Ryu of Japan on Mom's Birthday

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Mom and I celebrated her birthday at Ryu of Japan after reading an awesome review by Boots in the Oven.  My parents' favorite cuisine is Japanese.  Dad can't get enough of sashimi and sukiyaki while mom can't do without hamachi kama.
We decided to skip ordering dinner entrees altogether in favor of several courses of appetizers.
We began with a small dish of monkfish liver, which unsurprisingly has a texture similar to foie gras but on the drier side.  It was quite delicious but I kept wishing I could pair each bite with a carb like rice or baguette!
Ankimo (monkfish liver)
The Ryu Special was basically a trio of sashimi (tuna, salmon, and yellowtail) rolled up in cucumber.  This was light and summery, delicious but hard to keep intact.

Ryu's Special - salmon, yellowtail, and tuna sashimi wrapped in cucumber with shiso and roe
Agedashi tofu is as standard as udon at Japanese restaurants but Ryu's is heavenly.  The broth that the fried pieces of tofu was soaking in really made this dish sing.

Agedashi Tofu
I was a bit underwhelmed by the ginger eggplant.  It was good, but a little bland even with the lovely curling bonito shavings.

Nasu No Shogayaki - ginger eggplant with bonito shavings
Mom and I always reminisce about the whole grilled squid served at the cafeteria in the Japanese department store, Shirokiya, in Honolulu.  I grew up scarfing down Shirokiya's smokey ikayaki.  We were super excited to see ikayaki on Ryu's menu, but this version just can't compare to Shirokiya's.  It's a bit tough and although it's grilled, Ryu's ika doesn't have that intense smokiness present in Shirokiya's version.

Ikayaki - grilled squid
No Japanese meal is complete without hamachi kama for my mom.  This was simply prepared with a sprinkle of salt and grilled.  This dish never falters.

Hamachi Kama - yellowtail collar
The next few dishes were fillers for the meal.  The trio of sashimi were fresh, the spider roll was a bit heavy on the eel sauce but otherwise quite satisfying, and the hotate hokkai was my one regret.  Instead of whole scallops, we got scallop bits that were indiscernible among the bigger chunks of chopped krab and smothered in spicy mayo.  It was a wreck.

Salmon, Tuna, and Yellowtail Sashimi
Spider Roll
Hotate Hokkai - broiled scallops with roe and mayo
But rather than leave you with a bad impression, the overall meal was delicious and affordable.  I've complained about how I can't seem to find a traditional Japanese restaurant that doesn't break the bank in Austin, and Ryu has given me a reason to stop whining.
Happy Birthday, Mom!

Sustainable Food Center Farmers' Market Republic Square Park and Bola Pizza

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I've been in Austin for around seven years, and I finally made my way to the Sustainable Food Center Farmers' Market in downtown two weeks ago.  I can't believe I've been denying myself this weekend pleasure for so long!  
Just look at the gorgeous veggies!











The reason why the idea of finally visiting SFC Farmers' Market in downtown dawned on me was because I wanted to get a taste of Bola Pizza, which I read about on Austin Chronicle's 2011 Restaurant Poll.

Bola Pizza
Bola Pizza offers freshly made pizza hot from their mobile wood-fired oven 9 AM - 1 PM Saturdays at SFC Farmers' Market downtown and Wednesdays at the Triangle 4 PM - 8 PM.
I chose The Godfather from the vegetarian-friendly menu because I can't seem to ween myself away from meat ingredients on my pizza.  I behaved like an annoying fly, fluttering about my pizza, capturing each step of the pizza-making process.  
Making our Godfather Pizza
The Sauce
The Mozzarella
The Hot Fennel Sausage
The Caramelized Onions
In the Mobile Wood-fired Oven
In the box with the smell wafting out and drinking it all in with a peach ginger lemonade from another vendor
The Godfather
The result?  Beautiful!  The pizza dough is the best I've tasted in Austin!  It's slightly chewy, with a tint of sourdough-like tartness.  Each bite of caramelized onions and hot fennel sausage was a balanced explosion of sweet and spicy juices.  I'm glad I got to try Bola before leaving Austin!

Ray's Hell Burger

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I arrived in DC during the peak of summer, which happened to be the time of year when I seek out good burgers.  I remember reading about Obama taking to Medvedev to Ray's Hell Burger earlier in 2010.  I didn't get excited about the place until I read their menu, which is packed with luxurious toppings like roasted bone marrow with persillade!!!!  How can you not get excited by that?
Decisions, Decisions!
Ray's Hell Burger Team
Strawberry Shake
Au Poivre Patty with Gouda and Cognac and Sherry Sauteed Mushrooms
Unfortunately, by the time I arrived at Ray's for an early bird dinner, they had already run out of bone marrow for the day.  Utterly downtrodden by that, I comforted myself with an awesome complimentary topping - cognac and sherry sauteed mushrooms - and paid extra for gouda. 
The burger was hearty, flavorful, and juicy, but it's truly humongous.  I couldn't finish all of it, and burgers just don't taste right reheated.  I recommend sharing with a buddy at Ray's to avoid wasting the delicious and pricey burger.

