let me tell you a story: Utah Phillips, 1935-2008

Utah Phillips died on May 26th. I just heard. My sister was listening to public radio, and they read his obituary. She called me. He’s a great hero of mine. He was a cantankerous old guy, an Army deserter turned alcoholic bum turned pacifist anarchist, who wrote rather awful folk songs. This man taught me so much (only a slice of which I'll have room to mention here )and I never met him.

I remember when I first heard his voice, though. We (my twin sister and I, and probably some friends too, though I can’t remember now) were at yet another Ani DiFranco concert in 1995. We were 14 years old. The first half of the concert was on fire—we were all ready to jump out of our skins with pumped-up tearing guitar and feminism. Then the lights came up for the intermission, and we were all at a loss. They turned up the intermission music, something mellow to keep us in line, and it slowly started to seep in through the ringing in my ears. It was compelling. It was a riff with a story, and the more I listened, it was a story with a riff. It was telling the story of our country, the part we never hear, of the Korean war and freight trains and labor strikes, of the poetry of bums and of Catholic anarchists and opera. But standing there in the smoky sweaty hyped auditorium, I couldn’t quite hear well enough to put the pieces together—I just knew I wanted to hear more.
(listen)

Those stories came out the next year on the best recording I'll ever own, The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere, an album with Ani’s music supporting Utah’s guitar plucking and rambling histories, and was followed up four years later with Fellow Workers. That first collaboration really changed me. It was musically strange, still is, fiddles and turntables, but the music keeps you going, makes you remember that though the words are talking about the 30s, the 60s, that it really is as relevant as it strikes you, and that though it’s an old guy rambling on, that it’s ok to get riled up. Having that musical support and encouragement allowed me to listen.

Utah Phillips is usually described as a folk musician. But he wasn’t a very good singer, never claimed to be, didn’t actually sing many songs during his concerts. “Folk music is boring. ‘Wack fall the di-do, oh blow ye winds, hi-ho,’ hell, that’s boring.” Though he did write a good many songs, he was at his core a storyteller. His stories were irreverent, funny, respectful, and full of a deep understanding of our place in history, on just whose shoulders we stand today.

“Time is an enormous long river, and I am standing in it, just as you are standing in it. My elders were the tributaries. And everything they thought, and every struggle they went through, and everything they gave their lives to, and every song they created, and every poem that they laid down, flows down to me. And if I take the time to ask, and if I take the time to see, and if I take the time to reach out, I can build that bridge between my world and theirs, I can reach down into that river, and take out what I need to get through this world. Bridges, from my time to your time, as my elders from their time to my time. And we will put into the river, and we let it go, and it flows away from us and away from us until it no longer has our name, our identity; it has its own utility, its own use, and people will take what they need and make it part of their lives.”

It was through his stories I first learned of the history not taught, of the American labor movement, the strikes and speeches and murders and heroes that fought with innovation and courage to give us fair wages and hours. The history of Mother Jones and Ammon Hennessey, of the Pennsylvania coal miners and the Lawrence MA textile workers, of Marian Anderson and war deserters. The history of the folk. And through him and our shared hero, Mark Twain, I learned to love my country despite its government.

This was no passive history, no past America. Utah was an agitator to the end, reframing the political pieces we are handed, reminding us of our power, trying to get us to speak up and act out. He refused to see the world the way those in power want us to see it, and refused to let them dictate his life. This wasn’t reactionary, defensive anarchy: this was about defining who we are for ourselves, as individuals and in communities. At 14, this whole concept was revelatory to me, and continues to inspire me in everything I do.

“No matter how new age you get, old age gonna kick your ass.”
Utah suffered from heart problems for years. It had recently sapped his energy so much that he couldn’t play the guitar any more, and he got out of breath just recording his radio broadcasts. He didn’t give up on life, but his heart eventually gave out. He died as best any of us could ask: in bed at home, with spring breezes coming in through the window, asleep, next to his wife.

