goodbye blogger

blogger is unreliable and really difficult to navigate, so I am ditching it for something else (probably a wordpress? I know next to nothing about blogging). I figure it's a good time to start a new one anyway--postgrad evelina needs something different.

Pickled Carrots

Considering how much I love pickled foods, it's a pretty big surprise I had never actually pickled anything myself. Until tonight, that is!

I made one jar of pickled carrots that are currently chilling in the fridge. If they pass my taste test tomorrow, I will proceed to pickle everything within my reach. I am most excited about pickled asparagus and beets.

Recipe from smitten kitchen:

(did not have dill seeds so I omitted them)

1 pound carrots, cut into 3 1/2 - by 1/3 - inch sticks

1 1/4 cups water

1 cup cider or plain vinegar (the former makes a sweeter, milder brine)

1/4 cup sugar

2 garlic cloves, lightly crushed

1 1/2 tablespoons dill seeds

1 1/2 tablespoons salt

Place carrots in a heatproof bowl (I used a jar). Bring remaining ingredients to a boil in saucepan, then reduce heat and simmer for 2 minutes. Pour pickling liquid over carrots and cool, uncovered. Chill carrots, covered, at least 1 day for flavors to develop.

Carrots keep, chilled in an airtight container, 1 month.

Peanut Butter & Jelly Cupcakes!

I look at a lot of baking blogs and have this massive virtual list of recipes that I chip away at slowly (very slowly). Yesterday I had just about a whole day with nothing to do and I decided to attempt the incredible looking PB&J cupcakes. I followed this blog's recipe: http://www.wearenotmartha.com/2010/03/peanut-butter-and-jelly-cupcakes/ but naturally forgot a few things (bought the sour cream but neglected to put it into the batter; did not buy heavy cream because I can only spend so much at the grocery store for cupcakes, dammit!). Recipe yielded 17 and they turned out fantastic! And I have enough nasty ass Skippy pb to make the batch again.

1. peanut butter cupcakes cooling with frosting ingredients at the ready

2. eat lunch while waiting for cupcakes to cool

3. mixing cream cheese, powdered sugar, and peanut butter for frosting

4. dey ready!

Monday morning, again

So I can't not listen to The National (because they are out of this world amazing) but I can't listen to them without feeling to-my-core sadness. Listening to his voice floods my mind with all the ex-lovers I once had and loved, and makes me feel like I have to climb some mountain and weep forcefully while staring at the stars. how about you?

Monday morning

Sometimes I realize some things will never change. I set down my coffee, open up my planner, and gather up my legs beneath me into the ol' criss-cross (hint: that'll never change). hands not in spaghetti sauce, however, because I'm no longer listening to someone explain the months of the year or the process of metamorphosis, but am reading Nabokov for pleasure and studying for senior written examinations. I begin to eye my old-fashioned glazed donut just minutes after having opened up my textbook, but tell myself no bites until I've taken notes on at least five pages. Guess that nagging childish need for instant gratification has been replaced by something a bit more controlled and wise, luckily for myself and everyone involved.

Five pages in. I cap my pen, set it down, and eye the donut. I've become much more mindful regarding my food in the past year or two (Paris didn't hurt). I bring the plate to my face and inhale deeply, as if I were smelling a bouquet of a dozen red roses which a) I have never actually received, and b) even if I had, I wouldn't smell them because I have a mild phobia of big flowers near my face. I breathe the donut essence in and am almost ready to consume BUT first I have to look at it. I have to see it. And I suppose, in a way, it has to see me. Before my oversized front teeth break that crisp, then gelatinous glaze, we must come to a mutual understanding, this donut and I. I, dear donut, am about to consume you. Thank you, donuty essence, for being what you are: inviting, imperfect, intoxicating.

And now, let's go.