Mount Pleasant Children's Puppet Hour

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The Mount Pleasant Children's Puppet Hour returns this Saturday. The location is Saint Stephen's Church located at 16th and Newton Sts NW. From the organizers:
"It's time for the 5th Mount Pleasant Children's Puppet Hour! We have a great line-up of performers and shows:

Melissa Klein presents "The Paper Bag Princess"
Michael Cotter of Blue Sky Puppets presents "Will Anything Go Right for a Little Bear?"
David Greenfieldboyce presents "Little Cloud" with music by Christian Crowley
Jeanine Padgett and Jim Sheehan present "Vent"
Wit's End Puppets present "Coyote Places the Stars"

And music from Seth Buchsbaum, Alicia Koundakjian and Justin Moyer

4:00 Saturday, February 16th
Saint Stephen's Church, 1525 Newton St NW
Suggested donation $5

Like us on Facebook to hear about upcoming events!
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mount-Pleasant-Childrens-Puppet-Hour/326086867452529
For more info, email puppet_hour@yahoo.com"
PS There's a great benefit show (benefiting Fort Reno music series) in the same space later that evening. Good friends Gist and Möbius Strip are playing. Very cool.

Friday Fun Post: 90s Redux

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Enjoy this classsick track from 90s stars Pete Rock + CL Smooth. "They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)" is off of 1992's Mecca and the Soul Brother. The whole album was a beast. One of the more complete hip hop albums from the 90s. Luckily it came out before the scales tipped all the way to west coast party/gangsta rap. Mecca was one of the first CDs I ever purchased. Back when they were all $17.99 and came in that long flimsy cardboard box. Heh. Compact discs. Have a great weekend.

Deer Hunting With Jesus: Dispatches From America's Class War by Joe Bageant

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Published in 2007 by Crown Publishers

Just to get it out of the way, Joe Bageant (1946-2011) and I differ politically despite sharing similar roots. We both grew up in rural  America near a working class town. We both were educated in the local public schools and left to go to college and never really went back except to visit (although do I live in a working class neighborhood in the city). Admittedly, his town (Winchester, Virginia) is a little more poor and run down than mine but I may be remembering my home with rose-colored glasses and he may be intentionally focusing on the worst aspects of his.

But, Bageant did return to Winchester. He returned to be a foreign correspondent of sorts. His aim is to explain white working-class America ("...that churchgoing, hunting and fishing Bud Light-drinking, provincial America...the people who cannot, and do not care to, locate Iraq or France on a map - assuming they even own an atlas." [p.2]) to the left-leaning, college-educated urban wine and cheese set.

Bageant's prose is interesting and lively, but prone to exaggeration, much like a liberal version of P.J. O'Rourke or like the overwrought rantings of stand up comics like Dennis Leary or Lewis Black or Dennis Miller. His points are there and based on real situations but he takes liberties to make his point or to get a good punchline so take everything with a grain of salt. For example, he argues that Presidents don't come from modest beginnings in a rather nice rant but since FDR they all have except for the Kennedys and the Bushes (and maybe Carter, but the other two families were far, far richer than his).

And, sometimes his devotion to a certain line of thought leads him to contradictory comments. For example, he deplores the way social security does not take care of widows very well and how it does not pay enough to really take care of a retired worker. But, he rants against any sort of privatization of Social Security over and over again (you may remember that Bush43 tried to reform Social Security right after he re-election) even though the proposed reforms were modeled after programs that let workers pass on the proceeds of their investments to their widowed spouses or even their children.  See page 236-242 for the longest rant on this topic.

Clearly, Bageant does not seem to grasp the religious aspect of Winchester. He does not completely belittle religious belief but he does not understand it. I was struck by an incident early on in the book. He does not grasp the profound generosity of a small congregation of relatively poor people that buys an old pickup truck for a couple that lost theirs to repossession. The congregation has little money and yet they pool what little they have together to  give two of its members an expensive gift (even an old truck costs several hundred dollars). I find that to be a remarkable act of Christian charity. Instead, he dismisses the whole thing with a single comment.

Bageant does a fabulous job of explaining guns, gun rights and notes correctly on page 129 that beginning in the 1960s the left  was "arrogant and insulting because they associated all gun owners with criminals but were politically stupid."

Generally, I found the book to be very entertaining, full of interesting commentary but incorrect in almost all of its conclusions.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.
Reviewed on February 16, 2012.

The American Spirit: Celebrating the Virtues and Values that Make Us Great by Edwin J. Feulner and Brian Tracy

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An introduction to Conservatism

Published in 2012 by Thomas Nelson

The American Spirit lists twenty "virtues and values" that serve to introduce the reader to the basics of Conservatism. These virtues and values include Patriotism, Responsibility, Optimism, Honesty, Faith, Tolerance and Open-Mindedness, Idealistic Realism, Problem Solving and Courage.

As I noted above, the book is an introduction to Conservatism. I am a Conservative and have been reading Conservative literature for a long time. The discussion is "bite-sized" rather than far-ranging and deep and is bound to be a little simplistic. For example, during the discussion on education there is praise for the idea of rating schools A-F but no discussion of the criteria that go into rating schools, or even if a central government (in this case a state government) should even be inserting itself into education and giving schools a letter grade. After all, education has long been a traditional function of local government bodies (such as your local school board) and Conservatism tends to favor local control to that of a centralized bureaucracy. Also, there is no discussion of the proper role of the federal government in education. Should the central government be making a single policy for everyone?

