Sort of like the Friday Fives...

From TSO

Name THREE of your...

1. Pet Peeves: Sideways baseball hats, conversational writing, animal rights activists
2. Favorite Sounds: the wind in aspens, the fog horn in San Francisco in the middle of the night, the harpsichord.
3. Biggest Fears: being attacked by a shark (a crazy fear that never hits me in the ocean, only in swimming pools, even though I know the impossibility - something that goes back to my competitive swimming days), Kenny G, Canada.
4. Biggest Challenges: remembering the essential humanity of animal rights activists, drawing hands well, doing laundry without complaining.
5. Favorite Department Stores: Harrod's, Nordstrom, that's about it.
6. Most Used Words: dirty, commie, rat.
7. Favorite Pizza Toppings: pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms.
8. Favorite Cartoon Characters: I am changing this one to comic strip characters: Krazy Kat, the Katzenjammer Kids, Pogo.
9. Movies Recently Watched: The Triplets of Belleville, 8 1/2, Gaslight.
10. Favorite Fruits & Vegetables: cardoni, Bartlett pears, cavolo nero.

Friday Five

While I work up the Julia Child Tribute Menu (so far I have 12 courses), I will offer a Julia Child-inspired Friday Five.

1. Tell us about the first time you tried a recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

2. What was the most recent thing you cooked from one of Julia Child's cookbooks?

3. Can you do a fair Julia Child impersonation?

4. What is your all-time favorite Julia Child recipe?

5. What page does your copy of Mastering the Art of French cooking fall open to on its own? Describe the bits of stuff that have become part of that page.

My own answers are in the extended entry section

1. I was 13 and started to get intrigued by French cooking, particularly the difficult stuff. One weekend I was left on my own and decided to make croissants from scratch for brunch when my parents returned on Sunday. I used a different book for that, but they were beautiful, so I decided that I needed to do something else. I thumbed through MTAOFC and kept going back to cheese souffle. It came out exactly as it was supposed to.

2. I used her recipe for roasted chicken (with a cognac pan reduction sauce) on Monday night.

3. Yes, but cleaning the kitchen afterwards is a bit of a chore.

4. Pate de canard en croute (boned stuffed duck baked in a pastry crust). MTAOFC, Vol 1, page 571.

5. Volume 1: Page 402/403 (Cassoulet). There is considerable moisture damage, and brownish stains that are probably meat-related. On the reverse side are what look like blood stains. There is a bit of crusty stuff that is probably bean residue. I use this recipe once a year for my Nouveau Beaujolais party.
Volume 2: Page 62/63 or 64/65 (French bread), due to thick crust of flour in the binding. We use this recipe once a year, for Christmas, when the bakeries are closed and we absolutely must have proper French bread to go with our Christmas dinner.

Clinton and Kerry

You know, it is probably a symptom of my general disdain for democracy, but I really could never get that worked up over Bill Clinton. He just was too much of an oaf for me to get angry at. It was when he played the sax on television that I realized what a complete loser he was, just another boomer parent trying to look cool and hang out with the kids. Ick.

You never hear about Fed Chairman Greenspan's reed career. He could actually play. When he wasn't playing professionally he was hanging out with abstract expressionist painters and Ayn Rand. Yet Jay Leno never had him play on his show. It's too bad, since he can probably really blow. Well, maybe not now, but in his day.

Instead, we get Clinton honking his tenor. Cripes. He was worse than Kenny G.

But I never had a deep down loathing for the man the way a lot of conservatives did, even though he is such an awful musician, yet had the gall to play on national television. Observing the Clinton years was like watching a baby boomer dance. You might feel a little embarrassment for the boomer, you might find it funny, you certainly find it hideous, but you don't hate the poor guy for it. After all, he has to wake up in the morning and still be him.

In fact, when it came down to it, the reaction he got from Republicans amused me even more. "Vincent Foster!" Wait. Let me get my tinfoil hat on. OK. Tell me about how Clinton ordered Vincent Foster's death. Tee hee hee. It must be this modern age, but the Republicans seem to be smoking some powerful stuff. And inhaling, to boot.

