity, at least utter irrelevance at the hands of idiots. our leaders should have the cultural capital to lead and this woman so lacks in every way that it leaves me both breathless and speechless. i can only say that this morning's sorted book stack, which positively leapt off the shelves at me, expresses it better than i can.

so my thoughts moved on to the nobel prize for literature (which has nothing to do with the flower above, i just liked that picture). the swedish academy announced yesterday that they had chosen some obscure french guy, Le Clézio. what's interesting about it isn't that they chose some obscure writer no one had ever heard of or at least who hadn't really been heard of/from in years (they almost always do that), but more the hoopla surrounding comments made by horace engdahl, permanent secretary of the swedish academy, a few weeks ago about how the prize would not be awarded to an american because american literature is too isolated and insular. huh? tho' i have never been a big aficionado of american literature, i think some good stuff has come out of the US that would surely be nobel-worthy--think philip roth, paul auster, joyce carol oates and perhaps someone like jonathan franzen down the road, depending on what else he produces. but to call these writers isolated and insular and to actually say that they have an "ignorance that's restraining" is totally absurd. however, my choice would also be a non-american--murakami, murakami, murakami! strangely, the swedish academy did not consult me.

so, moving on...

my TtV contraption. 

it's a wonderful fall day outside, so i wandered the yard with my camera(s), played a bit with my macro lens and the old camera i got for TtV photography. i'm still experimenting, but got this shot of the fading hydrangea:

i do really, really adore the shape of my viewfinder on the old ideal. i am, however, going to be on the lookout for other options in the antique stores.

on that note, i will make my way into the city, find a café to settle into (without wireless, since the 'net is my whole problem) and try to get some work done.  i wish you all a lovely and relaxing weekend.

reality t.v. and inspiration

i'm jetlagging. i wake up promptly at 4:30 a.m. these days. and because i'm wide awake, i just get up. i actually quite like it, because i can sip my chai in quiet, early morning darkness and ponder things...things like how although obama won, we still aren't rid of sarah palin. she's busily being spoon fed fox TV opportunities to appear innocent and maligned by the meanies in washington. and people are still writing her love letters like this one (it's really quite hilarious, do go read it). and it struck me that she actually thinks she's some kind of winner on some (far) stranger than fiction reality show. then again, what reality show isn't stranger than fiction? the problem for me is that although we voted her off, she's STILL HERE, so it's like some especially perverse twisted reality show from hell. i do wish they'd stop broadcasting it soon.

* * *

but, thinking about reality t.v. reminds me of some concepts that husband and i once came up with for reality programs. one of our best friends is head of entertainment at the danish t.v. channel that i like to think of as the CSI channel. but, in addition to CSI, they also have a few locally-produced reality programs. gems like "farmer wants a wife" and "gay army" and "the young mothers," which could soon offer a spot to bristol palin (but i digress).   husband and i pitched the following to her:

1. gay construction--very flamboyantly gay men are given asphalt and paving equipment and asked to lay some road.
2. near miss--ordinary people as air traffic controllers in some of the world's busiest airports.
3. quack docs--ordinary people performing surgery on willing victims. we figured with the whole me-me-me culture of fame that there were enough stupid people out there on both sides to make half a dozen episodes or so.

strangely, despite how clearly inspired these ideas are, our friend didn't actually take any of them further...

* * *

and speaking of inspiration, in order to escape the SP channel, i went looking in the blogosphere for inspiration. and i found some here. and here. and here as well. and i totally love this, i mean who doesn't need some encouragement? and there's always so much inspiration on flickr.

i love the echoes journal so much, the notion of selecting and photographing objects, then trading them with three others and photographing them again is so appealing. does anyone want to do something similar? i'm seeing a cross-continental collaboration...won't you please play along?

