I’m sick of you taking these contexts out of context!

This is a real course in the Sociology department, but it totally seems like a joke:

SOCI G9080 - Contextualization of Contexts
3 pts. Prerequisites: None. Structure embeds with process and events with networks among observings and signalings, as variously perceived and constituted in levels and extensions. The central issue is contextualizing contexts wherein social is interdigitated with cultural, narrative with situational.

in three dimensions

I haven’t met them, but I know I love my neighbours:

girls on bikes!

The New York Post reports:

City officials said yesterday they won’t eliminate the Brooklyn neighborhood’s bike lanes despite concerns by the Hasidic community that they attract scantily clad hipster cyclists who go at dangerous speeds. Scott Gastel, a Department of Transportation spokesman, said the lanes “increase safety.”

infinite, infinite jest.

So summer is near its end and I’m nowhere close to being finished IJ. I’m just not going to do it. I am more than halfway through, though, and I’m not giving up.

I am, however, taking a break to read Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, maybe partially because I listened to him tell a story on The Moth Podcast about being stranded in a train station at age 16. It’s going quickly; but then, it’s a manageable subway-reading size.

While reading it on the way to school the other day, a man wearing goggles asked me what I thought of it. He said he wasn’t going to tell me his opinion, because I was just at the start of the book. But then, when he got off the train, as the doors were closing, he turned around and looked at me and said “I didn’t love it.”

wherever I ordinarily reside, that’s my home

If you are a Canadian who happense to be outside your riding on election day, you can vote by special ballot. But to request a special ballot, you need to prove your eligablity to vote.

Step one is the affirm your “residency criteria” by answering a simple question: Is your place of ordinary residence in Canada? (Yes or  No)

Confused? Perhaps you need the Government of Canada’s definition of “ordinary residence”

A person’s ordinary residence is the place he/she calls home. This is the place where he/she resides and intends to return to when away. A person can have only one place of ordinary residence at a time.

These subject lines look good together

something I’ve been meaning to tell you

1. So after we made peanut butter, we made jam:

2. And then we all made bread;
3. And then we all made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
4. We made some cheese:

And Danny got all excited and wanted to make cheese all the time.

5. Jon crossed the road with a sign:

6. Graeme came to visit; he caught a chicken and brought it home:

7. Then Graeme and I went to the Museum of Glass in Corning NY:

8. I moved to New York! I live on the Fth floor:

sweet subway story

This is a super-lovely NYT illustrated story about the author’s children, who love the New York City subway.

The illustration above goes with the line

Arthur spends hours studying the subway map. He laughs at his mother when she suggests taking the B on a weekend. The only questions he has are about the pronunciation of some station names.

Peanut Butter Jelly Time

I wrote a blurb about what we’ve been doing with the kids in the kitchen for the camp newsletter–that’s what this is. The peanut butter has been fabulous and each jar is slightly different. I have them lined up in a gradient from darkest to lightest. Our pyramid of jars of homemade jam is growing too. It’s funny to me that I’ve never made jam before, and now I make it every day. That’s the point though, this learning-by-doing and teaching-by doing.

Anyhow, here’s what the parents know.

Update from the Mitbach.
Dory Kornfeld. Rosh Mitbach 2008

Every kid at Na’aleh this session has made peanut butter. Each kvutzah has rotated through the mitbach (kitchen) and as a group shelled and roasted peanuts, salted them slightly, ground them in the food processor, and spooned it into a mason jar.

Most kids like peanut butter, but not very many of them had thought about what the sweet substance is really made of. While taking turns stirring and grinding, we compared the ingredients in the Price Chopper brand peanut butter (some dextrose, some fully hydrogenated soybean oil) with the ingredients in what what we were making (just plain peanuts). We discussed the various reasons that all these things would be added to peanut butter: for taste, consistency, shelf life, to make it cheaper, and came to the collective conclusion that our homemade batches were far superior than the stuff from the grocery store.

Now we’re in the next set of rotations and this time around we’re making jam. As we mash and boil strawberries with lemon juice and sugar, we’ve been talking about local food, eating things in season, the weird world of corn farming subsidies and high-fructose corn syrup, and whether the higher price of organic produce is worth it.

It’s been really exciting to have the chanachim (campers) in the mitbach. We’re making the kitchen a really active and integral part of machaneh this summer, and through the Mitbach Sadna (workshop) I’ve been able to meet every kid and have them meet me, and everyone at machaneh has been able to learn about and get more involved in what goes into their mouths to power them through our busy days at Na’aleh.