What Utah said of his elders is better than any words I could say of him: "But they lived those extraordinary lives that can never be lived again. And in the living of them, they gave me a history that is more profound, more beautiful, more powerful, more passionate, and ultimately more useful, than the best damn history book I ever read.”

For more information:
Utah’s life story

Utah’s note to friends on his birthday, two weeks ago

musical 2nd impressions

When you think of Australia, you probably don’t think ‘thriving music scene.’ At least I didn’t. I knew that this great country had produced the Bee Gees, AC/DC, Silverchair, and Wolfmother. Not the most inspiring of musical histories. And I’d heard that the radio is 99% American, and is on a 30-year delay, which is true: the most recent music we might hear on the airwaves is maybe 1978 plus the rare Justin Timberlake and a smattering of other pop, and the worst of that, too. It’s really awful. I shudder to find myself longing for Sexyback.

Luckily, and very surprisingly, it turns out that there are a host of absolutely fantastic local bands of every conceivable genre (see forthcoming “culturally imitative” post). And they are really, really good. Any one of them would be snatched up and signed in an instant at home. I have to wonder: why is there such a profusion of talented musicians, hugely out of proportion to the population? Why isn’t the Australian music management scene taking advantage of this wealth of talent? Or are they just so inundated with good choices that they can’t handle any more? Or do the bands prefer to remain independent? Mysteries that will have to remain unsolved for now.

Here’s hoping for a local bands radio station in the future.

India and Sweden, a kitten and kale

At the moment I am exhausted, hungry, and happy. I am washing kale in the hopes of replicating a dish Phoebe made for me once last year. I don’t actually have the recipe, and only sort of remember what was in it, but I don’t intend to let that stop me. Delicious kale, here we come.

The stress of culinary uncertainty is not the cause of my exhaustion. I’m tired because last night I went out to a Bollywood dancing night with a new friend from work, Ruchi. We had an awesome time. Ruchi’s a really good dancer—she’s part of a Bollywood dance troop, and teaches and performs on a regular basis. We were, in fact, at the club with the rest of her dance troop. Most of their dancing was choreographed and well-practiced. Needless to say, this was a bit intimidating, but she says I did fine. I’m hooked—I’ve been energetically bobbing my shoulders and flitting my hands all day. Despite only coming home at 4 am, after even more dancing and chocolate cake.

Erika and I spent most of the day biking around the city. We first went to visit a kitten that she’s fallen in love with at a nearby pet store. Big surprise, it’s a curious and energetic tiger-striped little Scottish wildcat. Not that she’s consistent or anything. Kittens here cost about $300 and are in great demand, which is bizarre to us, coming from a place where you often can’t even give them away for free. All ‘shelters’ here are swift kill shelters, since feral cats and dogs are the biggest threat to native Australian wildlife. The Aussies value their native animals much more than do stray pets. While I agree with that, it’s still sad to think about, and it does lead to a shortage of kittens. (Don’t worry, we’re not actually getting any pets. Just visiting pet stores.)

After that we went to worship in the blue and yellow temple of economy and design. Ikea is such a wonderfully respectful store. You only have to walk in the door to feel accommodated and catered to. And encouraged to spend money. Today the place was full of adorable babies, which was very distracting. We successfully escaped with the picture frames we came for and only one additional unplanned purchase of a small plastic cup. The highly discounted red leather couch was very tempting, but would have been difficult to carry home on the back of our bikes, and we really really don’t need another couch.

This evening we’re going to watch movies, eat (hopefully delicious) kale, and go to bed early. As glamorous as it is to live abroad, it’s nice to have a little mundanity now and then.

snowwalking

This weekend, I was cold. Very, very cold. “In Australia, the sunburned country, the land of 10,000 beaches?” you may ask. Yes. If you go up in elevation enough, you can be cold anywhere, even Down Under.