insecurities and haunted castles

i packaged up and sent off the very first order from my long-procrastinated etsy shop this morning. if i had realized exactly how motivating that act would be, i would have done it a long time ago (oh please, who am i kidding, i probably wouldn't have, i would have procrastinated it exactly as i did). it is a bit with trepidation that i did it, as all sorts of "am i good enough" thoughts swirl in my head. why do we do that to ourselves? is it the small town girl in me? is it a woman thing? is it because i went to grad school at the university of chicago where self-doubt comes complimentary with every degree? why is my head filled with the idea that i might not be worthy of having someone buy what i have created? do i have to go all stuart smalley here and repeat an "i'm good enough, i'm smart enough and doggone it, people like me" mantra? so i'm trying to fight those thoughts and focus on the feelings of inspiration and motivation i also feel from packing the things up and getting them ready to send. and new ideas are already popping into my head, some of which actually do not include eyeballs, believe it or not. :-)

* * *

a lazy weekend stretches ahead. sabin's downstairs finding carrots to give to silver star after her riding lesson. we made red velvet cupcakes last night and we'll take a couple of those for her instructor and the sweet little girl who helps out with the lessons. i'm wondering if the woman who looks like sarah palin  will be there today. i have a hard time not staring at her.  i sneaked this picture of her last time. isn't it uncanny? that's her daughter in the light pink sweater on the left. couldn't she probably pass for piper palin? poor family, i wonder if they know...

* * *

we're going to dinner this evening at my favorite little castle. it's called dragsholm slot. it's haunted and is totally one of my favorite places. it's been a couple of years since i was there and the last time, we kept the ghosts at bay by singing around a piano, or did we try to coax them out, i don't really remember anymore:

through the years, i've used it as a venue for workshops whenever i could. the food is great (the chef is french), the wine list top notch (which is why can't really recall if we were trying to attract or repel the ghosts above) and while it's a bit worn and slightly shabby, it's super charming and inviting, despite, or maybe because of, the ghosts. i hope we might run into them this evening. i'd love my last experience at 41 to be an other-worldly encounter.  i'll definitely be back with more stories and photos from there tomorrow.

it gave me goosebumps!

i was a little bit worried when i heard that the obama campaign had bought 30 minute spots on the networks and cable channels. i wondered if it would be overkill. i needn't have worried. i sat this morning at my computer and watched it with goosebumps and occasional tears in my eyes. there is just such a contrast between the hope and positivity of obama and the vitriol and negativity of mcpalin. obama presents his ideas and his plans, everything i hear from the opponents is not about what they intend to do, but about how bad what obama is going to do is. they don't seem to have ideas and obama has nothing BUT ideas. but don't take my word for it, watch it for yourself:



and don't forget to have a look at obama's appearance on jon stewart. he's funny and totally able to laugh at himself. brilliant.  and one last link, if you didn't see michelle obama's appearance on leno, you've gotta watch it, even if, like me, you're not a leno fan. she's gonna make an awesome first lady--she's smart, gracious, humble and funny. we couldn't wish for more!

P.S.  if you'd like to let out a cheer, go read "the mandatory rejection of sarah palin" by bob cesca. so, so spot on.

friday lists

very busy day ahead....here's my list (because we know i love lists):

1. lots of work to do (yes, i do work, believe it or not, i just don't sleep enough)--it's this work that's currently giving me nightmares about global warming and the environment in general. 
2. hair appointment (desperately needed, nearly unable to appear in public). 
3. thing at child's school where parents must buy middle ages inspired things made by twenty-first century danish children over the past week (i saw piles of cool leather in a classroom this week, so i'm looking forward to that). 
4. having visitors from north carolina for dinner (they are not the dinner, we intend to serve dinner to them). 
5. figuring out how to connect macbook pro to big-ass flatscreen t.v. for gala confirmation party on saturday. 
6. transporting said t.v. + Wii, wiimotes and basket o'Wii games to party location without breaking or losing any of it or having to strap self to roof of elderly toyota to serve as cushion for big-ass t.v.
   