Sometimes the author get on a roll in their effusive praise of American that they go a step or two too far. On page 30 the authors assert that "With rare exceptions like the printing press, the greatest innovations, inventions and discoveries in human history have come since the founding of the United States and in the United States." (emphasis mine) Wow. I can name any number of items that are very important to the world that were not invented in America first, such as the automobile, the electric motor, rocket weapons, the radio and jet engines. Now, did America help perfect them or make them commonplace? Sure. But, why the need for exaggeration?

But, most of the book is solid, conservative thought with some great quotes thrown in. The discussion about the debt is relevant and well-done as was the section called The Law. If you are a regular reader of American Spectator or National Review this book will offer nothing new. If you are a newbie to Conservatism it should prove interesting and thought-provoking.

This book was provided to me at no charge by the publisher in exchange for an honest review through the Amazon Vine program.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.
Reviewed on February 20, 2013.

Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government by P.J. O'Rourke

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Originally published in 1991.
I read the 1992 Vintage Books paperback edition.

Dated but still has teeth.

P.J. O'Rourke goes after the ridiculousness that is the federal government with his trademark irreverent style in this 1991 book. Some of the commentary is dated (lots of talk about the forgettable 1988 presidential election with Republican George H.W. Bush going against Democrat Michael Dukakis. Also, the first one I voted in) but some of it is incredibly relevant. For example, the story of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHSTA) looking into the mystery of suddenly accelerating Audis 1n 1986 was reminiscent of the same problem with Toyotas that filled the news channels in 2009 and 2010.

Perhaps O'Rourke's most famous line comes from this book: "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." (pg. xvii in the preface) This sentiment is pretty typical of the book as a whole and one that I generally agree with. O'Rourke talks with former advisors to presidents, shadows a congressman, talks with lobbyists, bureaucrats, policeman, people who live in atrocious government "projects" built for the poor to live in, and more.

P.J. O'Rourke

O'Rourke notes on page 36: "It is a popular delusion that the government wastes vast amounts of money through inefficiency and sloth. Enormous effort and elaborate planning are required to waste this much money." And, O'Rourke proceeds to show the reader how and makes a solid case for a smaller, leaner government. He also explains how it got to be such a mess.

There are times when he fails to make his case. For me, the chapter on agriculture ("Agricultural Policy: How to Tell Your Ass From This Particular Hole in the Ground") was a nice lesson on overlapping government programs that seem absurd. For example, he bemoans the fact that there are so many government interventions that the marketplace is not really a factor in agricultural policy. That is true enough, but he negates his own argument on page 148 when he notes that "Cheap plentiful food is the precondition for human advancement. When there isn't enough food, everybody has to spend all of his time getting fed and nobody has a minute to invent law, architecture or big clubs to hit cave bears on the head with...we wouldn't grow food, we'd be food." O'Rourke seems to miss (or ignore) that the convoluted system of price supports, payments to keep fields idle and grants have the practical result of keeping plenty of extra food being produced and more than enough producers on hand. That way, if there is a massive drought (like the drought of 2012) there is plenty of food to make up for it. Because it is deals with food, the system is rigged to encourage over-production. Could it be more efficient? Sure. Could it be done smarter? Sure. But, O'Rourke fails to make his case that it should not be done at all.

O'Rourke's look into anti-poverty programs demonstrate that they were not working and that poverty is not easily solved and "You can't get rid of poverty by giving people money." (pg. 128, emphasis his) If nothing else, this chapters reveals that O'Rourke is not simply a know-it-all. He knows that he does not know how to "fix" poverty and that government is certainly no doing a good job of it, either.

This is an entertaining read, even if you don't agree with all of his conclusions. I started this book one day when I misplaced the book I had been reading. In just a couple of pages I knew had to finish this one first. Entertaining, often profane, never boring.

I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars.
Reviewed on February 22, 2013.

Tell Us Something We Don't Know

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Wiki Leaks is slipping. In a case of stating the obvious, their latest "disclosure" shows the U.S. Government having reached the conclusion that the Saudi's have been significantly overstating the amount of their oil "reserves," and that we can expect a shortfall of promised deliveries within a year. Why would they do such a thing? Could it have to do with their certain knowledge that the revelation of their dramatically falling production rates would cause a spike in oil prices, at once causing the world to spiral into a deeper recession while also providing a (late, even belated) effort to develop "alternatives"?

Charmingly, the Yahoo news doesn't have a clue. They suggest that the upshot of this disclosure reveals that the Saudis will face "peak oil," missing the point that as go the Saudi's, so goes the world. And, "Yahoo" draws the conclusion that this will be bad news for SUV drivers. Not to mention industrial civilization.

Yea, this is really news, at least for those who haven't been paying attention...

To our young people - this is as good a time as any to revisit Wendell Berry's prescient and sage advice to the graduates of Bellarmine University in May, 2007:

What more than you have so far learned will you need to know in order to live at home? (I don’t mean “home” as a house for sale.) If you decide, or if you are required by circumstances, to live all your life in one place, what will you need to know about it and about yourself? At present our economy and society are founded on the assumption that energy will always be unlimited and cheap; but what will you have to learn to live in a world in which energy is limited and expensive? What will you have to know – and know how to do – when your community can no longer be supplied by cheap transportation? Will you be satisfied to live in a world owned or controlled by a few great corporations? If not, would you consider the alternative: self-employment in a small local enterprise owned by you, offering honest goods or services to your neighbors and responsible stewardship to your community?