And up I went. First geographically, five hours northeast of Melbourne. Then, in the tiny Coloradoish town of Mt. Beauty, we turned off the valley roads and started the winding, stomach-turning ascent through chasm-split and towering mountain ash and eucalyptus up to the barren, snowy high alpine plains of the Victorian Alps.

I was on this backpacking (“bushwalking”) adventure with a group of six other Uni students and two trip leaders, all part of the school’s fantastic outdoors program. Once we reached the snows, we all piled out of the school van, bundled ourselves in all available clothing (“rugged up”), slung our borrowed packs across our backs, and set out through the clouds. We were about 6,000 ft. up (1800 m). It was about 31 degrees F (0 C), wet, windy, and slow going.

The fact that we stopped every 50 ft. to look at the views made it even slower. While the clouds we stood in limited any long vistas, the nearby scenery was breathtaking. A huge fire swept across this entire range in 2003, killing the above-ground parts of all the plants (and most of the animals). This made what started as a barren landscape all the more bare, and the few twisted white snowgum trees mere ghosts of themselves. The plants are designed for fire, though, and kept their roots alive. They are pushing back up through the frozen soil with dense bushes of dark green and tan, with yellow strawflowers and hearty mosses scattered throughout, rubbing scrubs of color into the shades of grey. The cold and clouds conspired to make it all the more arresting by adding crystalline sparkles to every available surface. As if it didn’t look enough like an abstract fairyland already.

After about four miles of distraction and sticky snow, we arrived at our shelter for the night: Edmonson Hut, near Mt. Nelse. It’s a simple 50-year-old corrugated iron hut with an accompanying outhouse (“dunny”). The tiny building (the hut, not the dunny) is graced with a fireplace, cooking tables, a bench, three sleeping lofts, many unfortunate drafts, and a curious resident mouse. All I can say is that Australians don’t have any concept of cold-weather architecture. The structure couldn’t have been better designed to keep any available heat away from the inhabitants. The driving, blinding wind and snow that started up outside as soon as we walked in the door didn’t help. We were already pretty wiped out by the cold when we got there, and spent the next four hours jovially chatting and shivering in our sleeping bags before succumbing to exhaustion. I don’t think anyone got much sleep.

In the middle of the night, I abandoned the relative warmth of my cocoon and braved the track to the dunny. It took me a moment to realize that the snow had stopped, the wind was silent, everything was even more sparkly than before, and… my god… there were stars. The sky. With nothing at all between it and me. No lights anywhere within my horizon but the lights in the heavens. Not a drop of moisture in the achingly cold air. Not even a pesky ozone layer to block the celestial glory. It put every single night sky I had ever seen before to shame, to irrelevance. And it was all unfamiliar: the southern cross, the milky way cutting the wrong way across, no big dipper, no Cygnus, no Cassiopeia… The surprise of it, the perfect clarity when I expected howling grey, the unfamiliar arrangements, the sheer number of stars, made it all the more dream-like, made it seem like a moment out of A Wrinkle In Time, as if I had intruded on a conversation between divine beings. I made everyone who was still awake come outside with me.

Credit to my fellow trekkers, everyone was chipper the next morning. The shocking gold and pink of the surrounding dawn-lit hills, together with the promise of food, was enough to put anyone in a good mood. Oatmeal is never so delicious as when it’s gulped, scalding, into a stomach emptied of its calories by shivering. Especially oatmeal made with delicious water. The water up there is so pure that you can drink it right from the stream. My swamp-born self was dubious at first, but then remembered that there are very few animals that have returned up there, and fewer still that would be at our altitude. Lo and behold, none of us got so much as a bellyache.

That second day we wandered on no particular track (the plants here don’t mind being walked on, quite the change from the delicate alpines at home), dumped our packs, and made our way under a deeply blue sky up around the peak of Mt. Nelse to the views from the fancifully-named Spion Kopje, an Appalachian-esque rolling ridge. And while the sweeping snow plains, distant peaks, etc., were striking, that wasn’t the most surprising aspect of the view: I couldn’t have imagined better hiking weather: sunny, crisp, not much wind, on a Saturday, in a theoretically-popular park. Number of people other than us? 0. Number of buildings, roads, powerlines, etc. visible? 0. We could have been exploring an unpopulated planet for all we could see. It brought home again how human-empty this continent is. I love it.