7. creating playlist for party and putting it on one of our many iPods.
8. clean out horribly dirty ancient yet reliable toyota so husband can transport the north carolinians without being completely humiliated.
9. thank heavens for GEC* and the EU because they have brought me my beautiful, wonderful, fabulous sent-from-heaven cleaning girl from poland.
10. figure out what the hell this is:

edited: second picture added for full effect:

seriously, these are the only two extra large phallic protrubences (is that a word, it's the second time i've used it this week) on this tree. i know i said that the entire plant world is behaving in an overtly sexual manner, but this is simply carrying it a bit far.

* * *

and because it's a friday a mini grateful friday list, i always forget to do these, but i love that del remembers and she's the one who originally gave me the idea. it's good for the soul to stop and think about what you're grateful for right now at this very moment (in totally random order, if it was order of importance, 3 would be 1, followed by 5 and then 6 or perhaps 4 (if husband brings home asparagus, we get them both at once)).

1. someone from the middle of siberia visited my blog (or so site meter told me). for some reason, that just tickles me. maybe because i studied in kazan and although that's not siberia, i felt the pull of siberia from there, so it's always held some fascination. i'd like to go there and dig up a frozen wooly mammoth.
2. this whole zany week of the bestowing of BoN by the blogger illuminati (thanks suecae sounds for that apt word) and the influx of new friends--thank you all so much for stopping by! double thank you for following. and quadruple thank you for the comments. looking forward to getting to know you better.
3. all of my "old" blog friends, who've been here with me through all the rants and the laughter and that whole thing with sarah palin.  you guys totally rock.
4. that husband's coming home today after being away at a course all week. 
5. there's a lovely south african chenin blanc in the fridge (6 bottles of it, to be exact).
6. asparagus is in season.
7. the sun has shined all week.
8. the birch pollen counts are already on their way down (my eyes are grateful for this).
9. jon stewart and episodes of the daily show that are only a day old.
10. that i don't have to do anything special on sunday.

 i wish you all a most glorious weekend and i hope you have lots to be grateful for this friday. and if anyone knows why that tree produced two mutant pine-cone-agtig thingies when all the rest of its pinecones are totally normal and petite, please do let me know about that....botanists...anyone...bueller?

* GEC = global economic crisis (i get tired of typing it out)

pondering the world she will inherit

four years ago at this time, this blog was filled with politics. after eight years of dubya, and with the colorful figure of sarah palin (i actually kinda miss her) involved, i just couldn't get politics off the brain. plus, the air was filled with hope and promise with obama in the race. now, four years later, i find i feel much less passionately about it. and i don't feel even a glimmer of hope. what i feel is an inability to comprehend and a great degree of fear for the world which my child will inherit.

that said, i think obama is getting a bad rap. memories are short as to the mess he was handed after eight years of dubya. no one really yet knew at that point what the financial crisis meant. i would postulate that we still don't fully know. but he does seem to be a bit mired down. partially in an uncooperative house and senate and partially in an overwhelming array of things gone wrong. there aren't any easy answers.

i am bewildered that anyone could possibly be against universal healthcare. just read this story by nicholas kristof and tell me it makes sense. we have universal health care in denmark and although i was frustrated last winter with my local doctor, that had far more to do with a lack of customer service-mindedness than it had to do with socialized medicine. it is an enormous relief to know that if something is wrong...sabin falling from her horse in a riding lesson...we don't have to hesitate to go to the ER to find out if her collar bone is broken. we don't even think twice (tho' next time, we will get food before we go there, as there can be a wait - but that's true of ERs everywhere and again, has nothing to do with socialized medicine).

i am puzzled that anyone accepts the rhetoric against women being spewed by the republican party. it is the twenty-first century and it's simply unacceptable that in the so-called developed world there should be any question about access to birth control or a woman's decision-making ability over her own body.

and how romney can be forgiven for his 47% statement, made to a group of people he was sure were like-minded. he has said outright that he has no respect for half of the population. he won't release his tax returns. and he doesn't give a single detail of any concrete plan. and his supporters and their shirts saying, "let's put the white back in the white house" are simply beyond shameful. how anyone with a functioning brain can consider voting for him is beyond me.

but i really, truly don't get people who should seriously not be voting republican - for example, because they are living in a lesbian partnership and work for the federal government on an indian reservation and until recently had a child that was in state-sponsored care in a home - are intending to do so. because that seriously makes no sense.

it's like there's another logic in play in the US, one to which i no longer have access.

but that said, i have cast my absentee ballot for obama. i think he's the best choice if i want the world to still be a place i can in good conscience hand over to my child. plus, i want my president to be smarter than me. and i'm sure he's that. i can't say the same for slippery mittens romney.