Even to ask such questions, let alone answer them, you will have to refuse certain assumptions that the proponents of STEM and the predestinarians of the global economy wish you to take for granted.

Caylee's Law and the Specter of Civil Breakdown

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In the wake of the "not guilty" finding in the Casey Anthony trial, large numbers of outraged individuals have begun a campaign for the creation of various State and even a Federal version of "Caylee's Law." In addition to such an effort in the state of Florida, similar legislation is being explored in states such as Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia. This law would promulgate strict requirements under which parents or guardians would be expected to report a missing and deceased child to police. Under such a law, it can be presumed, such actions as that of Casey Anthony would have led to a guilty verdict - if not for murder, at least on the scandal of a parent failing to report a missing child.

The law is clearly a response to the outrage and anger felt by thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people in the wake of the Casey Anthony verdict. Yet, what would be the expected efficacy of such a law? Can it really be expected that it would deter what must be a infinitesimally small number of parents who would not immediately call the police at the slightest suspicion of a missing child? (Let's face it - if anything, most parents are likely to contact authorities before checking all the likely places a child might be).

The pressure to pass such a law is most obviously an expression of thwarted vengeance, an outburst of outrage and frustration toward someone the public believes got away not only with murder, but the murder of her own small child. This is an understandable human response.

But it seems also plausible that the pressure to pass such a law reflects more deeply the anxieties and fears of many that the fabric of informal social norms have become so frayed that only the impotent passage of largely pointless laws can give some comfort in the belief that there is some kind of replacement. What strikes one about Anthony's is how relatively "normal" they are in today's America. The Anthony's had moved to Florida from Ohio, indicating a normal "mobile" American lifestyle. They live in a suburban neighborhood in Orlando, one of innumerable such "communities" where people can live in relative anonymity amid proximate families. As of 2006, there were 12.9 million single parents raising over 21 million children. Some four million of those single parents live with their parents. The stories of Casey's insecure employment history is not unusual for many young people today, particularly for under-educated single mothers. The anxiety provoked by the Casey Anthony story is not born of the perception of someone so wildly different from the way many Americans live today; it arises from the deeper perception that this is the way that many more of us are likely to live in America today.

In his recent book The Origins of Political Order, Francis Fukuyama seeks to explore the question of how more advanced industrial societies have moved away from "kinship relations" of more "primitive" societies to more complex societies of strangers in which our relationships are based on impersonal legal and economic relationships. Fukuyama - still evincing his characteristic progressive worldview - regards these advances as an inevitability of evolution itself, a sign of our greater advancement. But these very "advances" render us increasingly strangers even to those near to us - not only our neighbors, but our own children and parents. Our liberation from "kinship" is based upon our increased ability to artificially create radical forms of isolation from even those kinship relations. As Fukuyama correctly notes, "that individualism seems today like a solid core of our economic and political behavior is only because we have developed institutions that override our more naturally communal instincts" (29).

The calls for lawmakers to "do something" in the wake of the Casey Anthony "not guilty" verdict shows the limits of our impersonal age. Lacking confidence in the remnants of the social norms (not legalisms) upon which those kinship cultures were based, we turn now to the law to instruct fellow citizens how to behave with their children. The passage of such laws, far from indicating a triumph of our greater civility, reveals its unceasing attenuation and even breakdown. Our anxieties will only be stoked, not relieved, and each "solution" will only exacerbate the root causes of our deeper alienation.

Ms. Dickinson's Purple and Gold Pick of the Week: The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman

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"I should probably start with the blood." After all, there was so much blood on the night that Nora's suddenly perfect life crumbled and twisted into a nightmare. Before that night, Nora had two best friends. She had a fresh new storybook romance of her own. She was working on a senior year independent Latin project at the local college with a quirky professor and one of her best friends, Chris, now a college freshmen. Everything in Nora's life was finally falling into place. Now Chris is dead and his girlfriend and Nora's other best friend Adrienne has withdrawn into a state of catatonic shock. Max, Chris' sweet and nerdy roommate and Nora's new boyfriend, has disappeared and the police are convinced that he's the killer.

Determined to prove that Max is innocent, Nora immerses herself in the strange occurrences and cryptic clues surrounding the Book of Blood and Shadow--the mysterious manuscript at the center of their shared research project. Nora's search for the truth leads her deep into a dark world of ancient secrets spanning centuries of bloodshed and terror as she traces the clues hidden in another desperate young woman's centuries old letters across the ocean and into the twisting streets of Prague.

This new novel has been described as the YA Da Vinci Code and rightfully so. Full of mysterious documents, hidden history, elaborate codes, secret societies, and thrills & chills galore, The Book of Blood and Shadow has all the necessary pieces for an excellent intellectual thriller. However, Wasserman goes several steps further than just gathering all the pieces; she's combined those pieces with interesting characters, rich description, and elegantly built suspense. It has all the compulsive readability of The Da Vinci Code but with frankly better writing and more exciting, on the spot Latin translation. Nora is a smart, sarcastic, and fierce narrator. Her relationships with Chris, Adrienne, and Max are complex; she consistently keeps an emotional distance from both Chris and Adrienne yet remains intensely loyal and somewhat dependent on their threesome's stability--especially after Chris' murder. Her romance with Max is sweet and thrilling, which makes the confusing web of revelations about him and his potential involvement in the Book's mysteries even more emotionally fraught. Elizabeth Weston, the stepdaughter of a medieval alchemist who devoted his life to decoded the mysteries within the Book, emerges as an equally fascinating character through Nora's revelatory translation of her letters.

