Graduation Weekend

 

Miriam and her house mates who are all graduating from the University of Virginia today!

"Blue Skies" by T.C.Boyle

I don't like T.C. Boyle's new book enough to write a complete review. I was really looking forward to reading Blue Skies, but I'm pretty disappointed. At first the book seems to be a satire (maybe a bit like the books of Carl Hiaasen, but not as funny), but that mood dies out quickly as the plot thickens. 

A few observations:

• The book deals with Big Issues. But it's too predictable: the main theme is about global warming and species extinction. Exaggerated floods in Florida, drought in California, and nothing but helplessness. Not really insightful. Not one of the characters seems perceptive about the whole thing. They try but I'm not convinced.
• Snakes again. There were snakes in the last T.C.Boyle book that I read. What's with the snakes? See "When the Killing's Done" by T.C.Boyle. And at the end there's a parallel event to another of his books but I won't say more than that because no spoilers!
• Characters are mostly flat. They seem to be half-baked versions of the ones in previous novels by this author. Central characters: an airheaded self-centered couple without much to make them sympathetic or believable. Secondary characters: better human beings that never quite became three-dimensional. 
• Social media is another rather forced characteristic of some of their lives. This element doesn't have the pithy irony or the social relevance that I have seen in a number of other authors' books.
• Plot: melodramatic. The things that will happen to the characters are too obvious from the start. Boyle is not Shakespeare; the fact that you know what's coming isn't a dramatic accomplishment.

Check out this example of the author's tired prose style:

"Half the world was flooded and the other half parched and the crops kept failing and failing again. People were starving, even here in California. There were refugees everywhere. The wine tasted of ash. (Blue Skies, p. 290).

Boyle always seems to have a character who is a committed, fanatical vegetarian, usually with the same thoughts as all the other vegetarians. A little tedious:

"She ordered a breakfast burrito—with ham, though she knew he disapproved or maybe she’d forgotten or didn’t care because what he thought or felt or declaimed to the world meant nothing to her under the present circumstances—and he had the same thing, only without meat, because meat was murder, for starters, and it was the carnivores who’d destroyed the earth, fueling the Auschwitz of the slaughterhouse and lining up at In-N-Out Burger with their motors idling for as long as it took for the animal matter to sizzle on the grill and the air to turn to poison. She saw the look on his face and said, 'I like ham once in a while, so shoot me.'” (p. 317). 

Around a dozen times the characters prepare and eat eggs for breakfast, usually with a muffin. Somehow this seems very repetitive! --

"Normally she’d fix herself eggs and a medley of fresh fruit—papaya, kiwi, honeydew, blueberries or raspberries or whatever looked good in the market that week—but she thought maybe she’d go for a muffin, blueberry, with a sprinkle of sugar, just to settle her stomach, and skip the coffee." (p. 22).  

In a rather tepid review, the New York Times' writer Matt Bell summarizes the food part of the novel: "Boyle has always been a foodie writer, and much of “Blue Skies” unfolds at what increasingly feel like last suppers for the bourgeoisie." (NYT Review Here) 

I'll spare you a number of other cooking scenes, take-out ordering scenes, fast food, and fine restaurant scenes that I found less than imaginative. In fact, I'll spare you any more of this. If you are a die-hard fan of the author, I'd like to hear what you think.

Review © 2023 mae sander.

No-Mow May: Gardens in my neighorhood

 

A neighbor’s yard explaining the city policy on letting one’s grass grow.

WARNING: If you don’t like to watch grass grow, you probably won’t like reading this blog post!

A no-grass garden up the street from us. Probably very good for pollinators!

Around one house in four has a no-mow lawn this May — many just have a garden without grass at all.

Definitely not in step with the neighbors!

The Mayor’s house: the tree lawn is growing out, but the yard seems to be mowed.

Our own grass is growing slowly — but not mowed.
Unfortunately an irresponsible pesticide-spraying service called Mosquito Squad
came and sprayed poison on our yard claiming to be at “the wrong address.” We are furious.

