Beet Pr0n

Golden Gate Chicago

Damen and the River

Did you know that you can get paid for having an opinion?

From forever ago, I had an essay about being a snotty, brat and suddenly finding myself without a steady job or healthcare on NPR. Click this purple text to listen to it.

Ohio Street Beach, September

Lepidoptera

I am not scared of moths.

Gifts

The Kite.

She flies. THANK YOU SO MUCH.

I have a job.

I have a few jobs, actually. But this one is new. Read my blogging and listen to my podcasting for Generation PRX at Youthcast.org. Find that bitch on iTunes, and you'll have a new episode every other Wednesday, featuring my mellifluous voice and a kick ass radio piece by a young American.

Sue, Arielle, Ming, and Li

Fuck Yeah Seedlings

Sunflower, arugula, lettuce, carrot, watermelon, beets, cosmos, zinnia, sweet pea, stock, sensitive plant, and nasturtium. Edibles by Skyfire, florals by Gethsemane.

May

My First Love is Being a DJ

I'm a co-host on Zartan and Friends this week at WTNRradio.com, with my boy Jubei. Disseminating mp3 downloads of some bomb soul/hip-hop/jazz/psychedelic covers for the next week. Just register real quick and an hour plus of mixed music is yours for the keeping. Only streaming today between 6 am and 2 pm wherever you live.

Eggplants

My nearest grocery store, Andy's Fruit Ranch, is where I shop the most and I am devoted. It's filled with Balkan imports like cured sausages, healing teas, and tons of cookies and chocolates, as well as Middle-Eastern specialty items like rose water and tahini. And as their name indicates, produce is the specialty. Eggplants (or as I like to call them when I am feeling fancy, aubergines) were on special this week for 39 cents a pound, so I revisited some dishes I made earlier this year.

Baba ghanouj I actually make pretty regularly because of how low maintenance a recipe it is. This is all you need to make it:
Get two large or three medium eggplants. Check their bottoms. The one's with clefts are female and have more seeds in them. Bitter seed removal is a bitch, but there are a bit fewer in the rounded bottom males. Stab the aubergines with a fork a bunch of times, wrap in foil, and then roast them at 425 for an hour plus. The squishier the better. When they're done, top and tail them and peel with your hands as soon as you can handle the heat. De-seed as best as you can and then chop roughly and throw in a bowl. Drain as much liquid as you can from the eggplants. As it settles in the bowl, it will come to top and you can pour it off.
The next part is all about taste. Into the bowl I throw in two large cloves of garlic, minced, and a whole lemon, because I love those things. I also use about a handful and a half of finely chopped parsley. Then it get two tablespoonsish of tahini paste and a healthy drizzle of olive oil. Mix it all up, salt to taste, and there you go. Fresh baba for snacking. Turn down the oven to 350 and make some fresh pita chips in 10 minutes it takes to combine ingredients while you're at it.

Fried eggplant lasagna is as good as it sounds and looks.
I generally have a lot of time on my hands during the day, so I made my own sauce for this, and I also purged the eggplants, which takes about two hours and isn't totally necessary, but enhances the flavors. I won't belabor how to make a lasagna, but suggest putting tons of romano and smoked mozz in there if you can, and also to consider the eggplant in it's floured and fried form.
Slice up two 'plants and lay the slices in stacks on a cutting board, sprinkling each layer with salt. Lay another board or flat something on top, plus about five pound of weight-- a big pot of water on top of a coffee table book on top of a second board works well. Slip a second book under the bottom board and let the pressure squeeze the juice out of the slices and into the sink. Run an errand, and when you come back, you have salty, less bitter slices, that you can then dip in flour and pan fry in olive oil till brown. Eat them right then, or slip them amongst the layers of cheese, sauce, and noodles for a badass, filling lasagna that you can eat for a week. Unless you have boys around. They will kill that shit in a night.

(crossposted to Crows in the Kitchen)

F My Life

I got an editorial assignment to turn some material from FMyLife into audio that I complained about doing and that I think turned out okey-dokey.

And while I'm here at Vocalo, blogging, I'll link to the other piece of immaterial work* I made today: a cutting of an exceedingly long (12 mins) interview/story with a stalwart Chicago jazz bassist into a coherent, and perhaps punchy, narrative.

*I have this problem with the ephemeral nature of audio because I work for hours on something, very delicately and nimbly, and the fact that I can't pick it up and hold it bothers me GREATLY.

All in a Day's Work

Replace "Walking" with "Biking" and give or take on that 24.7 miles.

Shedd

Two Years Ago

That's So Not Something I Would Do

Thanks to Max, Eric, and Josh for making this come ALIVE.

The Texas Ballroom

This is what it sounds like when I hang out with my mom.

A reason to get off of Facebook.

Pre-Gaming for Spring

Gutter Pigeon

Drumsticks

Jean-Luc!

Humble Food

ENDYMION

The Bolton Family junk jumbalaya recipe, mid preparation: rice, home smoked sausage from somewhere outside Baton Rouge, a bunch of green onions, can of french onion soup, can of beef broth, plenty of chicken, and, wonderfully, a stick of butter.

BABYLON

Muffuletta from Central Grocery and Zapps Sour Cream and Onion potato chips, eaten on the banks of the Mississippi: swiss cheese, salami, olives, pickled carrots, pickled peppers, pickled cucumbers, oregano, thyme, and olive oil on a sesame bun.

MUSES

Budreaux nomming the best and most earned street food I've had in awhile: pork chop from a barrel smoker, smothered in barbecue sauce, between two slices of white bread. Keep it simple.