You will be immediately drawn into the story, both by the appealingly human characters and the ever increasing mystery. The plot is full of twists and turns that keep readers guessing right up to the final page. I would heartily recommend The Book of Blood and Shadow to readers of intellectual thrillers and mysteries (such as The Da Vinci Code), especially Latin students and Indiana Jones fans.
 Come by the library and check out Robin Wasserman's new novel, The Book of Blood and Shadow, on display now in the fiction section! 

Ms. Dickinson's Purple and Gold Pick of the Week: Adaptation by Malinda Lo

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In the skies over North America, large flocks of birds suddenly hurl themselves into planes, causing dozens of deadly crashes and forcing airports to shut down acroos the continent.  Reese Holloway, her debate partner and crush David, and their teacher are trapped at an airport on their way back from a debate competition when the nation enters a state of panicked emergency.  During their harrowing drive home to San Francisco, a bird flies in front of their headlights and the car flips, landing them in a ditch along a dark Nevada road.

When Reese wakes up in a strange military hospital a month later, she finds her body mysteriously and miraculously healed of any injuries and her mind confused and full of questions.  What exactly happened in that hospital?  Why can't Reese or David tell anyone anything they remember about the place? 

And after Reese returns home to California and meets the mysterious and alluring Amber Gray, her questions only grow.
What is the government hiding about the thousands of dead birds? What is Amber hiding? And who--or what--has Reese become since the accident?

A large amount of the science fiction recently published for young adults usually fits into the popular dystopian, futuristic, or speculative fiction molds.  But here, in her first foray into the genre,  excellent fantasy writer Malinda Lo, dives right into more traditional, fierce, and frightening science fiction territory: government conspiracies, medical experimentation, and possible contact with forces beyond our planet.  Adaptation presents a scenerio that could happen anytime in the next few years; it's immediate rather than futuristic and in many ways, this fact automatically increases the suspense and the fear factor.  Additionally, novel has a plot that hits the ground running during the opening pages and doesn't stop twisting and turning all the way up to the book's final lines.  The story is action-packed and full of intertwined mysteries that will keep the reader guessing along with Reese as she struggles to make sense of the strange turns her life has taken.       

However, Adaptation is more than a thrill-ride.  Lo continues to demonstrate her distguished ability to create and maintain a richly diverse cast of characters, without ever making any of them seem like a stereotype or a token representation of multiculturalism.  Her characters live in a much more realistically multicultural world than that frequently imagined in fictional visions of the United States.  None of the characters of color or  LGBTQ characters are defined purely by those pieces of their identity.  And in the midst of a science fiction thriller, Lo paints an excellent picture of the fluidity and process of discovery inherent in identity development for young adults.  Moreoever, her characters and their relationships are complex and emotionally resonant. 

Between conspiracy theories worthy of the best X-Files episodes, non-stop action, and truly interesting characters,  Adaptation is a novel you won't be able to put down once you pick it up!   

Ms. Dickinson's Purple and Gold Pick of the Week: Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John

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If Piper could just learn to keep her big mouth shut, she would not be in this mess. But since she couldn't, Piper is now the manager of the school's suddenly popular local rock band, bizarrely named 'Dumb,' and she's got to get them a paying gig within a month to make the arrangement official and get her share of the profits. However, there are a few problems. Firstly, Piper is deaf. Secondly, and more importantly, even Piper can tell that Dumb does not sound good. But somehow Piper and the other mixed up flavors of people that form Dumb are going to have to learn to make beautiful music together.

Now, there's always a chance that novel with a quirky or catchy premise (such as "deaf girl becomes band manager") will never be more than just that: a good tagline.  However, in the case of Five Flavors of Dumb, the novel not only lives up to its potential; the story actually surpasses it with unexpected depth. Five Flavors of Dumb is a delightful coming of age novel about friendship and family that happens to feature a protagonist who is deaf. Piper is funny, frustrated, sarcastic, angry, and kind. Her deafness is integral to the story in that it shapes Piper's life and motivations; the novel provides a look at the complex social world that Piper and her family live in as part of the deaf community. However, the novel never makes her deafness a gimmick and Piper's conflicts with her family and her shifting perceptions of and relationships with the other members of Dumb are pretty universally relatable.

The novel also includes a plethora of references to famous rock musicians and rock music history.  The practical problems of forming and keeping a band together as well as promoting and succeeding as a successful business venture in the music world are also explored.  The characters are quirky and likable; the combinations of unexpected friendships and a touch of romance hit all the right notes.  Five Flavor of Dumb is a feel-good novel that will put a smile on your face while also shedding light on the complexity within the deaf community and providing a crash course in rock'n'roll history. 

   

Ms. Dickinson's Purple and Gold Pick of the Week: Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood

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Cate Cahill made a promise. She promised her dying mother that she would protect her sisters--at all costs. The task would be a lot easier however if their family didn't have quite so many dangerous secrets. Their small New England town already finds the Cahill sisters' education and reclusive behaviors suspicious but if anyone were to discover that the three girls are honest to goodness witches, their lives would be over.  Especially since every day the priests of the Brotherhood round up more and more girls accused of witchcraft and send them away to the asylum. 