Blog post and photos © 2023 mae sander

Bee Wilson’s Sandwich

 

Unanswered question: Was John Montagu, the Earl of Sandwich really the inventor of the sandwich in the mid-18th century, or does history tell us some earlier origin story about this globally popular food? Author Bee Wilson, in her book titled Sandwich: A Global History, has researched the subject and finds “a frustrating lack of evidence for sandwiches before 1762.” She found a number of references to combinations of bread and meat or bread and cheese etc. but not any clear reference to a food item placed between two pieces of bread. 

“Many people must have combined cheese and bread into a ‘sandwich’. Others, however, may have chosen to spear their cheese on their knife and eat it that way, or placed the cheese on a single piece of bread without adding a top layer, or munched on alternate chunks of bread and cheese.”

What does Wilson find distinctive about the Earl's choice of two slices of bread with roast beef between?

“The answer, I would propose, is that what was new about John Montagu’s sandwich – and we cannot entirely discount Grosley’s reference to it as a ‘new dish’ in 1765/1770 – was not the fact that he ate it but the fact that he called for it ready-made. Countless anonymous others must have constructed their own sandwiches from a plate of bread and meat over the thousands of years that bread and meat were eaten. But only aristocratic Montagu – too busy to leave his desk – asked for the bread and meat to be assembled in advance on his behalf, so that he would not have to stop work for even a moment. It was not the eating that was novel but the ordering. This would explain, too, how it took on his name.”

Fun with history 

The makings of a sandwich from the 17th century? (link)

Wilson covers a lot of prior sandwich-like preparations, including the nearly 2000-year-old "Hillel Sandwich" (two pieces of matzoh with horseradish and charoset between them) that's traditional at modern Passover Seders. She discusses various types of falafel sandwiches. And demonstrates that sandwich foods were included in Dutch Golden Age still-life paintings such as the one shown here: "a pink and white cooked ham on a white tablecloth with a crusty roll and some mustard." There are a wide variety of other hints that sandwiches could have preceded the Earl's famous request, but none quite qualifies as a sandwich until the eponymous creation for the work-obsessed Earl of Sandwich. 

Once she's done with the precursors, Wilson offers many examples of sandwiches throughout the centuries and throughout the world. She cites cookbooks from the 19th and early 20th century. In early days, upperclass British sandwiches were very thin and delicate, she explains, while the lower classes ate huge ungainly but nutritious combinations on thick slices of bread. She describes club sandwiches, Reuben sandwiches, hero sandwiches, Philly cheese steak sandwiches, and many many more, and mentions how each one is the subject of conflicting claims about who invented them! In contrast, she gives examples like Dagwood sandwiches and Elvis sandwiches of which the origins are totally clear.

Our Local Sandwich Maker

These days, of course, the sandwich often consists of a huge, thick and sometimes overwhelming tower of meat between the two (or more) bread slices. I'm thinking of our famous local sandwich shop Zingerman's (not mentioned in the book). For around $20 you get massive quantities of deli meat, cheese, condiments, and a pickle.

From Zingerman's menu: Pastrami & yellow mustard on double-baked, hand-sliced Jewish Rye bread.

A Few More Sandwiches

But I digress from Bee Wilson's book. So many examples… here’s an interestingg one: 

“Like all great sandwiches, Bánh mì … has immaculate balance: the sour freshness of the vegetables and herbs offset the richness of the pork. Any suspicion of dryness is warded off by the pâté. It is a true global concoction, illustrating how a sandwich may be assembled from many disparate cultures and countries yet retain its own delicious integrity.

This Vietnamese sandwich as you probably know is the result of colonialism in Vietnam. The French baguette came to Vietnam when it was a French colony, and the traditional fillings of pâté, pork, pickles, and butter or mayo, which are also introduced Western ingredients. The result is completely distinctive and characteristic of Vietnamese traditions, which were brought to the US by immigrants after the Vietnam War.