Mrs. William Clinton, well, she is another story. Bad, bad news. Bill was just a goober made good. Mrs. William Clinton was more like an alien who comandeered a human body. She wants to be President, but she will never be my president (OK, revelation: no woman who is neither a Hapsburg nor a Mussolini will ever be the head of any state that I pledge fidelity to. I remain an entrenched sexist). She has vacant eyes, even though they dart around.

Now this Kerry fellow seems much more like Mrs. William Clinton. I can get into voting against him. I am even remaining true to my lukewarm endorsement of the Protestant Bush, simply because of my view of Kerry. I never voted for Clinton, but I also never voted for Bush Sr., nor for Bobdole (very senior). Instead I voted for Libertarians and the like.

I had a similar loathing of Gore, and voted for little Bush. Every time I have a slight feeling of regret, I think of Al Gore and feel proud to have voted for Bush. So proud that when I look at Kerry, I want to do it all over again.

So, here we are, getting closer and closer. I still do not like Bush (it's that "you see" stuff that drives me batty) and still avoid voting for Protestants on general principles (which leaves Kerry out in the cold, too), but I am still endorsing Bush. I listened to snippets from both candidates today. Bush almost lost me with his "ya see..." and then a bunch of sap about looove. Kerry lost me the minute I heard that grating voice.

In fact, when I hear Kerry or a Kennedy, I am forced to recall Abraham's words to God about Sodom. We need to find 10 good men in Massachussetts. We have Mark, there are the Mello Brothers, who make those great linguicas, and, uh, well...

So, here is the belated Friday One Hundred/Fifty?/Howabout Five?

1. List in the comments' boxes seven people who should be held up to God as reasons not to smite Massachussetts.

2. Help! Harvard lost some of the biggest fruitcakes on its faculty to Princeton. In honor of the occasion, create some sort of award for Cornel West.

3. Write an all-rhymed acceptance speech for Professor West.

4. Earn a chance at being a sportscaster for a day! California and Massachussetts seem locked in a fanatical battle to lead the world into complete moral decay. In your best adrenaline-charged voice, narrate events. C'mon. Give it your all! Give it all you've got! Give 110% and don't forget the basic fundamentals. Remember the goal of this football game is to get the football, to move the football over the goal line, and then to kick it between goal posts. It all boils down to the team that does this the most, wins the game. Any comment, Pat?

5. Describe an experience you had with Moxie or fiddlehead ferns.

Friday Five

1. What is the first painting that you remember seeing (I am talking about originals only, and they neither have to be famous nor painted by someone famous, although in my own answers I will exclude children's art as well as any of my own or Melanie's pieces that are around the house or studio. Feel free to make your own exclusions)?

2. What is the last painting that you saw?

3. What is the next painting that you expect to see?

4. What painting have you not seen that you would really like to see?

5. Describe a notable time when a painting did not make such a big impression on you when you saw it, but continued to come back to your active memory and thus engaged your thoughts.

I have to run right now (we have a tour of an ice cream factory to get to), but I will post my answers in the Extended Entry section this afternoon.

UPDATE: I posted my answers in the Extended Entry section, as promised.

1. This is a hard question for me, since my parents have been taking me to museums since I was born, as we do with Amalia. I sat down and thought back to the first painting I remember, and I think that it was a Miro. I have many memories of Miro from way back, because my father is a big Miro fan, and was always hunting down Miro paintings when we were in a town with a decent museum. What I remember, though, is a generic Miro painting, rather than a particular Miro painting, so I am not counting it.

I also have many early memories of Clyfford Still paintings, mostly because SFMOMA has a good collection of them, and they are always in their own room (those who understand the situation with Still will take this as a given: Still, you see, was such an egotist that he gave many canvases to museums with the stipulation that they must be in their own room or section. If the museum in any way fails to meet his terms, the paintings go to his heirs. Since the paintings are worth a lot of money, the heirs have pretty good cause to strictly enforce Still's will), although my early memories are fuzzy as to which one first stood out as distinct from the others.

