more media mentions

My friends are all over the media today! Heather has two blurbs running in the New York Press' "Best of Manhattan" issue: "Best Banjo Player Who Sings About Hoboes" (Al Duvall, obvs.) and...I'm not sure what the other one is, might be "Best Place to Hear NYC's Oldest Choir"? She got no byline, dammit! Plus they axed like 10 more of her blurbs that they were going to publish.

In the New York Times, Josh, Karl, and Alison are all featured in an article about spelling bees in the Thursday Styles section. Counterfactual: Karl and Alison are not just bf/gf, they're enGAged! But I bet they told the interviewer they were just friends. There was a spelling bee last night. Cablevision News 12 Brooklyn sent a reporter, who filmed us for a little while. Today it's airing as part of their continuing news cycle. If you have a Cablevision account number or an optonline email account, you can log in at their site and listen to an audio feed. If you have Cablevision in Brooklyn, I wish you would love me enough to tape it. I think it's like a minute long. But I listened to the feed for 30 minutes and it played twice.

Also, since when you google Freddy's Spelling Bee you get a mean-spirited comment from April 2005 comparing it negatively to the Pete's Bee, I think we should have a letter writing campaign to balance it out and/or overwhelm that mean meanie. Ok so maybe we're annoying spazzes. What do you want from a spelling bee? Maybe I shouldn't, after losing, cry out "I WIN!" after correctly spelling "cromlech" and some other word in my head while the contestants were getting them wrong, but it's all in the spirit of fun. Results: Aforementioned banjo artist Al Duvall won the first Bee of the night, and I WON! the second one. Fred (no relation to Freddy) won a cookie.

Knitwear News

Girls, get down to H&M this fall because there are some truly interesting sweaters happening. They remind me of what I was trying to make last year. It's not that I came up with them, it's that Twinkle, Pierrot, and Rowan had great designs last year. I know from my month temping at Esprit that it takes a large company about 9 months to roll out new designs, so that's why last year's Rowan is this year's H&M.

Point Reyes in the news

About one year ago, I spent a delightful week living at Point Reyes National Seashore as part of a Sierra Club service trip. Our chief activity was killing plants. How I loved to choke the life out of flora after fauna. This week there's a nice article in the New York Times about the place, the top photo shows a hillock where we spent a whole day killing iceplant. I went most everywhere in the article, except anywhere that costs money.

Poor Man's Fire Island

A few Sundays ago I took the train and the bus down to Jacob Riis Park, at the west end of Rockaway. I found that on the east side of the park, there was a Fire Island Diaspora settled, with flags flying. A little further on, it's "clothing optional." Psst! I accidentally took a picture of naked people because I didn't notice them at first. (not shown.) There's a big beautiful bathhouse building that's been under renovation for fifty years now. It must have been beautiful when it was built. This satellite bathhouse looked a little like the Olympic Stadium in Berlin to me.
Here's where I went swimming. I kept getting hit with jellyfish, but I was just relieved to see that they weren't condoms. In all, a lovely outing!

Hog Killin’ Time

It’s hog-killin time at Rob***o* Ranch. You probably don’t know this, but sometimes when talking to myself I refer to wherever I live as R-- (my full name) Ranch. Having never owned any livestock, I know it’s a bit odd. But last week it was strangely apt. I bought a pound of “leaf lard” from a farm, and you have to “render it yourself.” Basically it’s the fattest part of a pork belly. Why I wanted it, I’m not too sure. I think I like the idea of making a pie crust without any butter, but the lard you get at the store is just somehow scary and unwholesome. Not like this special pastured pig fat I got, it was extremely unprocessed. All you have to do is chop it into small pieces and melt it in a heavy pot over low heat. It takes a little while. As it melted, I ladled it out and strained it through a folded paper towel I fastened over a jar with a rubber band. At first it was golden brown oil, but after being in the refrigerator overnight it was solid and white. Mmm! Once the leaf lard had all melted, there were brown crispy bits of skin or something left. I was going to throw them out, but then I remembered from the instructions I’d read on the internet that they were called “cracklins” and you could salt them up and eat them as snacks. That doesn’t really appeal, I have to admit. “Cracklins, eh?” I thought. “That rings a bell.” And I remembered something called “cracklin’ bread.” (Not to be confused with “shortnin’ bread.”) Sho’ nuff, I found the recipe in White Trash Cooking for “Big Mamma’s Cracklin Corn Pone.” I quote from this classic work: “Cracklins are the skins and other pieces left after the rendering of pork fat at hog-killing time (in the Fall after the first cold snap).” I guess I killed my hog a little early in the year, but I tried it anyway. Um, why I thought “skins and other pieces,” cornmeal and milk would have some sort of gestalt effect and become unutterably delicious, I’m not sure. It didn’t. It was ok, but in sort of a penitence-type way. Especially the third day.

hobo party

My hobo party t-shirts got media coverage, of a sort! I guess if you know about John Hodgman you know he’s inordinately interested in hoboes. If you don’t know who he is, well, he’s one of those McSweeney’s guys, and lately he’s written for the New York Times Magazine. No I didn’t make it into the Times, or even McSweeney’s, but the shirts and their site were referenced in a weekly email that Hodgman sends out to his supporters to build enthusiasm for his new book. He called the shirt an “important garment.” I owe it all to Heather, who called his attention to them.