The afternoon brought us and our re-acquired packs down in elevation and into the sun so that grasses, not snows, surrounded us. I could see why tiny wild horses love this area. I wanted to be a tiny wild horse myself, those fields looked so tasty. The strange thing was, we saw plenty of evidence of recent passage of these creatures, but despite there being nowhere in the landscape for them to hide, we couldn’t see a single animal. I personally decided that they must be invisible.

In the evening’s distressingly-beautiful golden glow, we strode across undulating meadows to our night’s home. I’ve rarely seen so perfect a camping spot. The ramshackle Wallace Hut, of which the Australians are inordinately fond, provides an unusual setpiece amongst a tangle of soft grasses, snowgums, rock heaps, and surprising glimpses down into the southeastern valleys. The ground is cushiony but dry, the trees create quiet nooks throughout, the water is nearby and delicious, the campfire ring is snug, the sunrise and sunset views are both perfect. A pair of Pied Currawong considered stealing our dinner, but limited themselves to merely providing entertainment. Overnight the temperature dropped to around 20 F (-6 C), and I didn’t sleep again. I don’t know why: I used to be able to sleep in any weather.

We were awoken the next morning by a profusely pink dawn. After a quick feed, we hiked out along a dirt road that led to the dam where we’d parked the van. We saw other people (!) out sight-seeing and fishing, though no fish were sighted. A long drive home, made all the longer by – no joke – a home improvements theme on the one radio station we could hear (If I Had a Hammer, Sledgehammer, Pane of Glass Into My Heart, True Colors, Tear It Down, etc.). We were all glad to get home.

The photos below are from the camera of one of my fellow hikers, Debbie. She took most, I took a few. I didn’t have my big heavy camera with me. Thanks for sharing, Debbie! (I’ll add other photos from other people as they become available.)
May 13th update: photos from Emma added. Thanks for sharing, Emma!

montsalvat

A few weeks ago, Petra’s uncle John took us to visit an artist’s community called Montsalvat. It’s about 25k (15 miles) outside the Melbourne in the town of Eltham.

Having just celebrated it’s 75th birthday, it’s practically ancient by Australian standards. The sense of antiquity isn’t hurt by the fact that it was all built by unskilled laborers in a style imaginatively imitative of medieval rural France. The buildings are suitably odd and decrepit, made mostly of scavenged timber and daub. Galleries, a lofty dining hall, studios large and small, living quarters even larger and smaller, courtyards and chapels are arbitrarily nestled amongst 12 acres of alternately landscaped and neglected patches of greenery. Peacocks seem to be the kings of the land. A cafe commands the best view of the city across rolling hills, and serves a proper high tea complete with clotted cream.

Current artists in residence include painters; jewelers; makers of violins, guitars, and Japanese flutes; dressmakers; and others. They also have a resident winemaker, whom they seem to greatly appreciate. The best part of the day was watching two middle-aged guys who’d apprenticed to the guitar maker string and strum their hand-made instruments for the first time. Their quiet joy and pride and skill, listening to their hard fingers slide up the steel strings and watch these grown men silently grin, with the wine and sun and geese underfoot and hay smell and old wood to lean against… it was hard to get me to go back to the hard cold city.

Unfortunately most of the visual art produced here, both historically and presently, is rather terrible. That manages to not detract too much from the grounds and their ideal. Today, Monstalvat is mostly used as a location for weddings and other similar events, as a backdrop for films and ads, and as a place for Melbournians to go for tea and a stroll. I’d recommend it any day.