6th annual halloween party

every year, we try to rise to new heights of creativity with our halloween party. i do my part in the area of refreshments and husband does things like moving the target shooting indoors (yes, upstairs above the new kitchen, they shot at cans) and building a pulley system so they could hoist one another up to look at a selection of items that were up high and try to remember as many of them as possible. the girls put together creepy candy bags in rubber gloves.

inspired, as always, by pinterest, i sent karoline out to cut me some sticks for my caramel apples.

we don't have kraft caramels here, so i had to make homemade (thank goodness). it took time, but it is out-of-this-world delicious. besides, it takes time to unwrap all those kraft caramels from their plastic wrappers too and at least this way, i knew went into them.

i had a bit of the 7-minute frosting left from the cupcakes and dipped the last apples in that when i ran out of caramel. it's funny, those four were the ones that went first.

a vampire came by and bit into each of our cupcakes. the cupcakes were chocolate, into which i threw a big bowlful of freshly-picked raspberries (our unseasonably warm temperatures mean the raspberries are still going strong). with cream cheese frosting, they were delicious.

cookie cutters and ready-made puff pastry sprinkled with poppy seeds and a spicy seasoning made for light little airy critter snacks.

and coolest of all chicken wing "bats." we told the kids that we'd gotten lucky out at the butcher in farre and were able to source some fresh bats for the party. a number of them believed it and wouldn't eat them. bwah-ha-ha.  a good time was had by all, even tho' they're in 7th grade now and some have to pretend to be bored. they weren't.

* * *

this will make you want to fix breakfast for dinner.

* * *

laura's piece on the politics of food will get you thinking about what you put on your table.
it's worth the time it takes to read it thoroughly.

* * *

just when you thought sarah palin couldn't get any dumber, she says this.
and i link to it even tho' snopes says it's a hoax.
it's still pretty plausible for her.

by the way...

if you're tired of all of my political ranting, you can see serene pictures of our recent autumn holiday, recipes and the latest fruits of our creative outbursts over on just know where you are. and yes, there are a couple of more light-hearted sarah palin things over there, like a thing about her hair, so you don't get to entirely escape the politics.

secret 19 - when i grow up

as kids we all go through phases as to what we say we want to be when we grow up. we try them on and abandon them for different reasons. over the years, i've wanted to be:

: : a paleontologist - abandoned this idea rather early when i decided that all the good dinosaur bones would be discovered by the time i grew up.

: : a lawyer - this is the thing i assumed i would be for years. right up until i didn't get into law school.

: : a riding instructor - i actually carried around application materials for johnson & wales college in rhode island for this. i think i just wanted a really cool trunk for my riding equipment and i never did really apply.

: : governor of the state i grew up in - yup, i could have been the sarah palin of the upper midwest. or not.

: : russian literature professor - got the farthest towards this one. but then life took me in another direction. and i never really liked the teaching that much, what i liked was the writing and the research. and the theory. oh, the theory. still love that.

: : spy - abandoned when i realized that i never really could keep a secret and that if i were to spy it would most likely be for the other side (due to deep and abiding loathing for ronald reagan).

: : writer - i've always thought there was a highly autobiographical novel in me, waiting to come out. it might still. when the conditions are exactly right. it's kinda why we built that whole writing house place in the garden.

: : stewardess - this one never really seems to go away. it stays in the back of my head and although stewardesses are really just waitresses in the sky, i still have some kind of romantic picture of that job in my head (despite how much time i spend on planes).

jobs i've actually done:

: : secretary - a couple of times, once to the vice president of a refrigeration company and once to the head of a foundation.