New York state is the ice cream capital of my life

This is Andy, at Voss’, in Utica NY, where we stopped for milkshakes when driving to Connecticut to visit Anna back in May. Overhearing conversations while standing in line, we gathered that it was one of the first few days Voss’ was open; everyone was really excited about their summertime milkshake fix, and there was one girl who squealing because of how pleased she was to be bringing a friend to Voss’ for the very first time. We kept quiet and didn’t let on that it was our first time there too.

And then, a month and a half later, I show up here, in the Sidney/Bainbridge/Unadilla area (the Tritowns) and realize that there are these magical ice cream stands EVERYWHERE up and down the minor highways. The closest is the Sidney Tastee Treat:
which doesn’t have as good cheesecake ice cream at the stand we stopped at in Norwich (on the way to see fourth of july fireworks), but is close and now I feel that lovely sense of ownership that one develops for things they can’t possibly own.

Like route 17. I really feel like that’s my highway.

the deeds were done and done again as my life is done…

I’ve been keeping a list on my arm of things to order, and right now it says:

• Watermelon
• Sugar cereal

Which makes me think of this:

Excitement, advenutre

Lord knows why, but I wandered into Urban Outfitters today. I spun around in a daze for about 8 minutes, then left, really excited that I’m going to camp on Friday. The next two months will be spent making giant pots of chili, wearing an apron, teaching kids about sourdough, and hanging out in the woods where my phone doesn’t work. Things are gonna be good.

If you have any suggestions about what I should do with the campers (I’m in charge of food-based education stuff), I’d love to know. Right now my notebooks are full of lists that include growing sprouts, making jam, baking bread, talking about the whole local/organic/etc debate, planting an herb garden, pickling eggs, having a Kraft Dinner vs Real Mac’n'Cheese cook-off, making ritz cracker “apple” pie…

the reading life

I think that Annie Dillard is the exact literary opposite of David Foster Wallace. Short deliberate sentences, short chapters. Lots of divisions, of ideas and thoughts. Reading Annie Dillard, I’m finding it hard to put the book down, desiring to read one more paragraph or section or oh look the next chapter is only 6 pages. I think that if The Writing Life was a thousand pages and Infinite Jest was merely 150, The Writing Life would still be shorter.

crafty problem solving

There’s been this stain on my favourite sweatshirt for some time now, and I finally got around to fixing it–by appliqué-ing leaves over it and adding a few others to make it work.

After it was done, though, I realized that this sweatshirt now looks just like my favourite bag:

I have a new appliqué-heavy project that I’m working on now, but it’s best kept a secret for a bit.

New Bicycles

Just like Barack Obama is Your New Bicycle, but more exciting: When Obama Wins!

springtime resolution

Dear World,

Let it be known that I will finish reading Infinite Jest by the end of the summer.

Sincerely,
Dory

ps. I have a large box of book that I don’t feel like I need to take to New York with me. If you want anything, from contemporary fiction to gradschool books about Canadian identity to kids books with nice pictures that will be fun to collage, let me know and you can come help yourself!

Things I have given to people (lately)

Moving means giving things away!

(click to make bigger)

Making Headlines

It totally drives me crazy when journalists–in print and on the radio–say that person/thing/event “made headlines.” As if they, the media, have nothing to do with what “makes headlines” and becomes part of the discourse.

Maybe they’re just giving a lot of respect to the late-night copy editors who actually make the headlines.

november 4

It’s morning, I’m baking bread and listening to the CBC. It occurs to me that I will be living in America on November 4th, when as Martina Fitzgerald, the radio-lady, says “Americans will vote for a new president.”

When I was in New York last month, the election excitement was palpable, with Obama buttons and t-shirts that felt like real enthusiasm, not just kitsch. And it’s displayed on real humans, not the internet or the Globe and Mail. So it will be even more thrilling to be in the country during actual elections. I won’t get to vote then–maybe I can volunteer to drive little old ladies to polling stations. Do they even do that in America?

scones

So the apple-ginger scones that I made up, in my head and in my kitchen, turned out awesome. I gave up on following the recipe I found in one of my cookbooks about halfway through, because I didn’t have any buttermilk, so I just threw in yogurt and regular milk and some other stuff and they’re really spongy lumpy baked goods.

And then I left the kitchen one big mess because my housemate is away until tuesday and it’s fun to have a few days of solitude and disarray. I will tidy before he returns.