Melancholia (2011)

So I was going to write about Brazil but then I decided to watch Melancholia late last night, and now I want to write about that instead. (I did enjoy Brazil, but it did not resonate with me enough in any way to write anything worthwhile about it.) Watching it was not necessarily a good choice on my part but my choice was also not surprising considering I do a lot of things in the late hours of the night that impair my already fragile sleep. For example, I often give in to the urge to watch a slasher at eleven pm before a morning exam. In high school, I binged so hard on Lost that I couldn't sleep for days because my poor brain was overdosed with adrenaline, and was trying to figure out how to time travel and escape smoke monsters when all I wanted it to do was to count sheep. The real low point came only a few months ago, however, when, after a night out drinking I crawled into bed and, just before shutting off my computer, caved and clicked the link that advertised "THE TOP TEN MOST DISTURBING SCENES IN CINEMATIC HISTORY!" Not only did I scroll through the entire list, reading each grisly description with a gleeful shudder, but I proceeded to actually find one of the movies on Netflix and watch it. ALL of it. By then, it was three in the morning and I wanted to throw up from what I had seen, but more from the fact that I had seen it. It was so bad that I didn't even want to describe the scene to my friends when they inquired about my sleep-deprived, near-hysterical state the next day.

Anyway. Melancholia wasn't grisly. It was poetic. It was gorgeous, sumptuous, and moving. It was a very thoughtful meditation on the depths of depression and a study on what it means to be in such a state. When asked about his film which is, roughly, about the end of the world, director Lars Von Trier responded that he wanted to show people that a deep depression drastically changes perception. In the film, Kirsten Dunst masterfully (really, guys!) plays Justine, just-married and successful, but slowly overcome by a powerful melancholic depression. Why? It is not entirely clear, but if I had her family I would probably be listless and dead inside, too. Melancholia chronicles Justine's wedding reception and the days and weeks immediately after. Let's just say her groom becomes obsolete before the reception is even over, and a study of Justine and her sister, Claire, and their strained relationship as they face the imminent end of the world ensues.

Anyway. The film is split into two parts (and masterfully organized, I might add), each named for each sister. Before Part 1 begins, the viewer experiences several minutes of a dark and dreamy sequence of character and setting quite reminiscent of the lengthy creation scene in The Tree of Life. The entire sequence is set to Wagner's Prelude to his opera Tristan and Isolde which haunts the viewer throughout the film's length and is a perfect, perhaps not-so-subtle emphasis of Justine's suffering, as the Prelude's minor key and 'Tristan chord' were employed to prolong the feeling of grief and sorrow.

Critics have said that Von Trier's metaphor here--the end of the world and Justine's melancholic depression--is a bit heavy-handed. If they mean to say that it doesn't take a professor of film to understand the connection between the two plots, then they are right. But this 'heavy-handedness' is in no way, shape, or form superfluous. It works. Everything about Melancholia works exquisitely. The cinematography absolutely blew me away. Just look at these images...

I won't write much more about the film because, from the bottom of my at-times melancholic heart, I recommend you see it for yourself.

I've been thinking about death a lot lately. I mean I think about death pretty frequently I guess, and I don't think I'm the only one for whom questions of mortality appear on a near-daily basis. But for some reason lately there has been some drive within me to spend a more-than-average amount of my days meditating on death. Much of it has taken the form of weeping over facebook posts on a deceased person's wall. And not in one case have I actually known the person in question, but I read the posts their friends and family and strangers leave, even years after the event, and it is as if I am reading bits of my own eulogy. Because it hurts everyone the same way and fucks with all of our heads.

Yesterday I spent a few hours with my grandmother. My grandmother is 85 years old, although she appears to be older still. I think this has more than a little to do with the fact that she has been through more than most 85-year-old women, on average. That is a silly generalization to make, but I do believe it is true. Anyway, over tea that I succumbed to in order to avoid eating spoiled dairy products she offered me, she told me, once again, stories of the war. This woman cannot remember the most simple words on a day-to-day basis but as she recalled the scenes of death and annihilation she witnessed as a 13-year-old, as she described how, as a hospital worker at 13, she was responsible for removing the maggots that infested soldiers' wounds due to the ever-growing summer heat, she grimaced and raised a knobby arm upwards, as if to shield her eyes from the sun. It was such a dramatic gesture, and she was committing to it completely unconsciously. Because death is scary!