As if that weren't enough to preoccupy Cate, her seventeenth birthday is fast approaching, which means that in just a few months Cate will have to decide if she's going to get married or join the Sisterhood. Neither option seems appealing right now, especially since both might separate her from her sisters.  Then the discovery of her mother's diary throws Cate's world even more off balance: it turns out that being witches isn't the Cahill girls' biggest secret. Now Cate must race to find the truth about her family's destiny before powerful forces find ways to use her or her sisters for their own interests and in the process perhaps finally take the time to discover the desires of her own heart.

As teenager facing the transition into adulthood and a sudden, unusual influx of responsibilities, Cate will be a familiar figure to readers of all ages. She tries so hard to balance and protect her sisters' safety and happiness but she's also forced herself to ignore her individual potential. But Cate is limited by more than her own family responsibilities and worries; she lives in society where women's power and independence have been extremely curtailed by a male dominated religious order led by the Brotherhood priests.

The world imagined by Jessica Spotswood is one of the highlights of the novel. She seeds the information about the society and history into the narrative, allowing the full picture to emerge gradually and through the characters' pertinent experiences. This method, as usual, works well and avoids weighing down the pace of the story with too lengthy descriptions of traditions or historical events. My only problem was that I found the fictional world so intriguing that I keep wanting more detail! Born Wicked takes place in an alternative universe in which witches and magic truly exist and the United States began when witches left other areas of the world to avoid persecution and colonized the eastern coast of the current U.S. As a result, the population is even more ethnically and racially diverse. However, the religious Brotherhood gained influence and wrested control from the female-run Daughters of Persephone; now, women must either get married or join the female monastic branch of the Brotherhood, in order to control their potential evil.

However, it was not just the intriguing setting and the strong protagonist that drew me into this novel. The supporting characters and the relationships between the characters are well drawn; the complicated relationship between the three sisters is especially realistic in its portrayal. The plot's mysteries and tension grow increasingly exciting as the story moves forward and the novel's pacing pulls the reader in quickly. The romance is sweet and swoon-worthy.  Cate's understanding of her desires emerges naturally and her realizations happen as part of her larger awakenings about her world, her magical abilities, and her options for the future. The tension reaches a dramatic peak near the novel's conclusion that will leave readers eager for the next installment of Cate's tale.

I would recommend Born Wicked to readers who enjoy supernatural or paranormal tales (especially those with witches) and fantasy, especially historical fantasy. It might pair well with other historical fantasy novels such as A Curse Dark As Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce and The Faerie Ring by Kiki Hamilton or with fantasy novels depicting similar family situations (Entwined by Heather Dixon springs to mind).  Come by the library today to grab your copy and fall under the spell of Jessica Spotswood's debut novel Born Wicked, the first book in the Cahill Witch Chronicles!

Ms. Dickinson's Purple and Gold Pick of the Week: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

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Arnold "Junior" Spirit has always been something of an outcast.  Born with various medical conditions, Junior has been made fun of by nearly every other kid on the Spokane Indian Reservation.  With his glasses, abnormally big head and serious lack of muscles, Junior is an easy target.  But while Junior might be goofy-looking and scrawny, he has plenty of good things going for him.  He's got a decent jump shot, a powerful talent for cartooning, a best friend, and a loving (if imperfect) family.  And most of all, Junior has dreams.  He dreams of getting an actual education--from a school where the textbooks aren't the same ones his mom used a couple decades ago.  Even more importantly, Junior dreams of demanding more from life than mere survival.  He dreams about getting off the "rez" and escaping the cycle of unhappiness and disappointment that seems to trap all the adults in his life. 

So when his teacher suggests that he look into attending the all-white, public school in the nearby farming town, Junior decides to take the plunge and give his dreams a shot--even though he's sure the attempt will end in disaster.  Now, Junior must learn to navigate a whole new world where the only other Indian is the school mascot--while everyone on the rez (except his parents & grandmother) have decided that he's a traitor.  Even his best friend refuses to speak to him.  How can Junior escape the bad parts of life on the rez without leaving behind his heritage or his family?  How can he make all the pieces of his identity fit into his divided life?

Brilliant author, poet, and screenwriter Sherman Alexie blew the literary world away when he published his first novel for young adults in 2007.  The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian has gone on earn a National Book Award, a place on many must-read book lists of teens & adults alike, and space in many middle and high school English curriculums across the country.  But what's the best thing about Diary? It actually lives up to the hype--and it has yet to lose its emotional power or relevance.

Told through Junior's alternatively hilarious and heartbreaking words and cartoons, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is an engrossing coming of age story that explores identity, family, friendship, and love with unmatched humor and honesty.  Jumping from basketball and girls to racism and alcoholism, the story doesn't back down from taking on tricky topics--but it never becomes melodramatic and the reader never stops cheering for Junior.  While Diary deals most directly and extensively with Native American and male identities, Junior's struggle to sort his own multfaceted identity amidst stereotypes and others' negative (and positive) expectations will resonsate with everyone. 

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian will make you laugh, cry, smile, and sigh.  Junior's story is one that sticks will you long after you've closed the book.  And it's a perfect book to read as we close November--Native American Heritage Month. 