So, even though I have earlier memories of Miro and Still, I will have to point to Sunday Morning in the Mines by Charles Christian Nahl as the first painting that I really remember as a painting. It hangs in Sacramento's Crocker Art Museum, and is a really exciting example of mid to late 19th century (1872 to be precise) California Art.

2. I am not counting any painting in my house or my parents' house, so it would have to be Mike Henderson's North Beach (oil on canvas. 1989), hanging in the Oakland Museum of California.

3. Let's see. I probably will next see a painting at mass, and I think I will be going to mass at the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi in San Francisco, so probably the murals in the front of the church. They date from the 1920's. are rather mediocre, although they do what they are supposed to do, and I cannot remember the name of the artist. It is entirely possible that I will see the North Beach mural at the corner of Columbus and Broadway or the various murals on City Lights Bookstore or Caffe Vesuvio before getting to the church. If I end up going to mass at St. Margaret Mary's in Oakland, I am not sure. We might even make it to SFMOMA tomorrow, in which case I really don't know.

4. I am going to count a painting that I saw but was too young to remember, and that is Matisse's dancers in the Hermitage. I was two years old and may have been asleep. I do not remember the Hermitage, although I have a few memories of Eastern Europe from that age. At that age all the gold leaf at the summer palace and the "snail shells" (that's what I thought of - sea snail shells) of St. Basil's fascinated me more than any painting.

5. During the Robert Ryman retrospective at SFMOMA back in 1992 or thereabouts, I was impressed with his work, but did not realize quite the impact that it made on me. There was one piece in particular, that was basically small staccato zinc white strokes on a well-oxidized iron ground that at first I saw as a good, tightly rendered minimalist/expressionist painting, but somehow really lodged in my head, as I can almost trace each of those strokes.

When SFMOMA moved into its new digs on 3rd Street, they had a room specifically dedicated to Robert Ryman's work (which they changed into something else a few years back). When I first walked in there in 1995 or whenever it was that the new museum opened, I was overjoyed to find that little painting hanging there. When I was able to get to SFMOMA on at least a weekly basis, I went back to that painting each time and just soaked it in. I never expected to like it that much when I first saw it at the retrospective.

Friday Five

Since bullfights are traditionally on Sundays, except in California, where they are on Mondays (has to do with the dairy farmers' schedules, or so I am told), in honor of the Friday bullfight in Thornton today, I am posting bullfight related questions:

1. Where did you see your first bullfight?
2. How old were you?
3. Did you like it?
4. Who was on the cartel?
5. If you were to see one particular bull all over again, which would it be, and why?

I will put my answers on the Extended Entry section, but feel free to put your answers on your own blog or in my comments' box.

1. Madrid
2. 12
3. Yes, but not as much as my second bullfight in Barcelona (third if you count the one on television I saw in Valencia), which really got me hooked.
4. I don't remember the Madrid cartel. Barcelona was Paco Ojeda, Emilio Munoz, and Espartaco.
5. I would see the second bull that Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza fought in October 15, 2000 in Tijuana. I actually have a video of that, and it takes my breath away every time I see it. I would love to be back there. It was a great day and a great bullfight. It gave me a whole new appreciation of rejoneo.

If we restrict this question to matadores, then the first bull that Espartaco took on that Barcelona bullfight. I have seen plenty of stuff that has been great, but I would love to go back to see that one, since it is why I ended up hooked.

Wednesday One

When I suggested reviving the Friday Five, I was suggesting that others take up the torch and offer questions as well. I simply don't have time to do it every week, but if no one else does, I will do it when I feel the urge, but not as a regular thing.

Meanwhile I thought of a good one, but it is just one question, so I will post it today as the Wednesday One:

Is there a book that makes you want to strangle the author? I am not just talking about being a bit peeved, but having to deal with the temptations of deep-down, homicidal impulses. If so, please explain. Be honest.

Friday Five

Here is a new Friday Five. Please answer in the comments box or on your own blog.