Not to Justine it isn't. Von Trier's point was to show that in her state, Justine welcomes certain death. She bathes nude in Melancholia's blue, fast-approaching light and scoffs at her sister's wish for some sort of last-minute closure. While everyone else is flitting about, running off in golf carts with their children as if getting a mile south of their current location would save them from a planetary collision, Justine has long since waved her white flag. This is depression. Death as an invitation. Complete surrender. And to anyone who has ever as much as flirted with melancholy, this fate is far, far scarier than death.

If you made it this far in the post, I'm flattered and surprised. Sorry for being so scattered.

Nuts for Netflix, Episode 2

Tomorrow is the first Thursday of the month, which means museum entrance in Seattle is free. I plan to spend a few solid hours at the SAM. Can't wait! Until then, however, it's pouring outside, so options are limited. helloooo cinema in bed.

Tampopo (1985): Really wonderful movie about the joys of food. It's a hilarious little mix of genres and story lines, and you won't get away without craving a steaming bowl of ramen minutes in. Also, I watched it on some random host website since it isn't available to order on Netflix, and the version I was watching (the ONLY version available out there to my knowledge, except for one dubbed in German) cut the last 15-20 minutes. If you know where I can find this film in its entirety, I will be forever grateful!

Tiny Furniture (2010): Big surprise, I'm drawn to that which reflects my current (here, soon-to-be) state. Tiny Furniture tells the story of a young woman fresh outta some liberal arts college where she majored in film and now has no idea what the fuck to do with her life. She returns to her mom's posh/artsy fartsy apartment to spend the summer warring with her obnoxious little sister, a demeaning hostessing job, and two poor excuses for men. The star is also the writer, and, currently merely 25 years of age, is impressive, real, cellulite-y, and irritating. Stars, they're just like us!

The Big Chill (1983): I can't understand how The Big Chill is so beloved by so many. I found it boring, dumb, and ridiculous. A gaggle of thirtysomething old college friends reunited to mourn a mutual friend's death and we have to watch them roll joints, complain about their spouses, and become impregnated by each other, when really the should just be complaining about their horrible hair. WTF? Maybe when I'm a bored thirtysomething in the 2020s I will feel the need to rewatch this movie and end up loving it, pitying my own little sad life.

Howl's Moving Castle (2004): Beautiful, weep-worthy Alice-in-wonderland ish tale of a mousy 18-year-old girl cursed with the appearance of an old woman by an evil witch. Adventure, love, and heartwarming fantastical creatures ensue.

rewatching:

The Old Lady and the Pigeons (1998): This Sylvain Chomet short is a must-see for just about anyone. If you liked The Triplets of Belleville or anything else by Chomet you have to youtube this. Don't despair if you don't speak French--there's just about no dialogue at all. Watch and be creeped out.

I also started the show 'The Inbetweeners' and made it through four episodes of the first season before sternly deciding I really, really didn't like it. In the first four episodes, They tried to get a laugh out of me not once, but TWICE by physically and/or verbally assaulting disabled people. That's funny? If you want a high school comedy/drama, you're far better off watching 'Freaks and Geeks' or the first two seasons of 'Skins'.

Do you watch 'The Inbetweeners'? If you like it, please tell me what you like about it. I'd be curious to discuss.

Nuts for Netflix

Gawd, Netflix, you've done it again! You've helped me to pass days and days and days with nothing to do and make me feel like I've accomplished something by watching so much television and film.

Recently consumed:

Portlandia, Season One (2011)-- totally freaking excellent. Can't wait for more.

Mallrats (1995)-- generally funny and obnoxious, but bores near the end

The Girls' and Boys' Guide to Getting Down (2011)-- starts off pretty funny but gets old just as quickly. If I want to spend an hour and a half watching abominable young adults snort cocaine and try to score, I'd be a part of the Greek system.

Inglourious Basterds (2009)-- totally freaking excellent. I enjoyed reading people's reviews and comments on rottentomatoes afterwards; it's fun to observe people debate the morality within a Tarantino movie.

up next: Talk to her (2002), Brazil (1985)

In other news, I've cleaned drawers, closets, bookshelves, written letters, napped myself into oblivion, baked earl grey shortbread, and attended enough holiday parties that my midsection is mildly distended (severe understatement) every evening. Fa-la-la-la-fat.

What are you all watching?

Weekend (2011)

Really excellent. Netflix streaming.