: : newsroom gopher - at a daily paper during college. spent a lot of time at the courthouse writing down who had gotten all those public intox and public urination tickets on the weekend. i also had to call all the bars and find out what bands were playing where, so i always knew what was going on. that was cool.

: : waitress in my favorite pub - it really was a pub and i was hanging out there so much i decided i might as well get paid for it.

: : eLearning developer - making training materials for a product i knew very little about. ha! funny how that can happen.

: : middle management - responsibility for big budgets and some 200 days a year of travel.

: : journalist - now i'm editing a magazine.

and here we come to the secret...i still don't know what i want to be when i grow up. do you?

updating "about me"

with new people joining this year's flickr group - postcards to blog camp, i found myself typing an introduction of myself over there. since the group isn't a 365, but more of a community founded on last year's 365 and others who love their cameras and/or blog camp, it's not too late to join us (so get on over to flickr and request an invite)!! but anyway, what came out when i introduced myself there seemed like a good update of my bloggy "about me" page, so i thought i'd share it with you here, since there are also lots of new faces around here. you can also find it on the "about me" tab above.

i'm american, but have lived in denmark for a dozen years (and counting) after following a very cute danish boy home from the balkans in the late 90s. i still have my US passport (unless sarah palin becomes president - then i'll be giving it up and applying not only for a danish one but asylum on the grounds of cruel jokes played by the universe (but i digress)).  in the past year, we (my danish husband, who is actually called husband, and our daughter, sabin) moved to a falling-down farm property in the uncool part of denmark (jutland), which i promptly tried to convince everyone was "the new black," (no one believed it). the property itself isn't falling down, just the house, which was built in 1895. but we have a lake and room for a pony and the land itself is beautiful, so we're happy to have to spend the next ten years tearing it down and rebuilding it getting it the way we want it.

i struggle all the time with trying to live a simpler, less consumer-oriented life, but then apple comes out with some fabulous new product and i fall once again..sigh. but our move to the farm is part of that seeking simplicity...we'll soon have a big garden and intend to get a few pigs and chickens so we know where our eggs and bacon are coming from. hoping to live a bit of that old BBC series - the good life - but with ultra-modern, attractive and well-designed electronics.

i recently left a job that was crushing my spirit and am excited about a new venture i'm starting with a friend i met first here in the blogosphere and then in real life. so you never know where your bloggy friendships might take you.

i love nikons, iPhones, horses, cats, bunnies, my macbook air, the iPad (you're getting the picture on the appleism, right?), sewing, quilting, stitching, pretty paper, cooking, antiques and traveling. i'm not very religious (unless you count the appleism) and i don't much like capital letters.

articles of interest

in light of my concern about living an insufficiently intellectual life, i bring you articles of interest:

1. on the architecture of airports. a review of a couple of new books on airports and why air travel went from glamorous futuristic ideal to drudgery (which i don't agree with, except when i transit at heathrow.  or charles de gaulle).
2. apparently the danes, those happy folks , have come out on top of the happiest in the world survey, again for 2008.  this article, written by a brit who has lived in denmark for years explains why.
3. because i can't resist another small shot at sarah palin, i give you this article, likening her as a phenomenon to the pet rock.
4. i'm always interested in language and how it expresses...well...anything at all. this article explores why we express abstract feelings as temperatures. is there an actual psychological connection between coldness and being excluded?
5. and because i travel so much, this piece on travel writing from world hum caught my eye. tho', i was a bit surprised to see someone being referred to as postmodern in a headline. i thought postmodernism was so over.

all of these links came from arts & letters daily, which i use as my homepage, in an attempt to remind me to keep a life of the mind alive on a daily basis. and i've been doing that for years, not just since i attended the symposium for peter. i guess when something becomes routine, it loses its meaning for us. so, this morning, i really had a look, rather than sailing immediately past into my gmail.

happy weekend everyone!