1. If you could hire any architect from any era to design your ideal house, who would it be and why?

2. If you had to eat exclusively from one cuisine for the rest of your life, which would it be?

3. If you could commission any artist, living or dead, to paint your portrait, who would you choose and why?

4. Tomorrow one tune will be stuck in your head. You will not be able to escape it from waking up to going to bed. You get to pick the tune. Which one would it be?

5. If you were going to be put under house arrest, but were allowed to pick the place (this is a house arrest where you could travel five miles in any direction, but beyond that your radio collar will trigger the men in black to round you up, rough you up and take you back home), where would you pick?

A New Friday Five

Thanks to those who answered last week's Friday Five. It was a bit geeky, so this will be less so. I have been thinking about beef recently, so here are five questions regarding the flesh of bovines.

1. How do you like your steak cooked?

2. Describe the ideal hamburger.

3. Grass or grain?

4. Do you worry about mad cow disease?

5. What is your favorite kind of beef jerky?

Please answer in the comments box or on your own blog (but announce it in the box, please).

My Friday Five Answers

1. The steward at the wedding at Cana was amazed at the quality of the wine that was the result of Jesus' first public miracle. What sort of wine do you think it closest resembled and why do you think so?

Obviously this wine had to be a powerhouse wine, since the guests had clearly been drinking quite a bit of the old vino and yet the quality was noted. We have to think what would have been a knock-out wine in that region. For someone who is most familiar with Bordeaux, an old Hermitage might taste weird if one isn't ready for that barnyard aroma. I am tempted to think, however, that this wine was like a great Bordeaux cuvee, because I can't see how anyone could fail to love a wine like that, but I think it was probably more of a Rhone style wine, since the Sirah grape is most-likely Persian in origin, so would have had a more familiar taste profile. I am guessing then that this wine resembled a Chateauneuf du Pape, Vieux Telegraphe (or Bonny Doon's wonderful tribute, Old Telegram). Partly because of my own fondness for these magnificent Cote du Rhone wines, partly because of the Papal connections to the wine, but mostly because I think that this is what most Mediterranean folks think of when they think of a great wine. Either that or a Super Tuscan or Super Piedmont wine.

2. What is your favorite Catholic work of art that was done by a non-Catholic?

This is a tough one. Probably Bach's b-minor mass, but quite possibly one of Rembrandt's religious paintings. It depends on my mood.

3. What is your favorite depiction of Hell in art?

Easy. I will have to stick with Dante's.

4. What about Heaven?

At the risk of sounding boring, I will stick with Dante here, too.

5. When you think about Satan, do you think of the Miltonic Satan or the Dantean Satan? Or do you think about the Red Devil from the fireworks box?

Even though I accept the theological correctness of Dante's Satan, I probably think of the Miltonic Sexy Satan, perhaps updated. Sometimes I go for the whole plantation suit with panama hat thing, othertimes I think of the sinister Italian in a sharp suit with sunglasses. However, when I think of people under his dark influence, I think of them as oafish, perhaps charming, but utterly vacuous. Bill Clinton comes to mind. I just imagine these folks being totally smitten with some slick, fast-talking Debbil: "Bill, if you sign on with the program, I will make you King! I will make you Emperor! I will make you President of the United States! I will give you the wimmins! I will give you the best book contracts and speaking engagements!"

Of course the fall of men is even darker when we think of them falling under the sway of a hideous, three headed semi-being, frozen in ice, eternally silent and practically paralyzed with fear and loathing, munching away absent-mindedly on Judas, Brutus and Cassius. It is absurd. On the other hand, selling one's soul to evil is a very dark and absurd thing to do, so when I really think about the matter, I move more to Dante's Statue of Evil.

It is Official...

The Friday Five is no more. Sometimes they were stupid or even offensive, sometimes they were simply bland, but othertimes they really fueled conversation. I will miss them. I suppose we could have a Catholic Friday Five thing if someone (Smockmomma?) were to write them, or perhaps an Arts Friday Five (or Both! Yipee!). I don't think that I have the time nor the ideas to keep something like that going. But, just to start:

1. The steward at the wedding at Cana was amazed at the quality of the wine that was the result of Jesus' first public miracle. What sort of wine do you think it closest resembled and why do you think so?