The Artist (2011)

Finally! A thoroughly enjoyable movie-going experience! The Artist is a graceful tribute to the silent movie era, and playfully incorporates the storytelling paradigm of that time while remaining completely fresh and fun. Dujardin and Bejo are perfect for their roles, with expressions so minute and earnest, capable of eliciting any emotional response from the audience. They were also unbearably charismatic, and I particularly enjoyed Dujardin's character's obvious humanity and weakness. I highly recommend seeing it. It's playing at one of Seattle's most adorable movie theaters: the harvard exit.

A Dangerous Method (2011)

Keira Knightley is a terrible actress. Nothing she does is natural, unless natural is synonymous with severe overacting. Everything she says is said in a forced yelp, and the Russian accent was by far the most embarrassing one I've ever heard. That's about all I have to say about this movie.

Like Crazy (2011) and 'Norwegian Wood'

Sometimes we like to do things that we know will hurt us, but we do them anyway, because the experience is beautiful and necessary, sometimes even inescapable. Luckily, when I refer to this phenomenon in terms of watching certain movies or reading certain books, the repercussions and consequences are far, far minimized compared to when another human being is involved. Sometimes there's just something within us that we have to exorcize in any way possible. Recently I've been taking the relatively un-destructive route and watching movies and reading books that I know will undoubtedly break my heart. But part of me is pulled to these stories because they are real, and as they break my heart they make me feel whole and sane in a way that only relatable art can. There is simply no other way for me to explain the reason for my being so deeply drawn to that which will cause me pain, fleeting or lasting. I've always felt a need to experience the most soaring human emotions first hand, and this is probably why I'm not good at saying 'no' when I probably should. Plus, what sort of life is it, living in a grey muteness?

So I paired, rather unconsciously, Drake Doremus' 2011 film Like Crazy with Haruki Murakami's 1987 novel 'Norwegian Wood'. They were both wonderful and beautiful and heartbreaking. I enjoyed every minute of both works, particularly in combination with one another. In Like Crazy, Yelchin and Jones play Jacob and Anna, respectively, two seniors in college in LA. Anna, a journalism student, is from England, and as she falls in love with Jacob, a design student, she unwisely decides to overstay her visa, putting her future with Jacob in jeopardy, as she is subsequently banned from entering the United States. What ensues is a painful and impressionistic view of the following months, wrought with nostalgia and ache. Jacob and Anna can't reach one another on the phone, they turn to an 'open relationship' (riiiight), they break up, they get back together again, and then they try something most of us in a long-distance relationship, no matter how devoted, have not tried: they get married. Only now, six months stand between the two of them before the latter can join her partner in LA.

Understandably and realistically, shit gets complicated, and despite that living, pulsing love that Anna feels for Jacob and that he feels for her, the love over which they get back together despite months of not speaking over and over again, life ends up coming between the two. Like Crazy ends in the most ambiguous way, just like many of our relationships. You watch it and you say "Yeah, it was like that." And I find that to be a success on the filmmaker's part.

Murakami's novel was deeper, more disturbed, and more contemplative. Toru Watanabe looks back on his college years in Tokyo in the 1960s and relives his relationships with several young women who still have a hold on him so deep that he is brought to jolting nausea as the memories pour back in more than a decade later. Murakami's writing is exquisite, introspective, and everything I wanted it to be as I came to know 19-year-old Toru. Together we looked back on the time we learned that life and death are not so separate after all, the time we learned that not only are life and death not so black and white, but everything between the two; namely, love.

This had seemed to me the simple, logical truth. Life is here, death is over there. I am here, not over there. The night Kizuki died, however, I lost the ability to see death (and life) in such simple terms. Death was not the opposite of life. It was already here, within my being, it had always been here, and no struggle would permit me to forget that.

Hugo (2011)

You have to be extraordinarily careful making a movie set in Paris these days. You must be acutely aware of cliches to avoid--visual, musical, and spoken. To my dismay, ten minutes into Hugo I knew I'd be disappointed. And I SO wanted to adore it!

But it was much too slow, childish, and sloppy. I was captivated only by the final 20 minutes or so, but even then, it was so unfresh and tired that I felt embarrassed sitting in that dark theater. Embarrassed for Scorcese, I guess. (Not often one gets to utter that phrase.)