I liked Wilson’s diescussion about breakfast sandwiches:

“Bonnie and Clyde bought sandwiches for breakfast on the very morning that they were finally apprehended and shot by the police, opinion differs as to whether their final sandwich, bought from Ma Canfield’s café in Gibsland, Louisiana, was a fried bologna or a BLT. But the remains of Bonnie’s sandwich was still on her lap when she was killed, wrapped neatly in a paper napkin.It’s worth noting that Bonnie and Clyde saw sandwiches as a breakfast food. In Britain the choice of breakfast sandwiches is essentially limited to the ‘greasy spoon’ bacon or sausage sarnie (though some cafes do now do Panini filled with an all-day British breakfast of egg and bacon). In America, however, breakfast sandwiches are plenteous and various.”

Many types of American breakfast sandwiches are mentioned, including the Egg McMuffin of course. While Sandwich is a rather short book, it’s packed with lots of examples, names of sandwich-centered cookbooks from many eras, and lots of historical detail — or maybe trivia. And it ends with a list describing 50 sandwiches which all (or mostly) sound very delicious: the best thing is you don’t need a recipe for a sandwich,  just a description. I’m afraid though that she missed the great Israeli sandwich called the Sabich.

Japanese Adventures

"The spirit of saké is female. Her name is Matsuo. Some people say the reason for the old prohibition against women entering a sakagura, the building where saké is brewed, is that Matsuo Sama could get jealous." -- Hannah Kirshner. Water, Wood & Wild Things (p. 73).

Looking inside the saké brewery: "Shintō is a belief system in which everything has a spirit.
If there is a god in water, a god in rice, a god in saké, then a sakagura is like a shrine." (Water, Wood & Wild Things, p. 75)

Water, Wood & Wild Things
(Published 2021)

I have read many accounts of Americans who immersed themselves in a Japanese setting in order to learn one of the many arts and crafts of the many special and sometimes esoteric Japanese traditions. Such books follow a kind of pattern, whereby the author learns more and more and eventually becomes accepted even though their Americanness is never forgotten or forgiven. I enjoy reading them despite this predictability.

The author of Water, Wood & Wild Things, Hannah Kirshner, apprenticed herself to an expert in the Japanese rice wine saké. This expert lived in a very obscure town far from the urban centers and far from urban life, and had dedicated his life to connoisseurship by acquiring many types of saké, and serving them to the tourists (and some locals) who came to the town for the classic Japanese baths and hotels that somehow had survived into modern times.

Saké begins as the center of the book but its author experiences a large and fascinating number of Japanese arts and customs. She tried to conform by choosing appropriate clothing, such as the white shirt and vest of her bartender teacher; the eggplant-colored uniform and hat of a saké worker; a yukata (a less formal robe similar to a kimono) and obi to match other students in her dance class; or a more formal yukata and traditional wooden sandals to attend a tea ceremony class. She wore boots and sturdy clothing to go on trails in search of wild plants or when cultivating a rice paddy or a traditional vegetable garden. And she constantly worked to understand as much of the Japanese language as she could.

Kirshner learned amazing things in every one of her adventures. About saké she explored various ideas, such as pairing food with saké. Unlike with wine, chosen to bring out the best in food that one drinks with it, her mentor would present his customers with food that went with the choice of saké. "It occurs to me that I am thinking about what food the saké would enhance, but Shimoki is thinking about what food would enhance the saké." (p. 26).  As a temporary worker in the brewery, she participated in a blessing ceremony for the new saké brewing year along with the other brewery workers. As a visitor, she learned about a famous song that celebrated the town (and made it well-known). As a student of tea, she memorized the motions of the tea ceremony along with the other students in her group. She learned a variety of crafts and skills, a new avocation in each chapter.

I was fascinated by some of her observations -- for example, about the ritual of tea. She writes that "tea, like martial arts, is a path, not something that you master and finish learning. To call it tea 'ceremony' is a bit of a misnomer. In my lessons it’s more like tea 'practice,' closer to a meditation than a celebration." (p. 38). 
 

