‘Awesome’ Category

  1. Nancy Drew and the case of the Fuchsia Flash

    June 2, 2013 by ms. xandra

    It’s summer!  I’m a doctor!  I’m taking some time off!  Sort of!

    Here is what I’m going to do during my summer vacation!

    June: Research and write a thing (“article,” “paper,” etc.) about Millie Small!

    July: Take an online writing class from the Creative Nonfiction foundation! I am extra stoked about this because I really want to hone my non-scholarly writing chops.

    August: Revise and submit those other two articles that I started and never finished because my dissertation got in the way!

    September: Plan my classes for fall!

    And somewhere in there I am thinking of taking thrilling tour of rustbelt America, with stops near Utica, for a conference; Cleveland, to look at some stuff in the archives at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; and Detroit, to go to the Motown Museum.

    AND MEANWHILE I WILL:

    1. Wear hot pink lipstick every day!  I have already worn hot pink lipstick for two days straight, and it is going really well.  Today when I ordered the Mermaid Sundae from the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck, the ice cream lady said, “You ARE a mermaid!”

    2.  Drink lots of cold  brew coffee!  Yes, I am going to do all of the above things in a highly caffeinated, jittery state!  Exclamation marks!!!!

    BUT FIRST! I need to finish knitting the lace stole that I am making as a thank you gift for my dissertation advisor.  NEVER AGAIN will I decide that it is a good idea to do a project that uses such tiny yarn and such tiny needles, because it is seriously taking longer to knit this thing than it did to write an entire dissertation, I am telling you.

     

    Category Academe, Adventure, Awesome, Coffee | Tags: | No Comments

  2. I invented this dessert for you.

    May 28, 2012 by ms. xandra

    So the other day my friend says to me “I had this dessert at a restaurant and it had malted whipped cream and it was amazing.”  And, because apparently I now consider every mention of delicious food to be a CHALLENGE, I think to myself “allow me translate this concept into molded dessert form.”

    Et, voila:

    Do not be deceived by the terribleness of the picture which was taken with my phone because I couldn’t find my camera even though my camera was right there on the dining room table the whole time!  For, truly, this dessert is a revelation.  Eating it is like seeing an Esther Williams movie for the first time.  It is like the first taste of a Manhattan made with the fancy cherries that cost $7 a jar at the fancy store instead of cruddy ol’ maraschinos.  It is probably like whatever is going on in the mind of our dog when he sees a tennis ball bound across the room.  It game changing and paradigm shifting and HERE IS HOW YOU MAKE IT!

    1.  Take your whipping cream.  500mls.  Add a whole bunch of malted milk powder.  And also some sugar and vanilla.  (BUNCH and SOME are very technical cooking measurement terms.)

    2.  Whip it.

    3.  Chill it.

    4.  MEANWHILE, dissolve 2 (heaping) tablespoons of agar agar powder in, like, 3/4 cup of water (ish), along with some more vanilla and some more sugar.  Bring this to a boil on the stove and then let it simmer until the agar agar powder is all dissolved.

    5.  Remember that you accidentally bought a bulk-sized box of packages of malt balls that one time because you need them for a cookie recipe and the closest grocery store to your house happens to be a bulk store that only sells in industrial sizes.  Pour two pacakges of Whoppers into the whipped cream and gently stir them in because WHY THE HELL NOT.

    6.  Fold the agar agar liquid into the whipped cream.  This will make some of it melt, which will make you worry, but don’t worry!  It will actually be ok!

    7.  Pour the whole mess into your awesome jello mold.  Oh, also, you should probably oil the mold first, just a wee bit, with some vegetable oil, to facilitate de-molding later.