ANZAC Day

Some of you may have been fortunate enough at some point to sample one of my mother’s famous oatmealy coconutty ANZAC Biscuits*. They’re truly delicious, with a texture and flavor unmatched by any I’ve tried in the US or Australia. Today—25th April—is the day that these scrumptious desserts commemorate: ANZAC Day, one of Australia’s most important public holidays.

ANZAC stands for “Australia New Zealand Army Corps.” Both the holiday and the biscuits mark the 1st major military action fought by the combined forces of the then-young countries Australia and New Zealand in WWI—specifically, the landing in Gallipoli, Turkey in 1915. The aim of the battle was to capture Istanbul, at that point the capital of the Ottoman Empire. More than 80,000 Aussies and 3,000 New Zealanders died in this failed campaign, representing a significant percentage of the countries’ contemporary populations.

ANZAC Day started during the war as a national celebration of military endeavor. Once the war ended and the veterans returned home, they sought fellowship, a way to remember their dead friends, and a way to reconcile themselves with the brutalities of war. They began gathering annually on ANZAC Day in silent dawn vigils, adding an element of memorial and reflection to the military enthusiasm. These days, ANZAC Day honors the victims of all wars. The dawn vigils remain one of the most important parts of the day, and nicely balance the mighty parades. In addition to domestic events, almost 20,000 Australians make an ANZAC Day pilgrimage each year to the battlefields in Turkey to commemorate the fallen.

According to The Age, Australia’s last surviving WWI vet watched today’s parade via the TV in his nursing home. He was 16 at the time of the battle, and is now 109 years old. I hope he had a really good day and ate lots of biscuits.

The University of Melbourne’s student newspaper included a few interesting articles about some lesser-known aspects of the day, which we recommend reading:
“The echoes of war,” “Youth, Death, and Gallipoli,” and “Don’t mention the anti-war feeling.”



*Delightfully, Australian law actually prohibits anyone from referring to ANZAC Biscuits as cookies.

i don't want a pickle

I love riding my bike. For starters, my bicycle is beautiful and perfect in every way: I splurged on a new Trek hybrid road/mountain bike, more on the road side than mountain. It’s black. And very fast.

There are bike lanes on almost all of the city streets, and drivers are accustomed to bikers, so it’s safer than any city I’ve ever biked in before. There’s even little bike streetlights on big intersections. Riding through the city to school every day is a breeze.

The bike gives me such a sense of freedom. It’s not just the joy of riding: my heartbeat up, the wind, the speed, the alertness, the scenery. It’s being able to go absolutely anywhere. Road? Sidewalk? Playingfield? To the library? To another town? Want to sit in a quiet forest (“the bush”) somewhere? No problem. Me and my bike will be there. Possibly via thirteen fun and scenic detours.

The first time I took off to explore outside the city was a bit of a disaster: right after I got my bike, about two weeks ago, I explored north up the Murray river. It turned out to a big wind tunnel that smelled like poo, had a lot of construction, no bathrooms, and getting there involved a containership port, two highway underpasses, a railroad yard, an active marathon course, new-bike adjustment troubles, and a broken bridge. Not hard to beat that.

Today’s ride was beautiful. Not even just in comparison, just beautiful. It was about 75 degrees and sunny. (some autumn, eh?) I got out of the city by biking east through an interesting old shopping lane (Johnston Street), then wound northeast along the Yarra river. Despite theoretically following a major bike lane, I managed to get lost about every kilometer (1/2 mile), but that merely allowed me to discover a waterfall, a nice bench on a dirt path, myriad views of the muddy river, a nice beagle puppy, and other things I’d never have seen if I’d been where I thought I was. This made my 35 k (20 miles) take more than three hours door back to door, which is silly really even though it was quite hilly.

My favorite part of the day was stealing all of the chocolate chips and dried apricots out of my trail mix while watching a particularly mischievous kookaburra perched above lovely waving grasses by the Yarra, slouching its way toward the city. I'm really not cut out for the city. Give me half a chance and you'll find me beating a hasty retreat from the hussle and noise. Good thing I have that option here.