2. What is your favorite Catholic work of art that was done by a non-Catholic?

3. What is your favorite depiction of Hell in art?

4. What about Heaven?

5. When you think about Satan, do you think of the Miltonic Satan or the Dantean Satan? Or do you think about the Red Devil from the fireworks box?

OK, this is a start. I will answer in a couple of days when the rest of you have had a chance to respond.

Back from Tempe and a Belated Friday Five

We just got back tonight. I will post later on some random thoughts that went through my head, but we had a great time, enjoyed the desert, forgot just how fast all moisture is sucked out of you, got to see some baseball in a great setting, etc. Meanwhile, I need to finish a review due tomorrow, so all I can offer for now is....

If you...

1. ...owned a restaurant, what kind of food would you serve?

Italian.

2. ...owned a small store, what kind of merchandise would you sell?

Either cheese or books

3. ...wrote a book, what genre would it be?

Ask me when I am done.

4. ...ran a school, what would you teach?

Liberal and Fine Arts.

5. ...recorded an album, what kind of music would be on it?

Either late baroque, as typified by Domenico Scarlatti or Antonio Soler, or modern (Webern-influenced fados with harpsichord).

Friday Five

Today's Friday Five. I might have a Friday Afternoon Sermon, too. We'll see.

1. What was the last song you heard?

"Corina, Corina" as sung by Taj Mahal

2. What were the last two movies you saw?

The Jungle Book
Gaslight

3. What were the last three things you purchased?

Groceries
A book about cement
A plastic watercolor palette

4. What four things do you need to do this weekend?

Plant flowers
Host a lunch party
Serve as head usher at Mass
Get the tires checked

5. Who are the last five people you talked to?

Amalia
Melanie
Mike (friend in San Diego - it was via telephone, does that count)
Diana (our neighbor)
The clerk at Trader Joe's (not much of a conversation, though)

Friday Five

The Friday Five is boring, and I cannot honestly answer at least two of the questions, so I am skipping it. In fact, I will be too busy to do much posting at all, particularly if I end up seeing The Passion tonight.

I did see Ibsen's Ghosts at the Berkeley Rep on Wednesday. Fantastic play, well produced, well acted, definitely worth going to if you are in the Bay Area. I have read most of Ibsen and tend to have a hot and cold reaction to him. When he was good, he was very good, but when he was bad, ick. Then there are those plays that read well, but resist staging, for instance, Peer Gynt.

I saw a particularly awful Peer Gynt at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival a number of years ago (13 I think). It ran way too long (and had been edited) and felt like sitting through a four-hour long dead horse beating. That horse was dead from about minute 17 and stayed that way until the bitter end.

Part of the problem was the director's urge to be clever. Translation was done in such a way as to make un-subtle references to current events that really did not serve the drama. For instance, Peer was looking at the stars or something and exclaimed, "a thousand points of light!" (this was during the senior Bush administration). Titter titter. It got the laugh from the aging liberal set, but...so what? So imagine this sort of liberties for four hours on a play that already resists staging.

Berkeley Rep, on the other hand, did a fantastic job. I was at first taken aback by the stark stage, but given the mood of isolation and loneliness, it was entirely appropriate. The last scene was done in front of a large detail of an El Greco, which had the unfortunate look of Art Student Who Is Just Getting Into Baroque Mannerism, which in many ways describes the look of much of Greco anyway, but when enlarged to mammoth proportions becomes overbearing.

However, overbearing is the whole point of the last Act, and Munch did do the sets for an early staging of the play, so it all fit in, as did the strangely post-industrial electronic music that was used sparingly throughout (very sparingly, and quite appropriately).

An added bonus to going to the Berkeley Rep is that it is just around the corner from the only real gelateria in the Bay Area (I forget the name, as they changed it recently - I think it is Gelateria Naia or something. It is on Shattuck at Addison). OK, I take that back, there is an Argentinian gelateria in Oakland, but their style is a bit different than the real Italian thing.