Run over to the library today to grab our copy of Sherman Alexie's National Book Award winning novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, on display in the fiction section!   To learn even more about Native Americans--both in the past and the present--check out the National Museum of the American Indian, right here in DC!  The museum's website alone has amazing resources, including outside links, online collections, and multimedia presentations about Native American history and perspectives from a huge variety of modern Native Americans. 

Siamese Twins #2

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Got My Camera Back!

Woohoo!  I finally got my camera back from the shop and can't wait to get out there and get some new shots!  I'll still be posting stuff from the archives, but I should have some great new content in the next few weeks!

Siamese Twins #2

Speaking of stuff from the archives, this is another shot I took of the "Siamese Twins" from the "Garden of the Gods" in Manitou Springs, CO.  It's an HDR that I converted to black and white.  The color HDR turned out nice and I may post it some day, but I really like the textures and the sky in the black and white conversion.  Click here to see my other Siamese Twins shot.



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Texas Capitol Dome Thru Trees

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Now that I have my camera back from the shop, I decided that I should not let the repairs go to waste.  But, where would I go to get some shots?  Well the old faithful Texas Capitol, of course!  That's always a good place to go when you want to practice shooting!  I decided to go on my way to work last Friday morning.  I have shot so many photos of the place, but I wanted to get a new angle.  I thought a shot through the trees might suffice and this is what I came up with.  I didn't have a lot of time to try many different angles, but I kind of liked this one.  However, I'm not sure if I got too many trees in this one and not enough capitol or if it turned out OK.  Let me know what you think..

Also, I  have one more shot that I may put out soon from a more traditional angle, but it needs quite a bit of work.  Hopefully it will turn out nice.  So, stay tuned!



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South Walk-up at Texas Capitol

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Superbowl Weekend Coming Up

Super Bowl Weekend! Woohoo!  It's always exciting to watch the two best teams in the NFL play for the ultimate prize. There's nothing like American football, no?  It's the best!  However, this year, I'm not really too enamored with either team vying for the bragging rights of "Super Bowl Champions!"  The Niners are OK because they have a good coach and their young quarterback is fun to watch.  Other than that, meh.  The Ravens on the other hand are aging, have a good coach as well as a good defense led by someone who was accused of being involved in a double-murder a few years ago.  Again, meh.  When all is said and done, I will probably root for the Ravens because their head coach - John Harbaugh - is the older brother of the Niners head coach - Jim Harbaugh - and has been in the league a few years longer.  Therefore, the older brother must win!  Otherwise, I hope it's a good game like the last few Super Bowls have been! Are you rooting for a particular team?  If so, who and why?

Restaurants Banning Food Photography in New York

Did you know that food photography by restaurant patrons was a phenomenon?  I know some people who like to take pictures of their meals, especially if it's really good, but apparently some restaurants in NYC don't like it.  Maybe it makes the chefs work harder to present their meals or something?  Whatever.  Another reason why New York City is a great place to visit, but not a great place to live...

South Walk-Up at the Texas Capitol

I took this shot during the same visit as the shot in my previous post.  This one was a bit more tricky to process and has a bit more noise in it, but I like how it turned out anyway.



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Tell Us Something We Don't Know

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Wiki Leaks is slipping. In a case of stating the obvious, their latest "disclosure" shows the U.S. Government having reached the conclusion that the Saudi's have been significantly overstating the amount of their oil "reserves," and that we can expect a shortfall of promised deliveries within a year. Why would they do such a thing? Could it have to do with their certain knowledge that the revelation of their dramatically falling production rates would cause a spike in oil prices, at once causing the world to spiral into a deeper recession while also providing a (late, even belated) effort to develop "alternatives"?

Charmingly, the Yahoo news doesn't have a clue. They suggest that the upshot of this disclosure reveals that the Saudis will face "peak oil," missing the point that as go the Saudi's, so goes the world. And, "Yahoo" draws the conclusion that this will be bad news for SUV drivers. Not to mention industrial civilization.

Yea, this is really news, at least for those who haven't been paying attention...

To our young people - this is as good a time as any to revisit Wendell Berry's prescient and sage advice to the graduates of Bellarmine University in May, 2007:

What more than you have so far learned will you need to know in order to live at home? (I don’t mean “home” as a house for sale.) If you decide, or if you are required by circumstances, to live all your life in one place, what will you need to know about it and about yourself? At present our economy and society are founded on the assumption that energy will always be unlimited and cheap; but what will you have to learn to live in a world in which energy is limited and expensive? What will you have to know – and know how to do – when your community can no longer be supplied by cheap transportation? Will you be satisfied to live in a world owned or controlled by a few great corporations? If not, would you consider the alternative: self-employment in a small local enterprise owned by you, offering honest goods or services to your neighbors and responsible stewardship to your community?

Even to ask such questions, let alone answer them, you will have to refuse certain assumptions that the proponents of STEM and the predestinarians of the global economy wish you to take for granted.

Caylee's Law and the Specter of Civil Breakdown

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In the wake of the "not guilty" finding in the Casey Anthony trial, large numbers of outraged individuals have begun a campaign for the creation of various State and even a Federal version of "Caylee's Law." In addition to such an effort in the state of Florida, similar legislation is being explored in states such as Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and West Virginia. This law would promulgate strict requirements under which parents or guardians would be expected to report a missing and deceased child to police. Under such a law, it can be presumed, such actions as that of Casey Anthony would have led to a guilty verdict - if not for murder, at least on the scandal of a parent failing to report a missing child.