Petra’s getting a hand-me-down bike from a cousin later this week, and I’m looking forward to showing her all the wonderful places I’ve discovered. That’s the only thing that could possibly make biking better: having someone to bike with. It should be great.




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green 2nd impressions

This is the first in a series of posts about my deeper impressions of Melbourne and Australian culture. I don’t claim to be an expert: we’ve only been here for two months now, and I know I have a lot to learn. But I find what I see around me to be fascinating, and y’all keep asking about this place, so here’s what I’ve noticed.

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There is a country-wide environmental ethic here. Everyone's well-informed about environmental issues, every local government and company is doing everything they can (or seeming to) to be more green.

Environmentally-friendly products are all the rage: organic is quite common, even for clothing cotton. Half the booths at the food market are exclusively organic. Trendy t-shirts that say "Listen to your mother" with a picture of the earth, "Respect Planet Earth," "I love the planet," "stop killing whales," and the like are the most popular for hip kiddos. The biggest department store in the city, Myers (like Macys) currently has filled all of their display windows with their newest line of eco-friendly clothing. You can find 100% post-consumer recycled toilet paper at any grocery store, tiny inner-city convenience stores stock all-natural dish soap and laundry detergent… you get the idea. And the best part: these products are only a tiny bit more expensive than their non-organic counterparts.

It’s not just products that are above the eco-norm: Everyone uses cloth shopping bags, and you get a dirty look if you forget yours. Public transit's great, and is the norm for getting around. Lots of people, even professionals, bike. There's a lot less paper used, everything's electronic instead. People are quite keen to buy local items if they’re available, and they know why that matters. Their water conservation techniques are quite innovative, and the average bloke’s understanding of natural watershed filtration systems is impressive. Petra’s favorite graffiti in the city is a big one that says “stop logging our water cachements!” Even the vandals (“hoons”) care.

It's not perfect--they have a lot of British infrastructure (external plumbing, single-pane windows, high ceilings, etc) to undo. The only eco-bad practice that’s common here is that shopkeepers seem to think it’s a great idea to air condition the city: shops will blast the air or heat and leave their doors wide open, and it’s very common for restaurants to use those free-standing sidewalk heaters even on pretty warm nights. But in general everyone really really cares and is trying to think outside of the box and make fast and effective change to save the environment.

I knew they’ve had a really good governmental eco-history since the late 1980s, but I’ve been fascinated to learn about the amazingly astute stewardship sensibilities of some (though certainly not all) of the early European settlers. Some of the world’s first conservation efforts were undertaken by the leaders of the young colonies here, often with the intent to protect natural resources (timber, seals, etc.) from being used up by the eager new residents. The more astute farmers among the ‘transported’ inmates cautioned against swift livestock breeding and overgrazing, saying the seemingly-endless plains here were too dry to grow back quickly enough to replenish themselves. A mayor here and there tried to protect all of the trees surrounding the little proto-cities to ensure a lasting firewood supply, good drainage, and soil retention. A few of the more aesthetically-minded prisoners even got some pretty gullies and hills protected just because they were nice to look at. These were ideas hundreds of years ahead of their times.

Unfortunately, the leaders of the colonies didn’t have much control over what the residents did, so a lot of the timber, seals, grasslands, pretty bits, etc. did get wiped out anyways, with predictable results. Some blame the current imbalance in the Australian climate entirely on this early damage: this view is oversimplified, but it’s interesting how they’re very aware of their forbearers’ effect on the landscape and their culpability in the current water cycle and all. How many Americans have ever thought what the landscape of our country looked like before white people arrived?

I think Australia’s recent enthusiasm for all things green is not only because of this historical awareness, but also because of the big whopping hole in the ozone layer that's sitting over their heads PLUS the drastic effects of global warming that are already being seen here: 13th year of drought here in the south, devastating flooding in the north, and Antarctica and it's collapse are right on the doorstep here. With all that, it's hard to ignore our responsibility.

we are the Navy Blues

We are the Navy Blues
We are the old dark navy Blues
We’re the team that never lets you down
We’re the only team all Carlton knows.