further proof of a world gone mad

cross-processed expired slide film in lomo fisheye2

this morning when i took sabin to school i heard a woman on the radio enthusiastically talking about her new book. i missed the title of the book and the woman's name (ya gotta cut me some slack, i've got pneumonia and my brain is bruised from all of the coughing), but the premise of the book was that Sex in the City has indelibly changed culture. in her words, the bible had ten commandments, but sex in the city has only one: "be fabulous." it was a given, to her, that this makes sex in the city vastly superior.

she went on to argue that the cultural seachange wrought by sex in the city was one of the cool, hip independent woman who doesn't need a man. i may not have seen every episode of carrie and her cohorts, but in those i have seen, the age old striving for a man and a relationship has been pretty much the main focus. that and shoes. and freakishly thin women with a lot of issues. and i'm not sure how that has really advanced us (women) as a species. other than perhaps upgrading how we look upon shoes, which frankly was already pretty much a priority for many of us even before they came along. but according to this woman, it's got something to do with a hip new yorker attitude. blah, blah, blah.

what is wrong with the world where someone can get PUBLISHED and go on the radio with such an absurd premise? the next thing you know, sarah palin will be president....

how long could YOU survive?

I could survive for 1 minute, 6 seconds chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor
Created by Bunk Beds Pedia

p.s. this is all andi's fault. :-) but was rather fun. i hope i never have to find out if it's true (tho' if the dinosaurs were alive together with jesus, as sarah palin suggests, there could be some hanging about). and i do wish that the first question had included an answer as to whether one had been a wrestling cheerleader, because i had that one covered.

monday links and ramblings

i've expended a lot energy, not to mention time, being outraged about sarah palin, but will admit that it's cooling. not least after reading this article about how all of her antics should make us laugh, not cry. is this whole thing just because we crave entertainment? of course, we should remember that she's most definitely not harmless, but we must admit that it's been pretty entertaining.



at first i wondered how i would survive until election day and now i'm wondering what i'll do to fill the void when the election is over. although we don't yet know the result, i suppose i already feel anticlimactic because i've voted and sent off my ballot. not to mention that i vote in illinois, which is a pretty sure bet obama state. i've done my part and i know you'll all do yours.

* * *

lest you guys think all i do is read about politics, i hereby offer some of the other, totally non-political things i've been reading:

1. will we eventually download books from amazon directly into our brains? this is a discussion that husband and i have very often...where evolution will lead humans and whether the internet is in fact the stirrings of the next life form?

ok, i looked around and realized that's pretty much the only non-political, non-work-related article i've read of late. man, it's bad. i will be glad to have my brain back when this election is over, so i can fill it much more stimulating things...like why madonna and guy ritchie are splitting!?

* * *

the mailman just came and brought me this and this:

tangobaby's fabulous chinatown book!

and a beautiful print

and two of those little moo cards

(NOW i know what they are, even if i still don't know what it stands for!)

thank you, tangobaby, madame president!

* * *

and because it was a rainy, dreary weekend, made for staying indoors and baking organic chickens and squash and making warming curries, and because this blog has become way too much politics and way too little inspiration, i hereby share the weekend's creativity:

working with mathilde (husband's middle daughter), we made two pillows for her bedroom, using some cute japanese matrioshka fabric (the fabric is japanese, not the matrioshki, they're russian) from etsy (which can't be linked to at the moment due to scheduled maintenance) and a couple of lush anna maria horner fabrics.

and i'm working on a small lap quilt, made entirely of anna maria horner fabrics:

i got the top done and will reward myself today with a trip to get the batting and backing fabric, if i finish the writing i need to get done (and which is fast becoming urgent, which may be just what i need to be able to finish it). but yes, i've reached the point where i have to threaten myself and then promise rewards. i'm clearly a bad parent.

on that note, i'm off to write...it's the same piece i've been struggling with for the past several weeks. i think i'm struggling because i actually care too much about it and want to get it just right. do you ever have things you do that with? and if so, how do you get out of it! i'm open to any and all good advice! because i've written about ten different versions of this thing and none of them are right and thus far, i've been unable to combine them into something i can live with. but, today, i shall succeed!!!