Craft work in Japan appeals to many westerners like Kirshner because of the dedication and strengths of the artists, who perfect a skill set, a level of creativity, and a commitment to constant labor that differs from most western crafters. Japanese people generally value the ethic of these workers in wood, clay, food, hand-made paper, or in cultivating, gathering, hunting, and cooking food. Water, Wood & Wild Things describes several such people. Some are amateurs, such as practitioners of the tea rituals. Others are fine artists, such as a woman who makes paper in a traditional way for her work as a photographer. And some are professionals, such as Nakajima, the local woodworker who makes special cups and vessels for serving saké, who allowed her to learn woodworking. Or in a broader sense, the owner of the saké factory where she worked for a time.

From the author’s Instagram: a cup that she made when working
with Nakajima, the wood turner. (link)

Kirshner also celebrates individuals who pursue less glamorous tasks with traditional resonance; for example, a man who makes charcoal in the old way from before gas and electric power provided light and heat. Or several people who grow rice in small paddies as it was formerly done. Some of the craftsmen have returned to making old-style objects, such as an obscure type of wooden tray called a wagatabon; others have expanded on classic designs and created new styles in craftwork. Kirshner's experiences mostly center on the one rural town that was formerly a place for vacationers to enjoy mineral baths and to buy crafts, but it's clear that she could have found similar places in other towns. 

A few of these "crafts" are downright bizarre, such as the practice of hunting ducks by capturing them in thrown nets (sort of like fishing nets). This was originally a hunt reserved for the samurai, but still done by a few devotees of the sport. Kirshner manages to be invited on one such hunt, and to the duck dinner that followed!

Many descriptions of the local foods are very delightful, including bar foods, high-end restaurant foods, home-cooked foods, camp meals, and food for festivals. The foods compliment the author's experiences with craftsmen, farmers, one boar hunter, and saké experts. An entire chapter documents a fascinating search for wild vegetables in the company of local experts: another old fashioned activity that just a few aficionados pursue. 

The author’s experience growing rice in the traditional way is the subject of another chapter. She is tutored by a few farming craftsmen, particularly a committed rice grower named Hayashi, who has revived old, pesticide-free methods. She is given a very small rice paddy to tend, and takes responsibility for each step from germinating the seeds, raising the seedlings, planting, tending the paddy, and harvesting. Like every one of the author’s experiments in pursuit of a traditional craft or industry or food production, her rice cultivation stage includes fascinating portrayals of the committed Japanese individuals who have maintained the activity. For example, Hayashi is mentors her rice-growing efforts while also tending to the needs of a number of other individuals:

“When the keyaki trees unfurl their serrated lanceolate leaves, it’s time to plant rice. It’s a glorious late spring day—almost hot. The frog eggs have hatched into tadpoles, and some have already grown up. Girls run around catching the green-and-brown-striped tonosama frogs and red-bellied newts. A small boy clings to his parents. Hayashi’s friends have come with their children to help. He’s brought his whole family and some of the young men from the share house he runs. They are hikikomori, shut-ins, a growing affliction in Japan. It’s a broad term that probably encompasses all kinds of struggles with mental health and emotional development. … 

When we take a break for sweets and tea, Grandma picks edible weeds from the aze and tells me how to cook them. Peel the fuki (butterbur) stems, snap them into short pieces, blanch and stir-fry them, and then season with a little soy sauce and sugar.” (p. 286-287)

It’s all a little idyllic! Finally, the rice harvest is done and the sheaves of rice have dried enough to be threshed and for white rice polished. One more product is collected:

“Hayashi sets aside a few armfuls of straw for tying next year’s bundles. I take some for making New Year’s decorations, called shimenawa, and twisting into twine that I’ll use for hanging persimmons to dry. In old times, making things out of rice straw—ropes, baskets, sandals called waraji, and even raincoats—was winter work to do sitting around the hearth.” (p. 295)

Recipes follow each chapter, but they are recipes to read, not to cook. At least not in an American kitchen, as almost all of them require specialty vegetables, wild plants that only grow in the Japanese countryside, or herbs and condiments that couldn't be replicated here.