With all the champions
They like to send us
We’ll keep our ends up
And they'll know that they've been playing
Against the famous old dark Blues!

This weekend we visited an iconic local landmark known as the MCG (the Melbourne Cricket Ground) hoping to see the Carton Blues trounce the Collingwood Magpies. I was thrilled – and honestly, a bit surprised – because in fact we saw exactly that! It was the Blues’ first win in 14 games. We take full credit – our attendance clearly inspired my cousin’s team to win their first victory of the season. Collingwood and Carlton have a longstanding rivalry, so this weekend’s win was particularly satisfying.

Given that we were at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, you might suppose we were watching, well, cricket. In fact the sport was Australian Rules Football (“Footie”), a game which resembles nothing so much as soccer played with a rugby ball with passes and plays reminiscent of American Football.

The AFL (Australian Football League) was established in Melbourne and most of the teams are still based here. Consequently, Australia’s largest national sport has a peculiarly local flavor. The teams maintain strong connections to the suburbs and neighborhoods in which they are based. The Carlton Blues, for example, have an historic connection with the Italian immigrant community (though ironically, my Italian immigrant family has historically supported St. Kilda). Imagine what it would be like if Somerville, Lexington, Allston, the North End, Cambridge, and Southie each had their own baseball teams, but these teams had national prominence.

For someone used to the hyper-commercial, flashy, inflated, and expensive beast that is American Football, the Australian Football League is refreshingly relaxed and down-to-earth. Tickets are comparatively reasonable in price. The halftime show consisted of a dozen mini footie games being played all over the field by pint-sized participants in the AFL’s after-school sports program. They even had adorably re-sized goal posts.

The highlight, of course, was seeing my cousin play. Andy is the son of my mother’s first cousin (for those of you who know Matt, Andy is Matt’s younger brother). Andy plays Midfield (I say like I know what that means). I’m very much enjoying being related to a famous sports star. The taxi driver who brought us home from Ikea the other day was very impressed and gave us a discounted fare. I proudly show off my fan button to the people at work, and I hear there are little figurines of Andy available in a gift shop somewhere. Figurines! My cousin has merchandise. The possibilities for mischief are endless. What would you do to (gently!) tease your cousin if you had access to his action figure?

The final score for Sunday’s game was 111 to 88. Carlton fans cheered and sang the teams song (lyrics above) over and over again while Magpie supporters slunk out of the stadium. As we were leaving Andy’s dad told us that we will now need to come to all of Carlton’s games for the rest of the season since we clearly bring the team good luck.

an ode to quince

You will have to forgive my enthusiasm, but it is my ardent opinion that quince are divine. Truly. I think that if a god or gods existed in the traditional embodied sense, that this is the fruit they would have personally created and dined upon. Its flavors are the closest to my concept of nectar and ambrosia that has ever crossed my adventurous palate.

Uncooked, it has a beautiful golden hue that seems almost to glow. If you press your nose to its firm skin, a perfume to rival French Provence in springtime seems to permeate your mind. And it truly is a perfume: this is no mere smell. It brings to mind honey and roses and melting butter and warm sun on an old painted wooden wall and distant spices and a small river after a swollen rain.

To eat them you must cook them. With these two quince given to us by Petra's co-worker, we sliced them and stewed them in a shallow pan, then sautéed them in a light butterscotch reduction. The flesh of the quince, like that of an unripe white pear before cooking, slowly softens and releases its perfume, becoming translucent and then rosy-colored. The gritty grain of the fruit becomes apparent, then dissolves. Eventually you are left with the softest, sweetest, most sublime material to ever melt on your tongue.

I am very thankful for the English sensibilities here that have kept this glorious fruit in the public consciousness and gardens. Let it never be said again that the Brits don't know their food.