The law is clearly a response to the outrage and anger felt by thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people in the wake of the Casey Anthony verdict. Yet, what would be the expected efficacy of such a law? Can it really be expected that it would deter what must be a infinitesimally small number of parents who would not immediately call the police at the slightest suspicion of a missing child? (Let's face it - if anything, most parents are likely to contact authorities before checking all the likely places a child might be).

The pressure to pass such a law is most obviously an expression of thwarted vengeance, an outburst of outrage and frustration toward someone the public believes got away not only with murder, but the murder of her own small child. This is an understandable human response.

But it seems also plausible that the pressure to pass such a law reflects more deeply the anxieties and fears of many that the fabric of informal social norms have become so frayed that only the impotent passage of largely pointless laws can give some comfort in the belief that there is some kind of replacement. What strikes one about Anthony's is how relatively "normal" they are in today's America. The Anthony's had moved to Florida from Ohio, indicating a normal "mobile" American lifestyle. They live in a suburban neighborhood in Orlando, one of innumerable such "communities" where people can live in relative anonymity amid proximate families. As of 2006, there were 12.9 million single parents raising over 21 million children. Some four million of those single parents live with their parents. The stories of Casey's insecure employment history is not unusual for many young people today, particularly for under-educated single mothers. The anxiety provoked by the Casey Anthony story is not born of the perception of someone so wildly different from the way many Americans live today; it arises from the deeper perception that this is the way that many more of us are likely to live in America today.

In his recent book The Origins of Political Order, Francis Fukuyama seeks to explore the question of how more advanced industrial societies have moved away from "kinship relations" of more "primitive" societies to more complex societies of strangers in which our relationships are based on impersonal legal and economic relationships. Fukuyama - still evincing his characteristic progressive worldview - regards these advances as an inevitability of evolution itself, a sign of our greater advancement. But these very "advances" render us increasingly strangers even to those near to us - not only our neighbors, but our own children and parents. Our liberation from "kinship" is based upon our increased ability to artificially create radical forms of isolation from even those kinship relations. As Fukuyama correctly notes, "that individualism seems today like a solid core of our economic and political behavior is only because we have developed institutions that override our more naturally communal instincts" (29).

The calls for lawmakers to "do something" in the wake of the Casey Anthony "not guilty" verdict shows the limits of our impersonal age. Lacking confidence in the remnants of the social norms (not legalisms) upon which those kinship cultures were based, we turn now to the law to instruct fellow citizens how to behave with their children. The passage of such laws, far from indicating a triumph of our greater civility, reveals its unceasing attenuation and even breakdown. Our anxieties will only be stoked, not relieved, and each "solution" will only exacerbate the root causes of our deeper alienation.

Ryu of Japan on Mom's Birthday

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Mom and I celebrated her birthday at Ryu of Japan after reading an awesome review by Boots in the Oven.  My parents' favorite cuisine is Japanese.  Dad can't get enough of sashimi and sukiyaki while mom can't do without hamachi kama.
We decided to skip ordering dinner entrees altogether in favor of several courses of appetizers.
We began with a small dish of monkfish liver, which unsurprisingly has a texture similar to foie gras but on the drier side.  It was quite delicious but I kept wishing I could pair each bite with a carb like rice or baguette!
Ankimo (monkfish liver)
The Ryu Special was basically a trio of sashimi (tuna, salmon, and yellowtail) rolled up in cucumber.  This was light and summery, delicious but hard to keep intact.

Ryu's Special - salmon, yellowtail, and tuna sashimi wrapped in cucumber with shiso and roe
Agedashi tofu is as standard as udon at Japanese restaurants but Ryu's is heavenly.  The broth that the fried pieces of tofu was soaking in really made this dish sing.

Agedashi Tofu
I was a bit underwhelmed by the ginger eggplant.  It was good, but a little bland even with the lovely curling bonito shavings.

Nasu No Shogayaki - ginger eggplant with bonito shavings
Mom and I always reminisce about the whole grilled squid served at the cafeteria in the Japanese department store, Shirokiya, in Honolulu.  I grew up scarfing down Shirokiya's smokey ikayaki.  We were super excited to see ikayaki on Ryu's menu, but this version just can't compare to Shirokiya's.  It's a bit tough and although it's grilled, Ryu's ika doesn't have that intense smokiness present in Shirokiya's version.

Ikayaki - grilled squid
No Japanese meal is complete without hamachi kama for my mom.  This was simply prepared with a sprinkle of salt and grilled.  This dish never falters.

Hamachi Kama - yellowtail collar
The next few dishes were fillers for the meal.  The trio of sashimi were fresh, the spider roll was a bit heavy on the eel sauce but otherwise quite satisfying, and the hotate hokkai was my one regret.  Instead of whole scallops, we got scallop bits that were indiscernible among the bigger chunks of chopped krab and smothered in spicy mayo.  It was a wreck.

Salmon, Tuna, and Yellowtail Sashimi
Spider Roll
Hotate Hokkai - broiled scallops with roe and mayo
But rather than leave you with a bad impression, the overall meal was delicious and affordable.  I've complained about how I can't seem to find a traditional Japanese restaurant that doesn't break the bank in Austin, and Ryu has given me a reason to stop whining.
Happy Birthday, Mom!