Do Japanese people find these crafts as compelling as Kirshner does? I suspect that they do, though many are just as obsessed with the online computer age and its gaming and social media as any Americans. Will the next generation still keep valuing all this? Kirshner gives her readers hope that the commitment to tradition will continue, at least in a fair number of interested and dedicated people.

Another Adventure: Seeking Cats in Japanese Life

If you enjoy reading about Japanese culture, Water, Wood & Wild Things is definitely for you! If you want to read something short about one eccentricity in Japanese culture, though, I suggest that you read an article from the New York Times about the Japanese love of cats, especially about abandoned Japanese rural places that are now inhabited only by a few very old people and numerous cats.

The title tells much of the story: "Why Do Cats Hold Such Mythic Power in Japan?: A journey through a country where felines are revered, adored and sometimes seen as actual demons."  by Hanya Yanagihara with photographs by Kyoko Hamada.

At Gotokuji  Temple
From the NYT article.

While the Japanese seemingly love cats, and allow them to roam freely and be fed, there is more to it. Here's one of the most intriguing passages from the article:

"Cats are especially prone to becoming demons. I’m using the term 'demon' broadly, to refer to both yurei, which are ghosts, and yokai, which are spirits. (Actual demons, as well as shape-shifters and ogres, are yokai.) Zack Davisson, the author of the entertaining 'Kaibyo: The Supernatural Cats of Japan' (2021), identifies five major categories of kaibyo, or 'strange cats': 'the split-tailed neko mata (again cat), the shape-changing bakeneko (changing cat), the cat/human hybrid neko musume (cat daughter), the beckoning maneki neko (inviting cat) and the corpse-stealing kasha (fire cart [cat]).' No other animal, he notes (with some admiration), has as many demonic variations as the cat."

The article covers a number of topics about cats, Japan, the aging of the Japanese population, how rural areas are losing population and being inhabited by cats, and much more about the spiritual link between cats and Japanese society, and some of it is very weird!

Blog post © 2023 mae sander 

 

 

 

Street Art/Window Art

Ann Arbor downtown shops have painted windows.

Here’s Watson. I said hello to him, just as his portrait in the window said to do.

Streets and Walls

Every time I take a walk through downtown, I’m amazed by all the new artwork, or at least new to me.  Ann Arbor changes all the time. On this walk, I also noticed a new bookstore (though it opened last summer, I guess I hadn’t walked past it yet). I always like the advertising on the delivery trucks, and the occasional multi-colored detail on some of the old 19th century buildings. I took a few photos of murals that I’ve featured before, sorry if any of these are repeats.

All photos © 2023 mae sander.

Shared with Sami’s Monday Murals.

Magee Marsh 2023

Spring mmigration at Magee Marsh on the shore of Lake Erie east of Toledo is a remarkable birding magnet. Large numbers of bird species migrate through this small wetland preserve each May, attracting birders from many parts of the country. We usually spend at least one day enjoying the beautiful woods and fantastic birds at the marsh (and I have posted about many of these birding trips). Beautiful weather made this year’s birding day even more special.

My Prettiest Birds

Red-Headed Woodpecker

Wood Duck

An eagle, not far from the nest.

Two eaglets in the nest.

Rose-Breasted Grossbeak

Scarlet Tanager

Screech Owl

Nesting Yellow Warbler

Another Yellow Warbler. Well over 30 species of warblers are commonly seen at Magee Marsh.

Baltimore Oriole

For detailed information on visiting Magee Marsh, and about the annual birding festival held there, see “Birding Magee Marsh,” the official website of the wildlife area.

Birders in their native habitat

Amish and Mennonite communities in Ohio have many active birders.
We saw this group of young men several times as we walked the boardwalk and the trails.
For information about Amish/Mennonite birders and their continuation of phone hotlines no longer
needed by the rest of the birding community, see this: “Where have all the rare bird alerts gone?”

Photos © 2023 mae sander