Barret eating meatballs at Avi's Bar Mitzvah

"There are a lot of adults here!"

Dome

In the Chicago Cultural Center, née the Public Library.

The Rooster

Bock Johnson!

Listen to his newest position on the economy and don't forget to write-in Bock Johnson in the March 3rd primaries!

Cat Sitting Adventure

Something

Obstinacy and charm were our common characteristics. It was sometimes shocking how we would come up against something that we did not like and did not agree with and we would somehow get our way, even though the odds of our way being gotten did not look good at the outset. It was pig-headedness tempered with a natural kindness and gentleness: when making an argument, we would repeatedly use the phrase, I don’t understand, and use it in a tone that was innocent and beguiling: I don’t understand because I am an idiot, a helpless idiot, and there is a gap in my knowledge and if you get your way, you have forced yourself upon me, you have taken advantage of me. I mentioned earlier about David’s special blackboard, the only one in the school. I was there when Mr. Dressler presented his case to the head of facilities. It was a masterful. Mr. Collucci was walking down the hall right outside the English office, right in front of my locker, a week before the change was supposed to take place. I had my bike helmet under my arm and was going for the charming third time of spinning my combination to get the damn thing open. Mr. Dressler called out to him from inside the office and came trotting out.
Hey, Rick?
Yeah, David. Good morning.
Good morning. Can I ask you a question about those blackboards?
Oh, the goddamn blackboards.
Rick Collucci was married to the principal of one of the elementary schools and had been the head of facilities at that school when I was a student there. He was great. He remembered everyone’s names until they graduated. He used to say, But then I gotta delete all you seniors to make room for the kindergartners.
Yeah so, I don’t understand why you’re replacing all of them. I want to keep mine. I will do anything. I want to keep mine.
You can’t keep it. It’s old.
But I don’t understand why.
They make too much dust. We gotta worry about everyone’s lungs. It’s like the asbestos they got out of here ten years ago.
It’s nothing like asbestos.
No, it’s not, but we still gotta do it.
But I don’t understand. It makes no sense to me. I mean, how about this?
Mr. Dressler’s voice raised half an octave here, almost to a whine but not quite and instead it made his voice sound more like a child’s, young and guileless.
How about I do all the cleaning of the board. I mean, I’ll bring in a little vaccum or something and get all the dust and I’ll wash it every day. I mean, I just don’t understand why you’ve gotta get rid of it. The smell of those markers makes me sick anyways, give me headaches. I can’t write with those markers, Rick. I can’t do it. I’ll clean it myself. The board. You gotta let me keep my board. I need it. Please.
He pressed his hands together in prayer as he spoke the end of this, shaking them at Mr. Collucci, and then resting them under his chin, his eyes wide like a naïf. He could have pooched out his lower lip and made a joke of his pleading, but he didn’t and instead the gesture made him look sincerely desperate and upset, like he was talking to an emergency room doctor about the prognosis for his accident mangled child rather than about what he would make notes on during class. His desire to keep the blackboard and the intensity with which he cared about this thing was ridiculous and illogical, but that’s why he would win. He was passionate about something that seemed not to matter at all, and therefore, if Rick denied him something that meant nothing personally to the facilitation of the school, it would be undiplomatic and unkind. Uncharitable.
Oh, you’re killing me, Collucci said. No way.
Please. Please.
No way.
Rick. Rick. Come on, Rick. It’s not a big deal. Help me understand why you have to do it.
District ordinance! I can’t do anything. Why is it such a big deal to you?
It is. I love the blackboard. It works really well for me and I’m used to it. Seriously, I know it’s stupid, but I want it. I love it. I don’t want to change. And I hate those markers. Rick. You don’t have to replace it. You can do something.
David waited for an answer. Collucci gnawed his lower lip and squinted at his skinny face. Then David added,
It makes no sense anyway. I don't understand it. And I will bother you about it every day that I see you if you do.
Here Rick put his hands on his hips, sighed real loud, looked down at his feet and then lifted his eyes to look up at David with his head still bowed.
Oh my god, okay. Okay. Look, I don’t have the final say in this but I’ll see what I can do. You’re probably going to have to write a letter or something, put it in writing, make it formal. Play up that headache thing with the markers. Jeez Louise. And tell me what kind of vacuum you’re gonna need, goddamit.
Mr. Dressler grabbed on to one of Mr. Collucci’s shoulders and nodded his head and pursed his lips like the doctor had just told him that his kid would be fine, just fine, and his face would be just like it was before.
Thank you.
A sincerer thank you one could not make.

Lake and California

Scurvy, infectious diseases, mermaids, sea monsters, tempests, sirens, different types of ships, the sexton, constellations, buccaneers, sharks, love at sea, sea men, slaves, weaponry, hidden treasure, sea birds, fishing, merchant marine, different of a ship, prostitution, adventures at port, the gentry/noblemen, God at sea, the Devil at sea, colorists, missionaries, landlubbers, spices, ghosts at sea, moralism, foggy conditions, icebergs, types of fish, whales, whaling encounters, maelstrom, homoeroticism, rum, other liquor, the passage to India, beaching, fighting, fidelity, loneliness, madness, dehydration, hunger, sea dogs, monkeys, and salt encrusted eyelashes.

Da...

Benny the Bull from Toaster Waffles on Vimeo.

Previews

Leath in Antarctica. Featuring that squeaking sound of walking on snow when it is very, very, very cold.

There's a blizzard this morning. I wish I were a naked mole rat at the Lincoln Park Zoo.

Spot the Axolotl

Learn about this fascinating neotynyte.