What am I writing?
January 11, 2016
The Newbery, the Caldecott, the King awards have all been announced for this year, but what about the Bulwer-Lytton Award? This award, created in 1982 by San Jose University, recognizes the world’s worst sentence. This award was inspired by Victorian author Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, who penned the infamous, “it was a dark and stormy night.” In full:
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.” — Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)
More information including writing contest rules, winners, more wretched writing, and a quiz I particularly liked where you have to determine if a passage was written by Dickens or Bulwer-Lytton, can be found at Bulwer-Lytton website.
What am I sappy goat blogging?
January 8, 2016Thanks, Cousin Linda, I look forward to seeing your new arrival.
What am I knitting?
January 7, 2016
What am I celebrating today?
January 5, 2016
National Bird Day is an annual holiday in the U.S., with half a million adherents who celebrate through birdwatching, studying birds, smoking birds, bird drinking games including ‘bird date’ and other bird-gang activities. (Wikipedia)
Because it is tattoo Tuesday, here is a tattoo of a black and white warbler on a dedicated birder
Birds Tattoo Contest during the Biggest Week of American birding organized by Black Swamp Bird Observatory. Maumee Bay Lodge and Conference Center, Oakland, Ohio. May 14th 2015.
What am I celebrating on tattoo Tuesday?
December 22, 2015
Today marks the winter solstice – the beginning of the story-telling season, the time when the earth’s northern hemisphere is at its maximum axial tilt away from the sun, the day when your noontime shadow is the longest it is going to be all year. So break out your cakes and ale, light some sparklers, and call back the sun!
Because it is tattoo Tuesday – here is one I liked . . .
There are more interesting solstice mandalas over at deviant art.
What am I baking?
December 21, 2015Did you miss it? Yesterday was Fruitcake Day.
Now I know what you are thinking, but not all fruitcakes are the same. There are some that should never see the inside of an oven.
But if you like fruit and you like cake, you can make a good one. Just don’t put in any yucky stuff (citron).
This is a recipe for Stained Glass Fruitcake that I like very much that I found in Sunset magazine many years ago. I use dried apricots, pears, peaches, cherries and a mixture of different types of raisins, but use what you like. The orange juice adds brightness to the cake. I bake it in mini loaf pans, and it is so good, the cakes don’t stay around for long. Make them early and cover with brandy soaked cheesecloth, if you like. I like them just the way they come out of the oven.
If you don’t have an oven, check out the delicious fruitcake made by the nuns at the Transfiguration Hermitage in Windsor, Maine.
Here’s the recipe:
Cream the butter and sugar; add the eggs; mix the baking powder and salt with the flour; add dry ingredients alternating with the orange juice. Then add the nuts and fruit. Grease and flour the pan or pans. Bake at 300 degrees (low and slow) for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. If you are using small pans, check the cakes sooner because they will bake faster than a large loaf. When a wooden skewer or toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean, it is done. Cool on a rack, but turn out of the pans when the cake is still warm, but not hot.
What am I collecting?
December 19, 2015
“Books breathe as trees breathe. When all the books have gone our mental climate will have changed. It’s a question whether we’ll survive. Technology cannot replace a book. No matter that I can quickly find a digital version of a novel I’m looking for, I still fly into a rage when I discover I no longer have it, and remember who borrowed and didn’t return it, five, 10, 20 years ago. For it is irreplaceable. It has my scribblings in it. The marginal expletives. The turned-down pages. The bus ticket or taxi receipt or even billet doux employed as a bookmark – not just the marginalia of an intellectual life but the detritus of the heart. And that you don’t get on a Kindle, or a free e-book courtesy of Project Gutenberg. What you can’t bend or throw or write on isn’t, in the end, literature.”
Howard Jacobson. More at BBC
Gunsmoke and Knitting 