But yes, I was sleepy and bored and embarrassed, for as the movie's plot revealed itself as one bursting homage to the history of cinema, Hugo continued to deflate and cheapen itself. The unbearable cliches included goddamn accordion music, the subway/train station musicians gag, the old lady with a teensy obnoxious dog gag, the orphan bit, the wide-eed young girl out for an adventure bit, and the stilted policeman in 'love' (portrayed completely unconvincingly by Sacha Baron Cohen) with the radiant, somehow single and SOMEHOW interested flower lady. And these cliches, folks, just about sum up the entire film. Oh dear. Well, there you have it. I found it to be a vast disappointment, distant and impersonal, the cliche of all Parisian cliches, lacking heart, quirk, and soul.

Happy and Sad

Happy:

1. These socks. I bought then in Vermont over Thanksgiving break and have been crazy about them ever since. They're like funfetti, but cozy, and on your feet. As everything else at American Apparel, they were extremely overpriced, but what can I say, love at first sight, folks.

2. My cat. Forever drooling and rumbling by my side.

3. Finishing a book for pleasure.

Sad:

1. Those Beacon Plumbing ads they have plastered all over Seattle (and god forbid, elsewhere). It seems they've been around for ages, and are only becoming more ubiquitous. If you live in the Greater Seattle Area, you'll know what I'm talking about. These ads feature the Beacon Plumbing slogan "Stop Freakin', Call Beacon!" above a lady, who can only be described as faux-busty, fake-tanned, fried-haired, and incredibly sad. In fact, these ads depress me to such an extent that I refuse to even include their image in this post. The saddest thing about these ads is not even the use of sex to sell a product that is not remotely related to a busty woman. The saddest thing is that the ad is so poorly and cheaply put together that it is impossible to look at it and not consciously make that connection, and all the while your facial muscles involuntarily contort to create the most wrenching stink face imaginable.

Kill Bill, Vol. 1 and Chungking Express

I've been on a bit of a Tarantino kick recently, and it's been fun and perhaps even mildly cathartic. (Does 'mild' even work in a sentence with 'cathartic'?) Never having seen either volume of Kill Bill in its entirety, I decided it was about time. So I recruited a housemate and my fleece blanket behind which to hide and went for it.

It is a testament to the director that one can watch this film, at least 80% of which is comprised of violent fight scenes, and not become bored, desensitized, or overwhelmed. Okay, maybe I did get a bit overwhelmed at times but that's why I had Stefan's left arm and my blanket. In any case, Uma Thurman is so kickass, and, as all viewers before and after me, I was obsessed with the crazy teenage killer girl. The dead eyes!

The soundtrack is killer, as is the expected pastiche of genre. It was a rather unconvincing tale, but I didn't have a second to contemplate the irrationality of it all while I was watching it, which is yet another testament to Tarantino. Other favorite bits: Daryl Hannah's white trench coat embellished with trompe-l'oeil belts and buckles, every scene of Uma Thurman's utter bad-assity.

I was told by a professor that Wong Kar-Wai is the Korean Tarantino. Not sure I see that after watching my first of his films. "Chungking Express" (1994) is fresh and real, impressive, but not consistently engaging. Each half of the film is dedicated to a separate story; both detail the heartbreak two young cops experience after breaking up with a girlfriend. The most engaging and beautiful parts of this film were the scenes in which one of the cops speaks to the inanimate objects in his apartment. This film is beautiful because it shows, simply, instances of people and our yearning to connect with anyone or anything at all, and the lengths to which we go to do so. Certain scenes are unspeakably gorgeous, but I was irritated at times by the all too consciously moving camera. It's impressionistic and ephemeral, and thusly true to life.

Movies I plan to see in theaters over break:

-Hugo (Scorcese + 1930s Paris + animation...!@#$%^&*)

-Shame (sex and psychos. enough said.)

-perhaps $3 showings of The Guard and The Rum Diary (only to show my undying love of JD)

-A Dangerous Method (Cronenberg's new film. What's that you say? I get to poke fun at psychoanalysis AND Keira's pout in the same motion picture? Jackpot.)