Since we went as guests of the Rep, and they fed us, we resisted gelato, but it is something to keep in mind if you are in the area and are looking for a good evening of drama and gelato.

Friday Five

No Friday Five from the Friday Five folks, so I am going to use the suggested one from Summamamas.

1. What is your favorite type of literature to read (magazine, newspaper, novels, nonfiction, poetry, etc.)?

Probably novels, art criticism, history, poetry, philosophy, theology, natural sciences. Or something to that effect.

2. What is your favorite novel?

The River Why by David James Duncan. Or perhaps At Play in the Fields of the Lord by Peter Matthiessen.

3. Do you have a favorite poem? (Share it!)

It changes, depending on my mood. Most recently I have been in Danteland, since the Lectura Dantis has gone back to Inferno, and I am always amazed at how stunningly beautiful Dante's writing is. For a while it was "L'apres-midi d'un faun."

4. What is one thing you've always wanted to read, or wish you had more time to read?

Too many things in this category.

5. What are you currently reading?

The aforementioned Inferno, , a book on Scholastic Culture from 1000 - 1300 (the actual title and author's name escape me at the moment), Richard Rodriguez's Brown, a mediocre biography of Allen Ginsberg (I think it is called Allen Ginsberg in America or someting like that. It is not worth recommending, but it was $5 in hardcover on the remaindered table, so I could not resist), as well as pre-bed rereading of Milan Kundera's Book of Laughter and Forgetting. Next on the list is probably Percy Walker's The Moviegoer, as soon as Melanie finishes it. I am also keen on reading Russo's latest, as Melanie really liked it, and I have liked the other Russo that I have read.

Friday Five

When was the last time you...

1. ...went to the doctor?

Last June was the last checkup on the hernia surgery. Unless I get sick I will probably go another five to ten years without seeing a doctor. I do not believe in excessive preventative medicine and have warned doctors that any attempt to test my cholesterol will be met with violent resistance. All those tests are bad news. Once we are fully grown and no longer have to see what percentile we are in height and weight it is silly to expose ourselves to doctors too much. Who goes to doctors' offices? Sick people. How can I be sure that Amalia is going to catch a cold? Take her for a routine checkup. It drives me nuts and is bad enough that she has to suffer through it. It wouldn't do if both of us were catching yearly colds from routine check ups.

2. ...went to the dentist?

Don't ask. After suffering under the brutal Dr. K. I don't think anyone would willingly step foot in a dentist's office again. I will have to go in soon, however, and I am dreading it almost as much as I dread shopping for clothes.

3. ...filled your gas tank?

Monday. At Santa Cruz. Paid too much for the gas, too, but thought that it wouldn't have been worth it to drive further. Could have saved 11 cents a gallon, though.

4. ...got enough sleep?

I must have last night, because I feel well rested, although I shouldn't have, by the clock.

5. ...backed up your computer?

Don't do it. At Arhoolie we did it every week and it was a pain and never came in handy. I have never done it on any of my personal computers. I do back up occasional documents, but I don't go through the whole "backing up the computer" ritual.

Friday Five Alternative

I am glad that others hated last week's Friday Five, too. This one has been offered as an alternative:

1. What did you have for breakfast this morning? If you didn't have breakfast, why not?

Ham and Cheese Croissant from Gayle's Bakery in Capitola (one of the best bakeries in the world, probably worth a trip to California specifically to go there. For me a visit to the Santa Cruz area is incomplete without a stop at Gayle's).

2. What's your favorite cereal?

I am not a big cereal eater. I suppose Grape Nuts, as they have more substance than the rest.

3. How often do you eat out? Do you want that to change?

At least twice a week (if we are only talking dinners). One of those is almost invariably the taqueria, which is a cheaper meal than if I cook it myself. I would like for us to eat out three or four times a week, but that is mostly because I am a restaurant critic, and am definitely counting those paid gigs.

4. What do you plan on having for dinner tonight? Got a recipe for that?

We had tamales (from Trader Joe's), as we got back from Santa Cruz too late to want to cook anything.

5. What's your favorite restaurant? Why?

I will have to go with Oliveto in Oakland for a place that I would eat at every day if I could. Paul Bertolli is a great chef. For special occasion restaurants I would probably have to go with either The French Laundry in Yountville or La Folie in San Francisco or Manka's in Inverness or Cafe des Artistes in New York (although the last time I ate there was 10 years ago or so, so it may not be as good). For a good, reliable regular sort of place, US Restaurant in San Francisco (I will even get more specific and tell you that we eat there at least twice a month, and I generally alternate between my two favorite items, although I have liked everything I have had there) and Taqueria San Jose in Oakland (we have eaten there about once a week for the last 7 years) both count.

Runners-up would be Pearl's in Fremont, Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Restaurante Mercedes in Morelia, Chiki Jai in Tijuana, Napoleon House in New Orleans, but then I have to really start to think, because there are a lot of great restaurants in New Orleans, and that gets me to thinking about New York, and then that brings me back to San Francisco, and, well, forget about it. Too many good places. Also, there are those that I have had incredible meals but have no idea if that is a constant feature, or just a one time fluke.

Friday five

We are going to Santa Cruz this weekend, so if we leave tonight I will not be posting again until Monday. Otherwise I might post some stuff tonight. Meanwhile, this is a pretty dumb Friday Five:

1. Are you superstitious?

No.

2. What extremes have you heard of someone going to in the name of superstition?

I have encountered some pretty dumb bunnies who do all sorts of little things to avoid some silly fear. I suppose the most extreme is to refrain from calling the 13th floor the 13th floor.

3. Believer or not, what's your favorite superstition?

Evil Eye. Of course.

4. Do you believe in luck? If yes, do you have a lucky number/article of clothing/ritual?

Luck, sure. I don't think of God as that much of a micromanager that He tinkers with card games and the like. That's why we have the science of statistics.

5. Do you believe in astrology? Why or why not?

No, because it is foolish, has no basis in any science and is not even a particularly interesting vice. I mentioned to some idiot once that astrology is an accurate indicator of personality about 1/12th of the time, and she said, "well, that is better than nothing." Astrology is for those who think the Da Vinci Code is history. In the Keilholtz dictatorship horoscopes will be banned from the newspapers. I generally assume that people who ask, "what is your sign" are idiots. I like to tell them a different one. It is really funny when they say, "I knew it!"

My mother believes in "women's intuition," some sort of intuition about things which she would have no possible way of knowing. I noticed that what she was doing was selectively remembering when her intuition was correct. When it was totally off the mark, it was forgotten. Now, she could have been correct in 1 out of 50 times, and she would forget 49 of those examples. Most people who believe in irrationalities use this sort of experimentation, and that is how it is with astrology. When the myth hits the reality once, it is remembered more than the 11 times it is wrong (although many of those things are written as to be vague and open enough that they have weasel room).

Friday Five

1. What's the most daring thing you've ever done?

Getting married.

2. What one thing would you like to try that your mother/friend/significant other would never approve of?

Ole! Not as a matador de toros, but I would like to step on the sand in some fashion some day.

3. On a scale of 1-10, what's your risk factor? (1=never take risks, 10=it's a lifestyle)

5

4. What's the best thing that's ever happened to you as a result of being bold/risky?

Getting married

5. ... and what's the worst?

I plead the fifth.

Friday Five

At this moment, what is your favorite...

1. ...song?

"Arrivederci Roma" as sung by Claudio Villa

2. ...food?

Duck confit with spicy mixed greens and a good pinot noir

3. ...tv show?

That great one when the set is off and I am reading a book. Otherwise the Teletubbies (although Amalia is not too keen on it, so I have to wait until she is in bed).

4. ...scent?

Wild mushrooms or maybe pancetta being gently fried in goose fat.

5. ...quote? Well, paraphrase, as I do not have it in front of me:

"When one sees a woman preach it is like watching a dog walk on two legs. One does not marvel at how well it is done, rather that it is done at all."