    8.  Chill overnight.

    9.  Serve to friends, bask in glory!

    Yum yum yum!  This turns out so well:  it’s creamy and light and fluffy and tastes like a solid slice of vanilla malt.  You could easily do this with gelatin, and, in fact, gelatin might work better because it doesn’t need to be boiled in order to dissolve (you must boil agar agar; some people may or may not have learned this the hard way).  But I’m kind of digging the agar agar these days because gelatin, as versatile and awesome as it is, is kind of gross if you pause to think about it too much.

    Ok, stop thinking about it now.

    In unrelated news, let us all be sad that these Russian grannies only came in second in the Eurovision song contest.  But let us all be glad that they exist!

    (Things get real at about 0:39.)

    Category Awesome, Food | Tags: | 3 Comments

  3. Thrilling report from madwoman in attic

    October 28, 2011 by ms. xandra

    Inquiring minds have inquired as to the status of my accommodations:  their status is totally great.

    Last year when I came to London, I stayed in a closet-sized London School of Economics dorm room.  It was…fine.  It was fine.  The shared bathrooms were fine.  The lack of internet was fine.  The tour groups of Italian teenagers who I was sharing the bathrooms with were fine.  The lack of kitchen facilities was fine.  The tiny beds were fine.  It was all fine.  But it wasn’t good.   (The free breakfast, though, that was pretty good.)

    If I were to really level with you, I would admit that I think I actually started to go crazy in my little tiny room after a while.  The trip was really fun and productive, but there were a lot of…long dark nights of the soul, mostly dissertation-related, that I think were probably exacerbated by living in a closet.

    Now I am staying in a nice, big studio apartment in the attic of a nice old Georgian townhouse, and I have a kitchen and my own bathroom and it’s not even outrageously expensive (with the exchange rate, it’s probably costing me around what my rent is in LA, which probably is outrageously expensive, but in my LA-tainted mind, it’s totally reasonable).  It is good.  It is really really good.

    Here is the view of the city on a sunny day that I can see from the window at the back of my apartment:

    and here is my temporary Room of One’s Own.  I love:  The high ceilings, the big windows (these were taken at night, so you can’t see how bright it gets in here), and the tiny, miniature oven.

    I was feeling all cranky yesterday because, well, because I hate dealing with people who are just plain mean-spirited and awful, and I had to deal with a mean-spirited awful person, and I was mad about it because it was related to a thing that I was hoping would just stay in LA and not bother me here.  I am not good at dealing with these kinds of things because I end up internalizing a lot of anger, and I’m uncomfortable communicating that anger because, I always second guess my own feelings and can never admit that they are valid.  And I also have a lot of anxiety about how people will react to me when I say what I think.  So that is to say, I end up spending a lot of time drafting fantasy angry emails that I never send.  So I was doing this yesterday, in my head, and then I realized that I was

    a) sitting having a coffee at Ray’s Jazz Cafe, which is located in Foyle’s bookstore, which is a lovely place,

    b) about to go see an off-West End show,

    c) in fucking London, doing whatever the fuck I wanted,

    and that maybe being angry was a waste of my energy.

    And then I saw a play, and it was good and made me glad.  And then I got home and discovered thatRaffi made a song out of Jack Layton’s letter to Canada, and even though I am typically averse to sentiment or even admitting that I have feelings (see above), it made me cry.  And I was like, you’re right, Jack, what am I even doing.  Sitting around feeling impotently angry is always a silly idea.

    Also, I think I am giving myself a repetitive strain injury from sitting in the library too much, so I guess that means that tomorrow I have to shopping on the Portobello Road instead.  TOO BAD FOR YOU, library.

    Category Adventure, Awesome | Tags: | No Comments

  4. Things I learned from Girl Annual, 1963

    October 20, 2011 by ms. xandra

    Can you imagine my delight when, at the South Bank Book Market, I discovered a copy of the 1963 Girl Annual?  I had promised myself not to buy any books while abroad (they are heavy!) but I promptly dispensed with that solemn vow within less than a week of arriving in London. (because you can ship them home!  That’s what the Royal Mail is for, right?)

    Anyhow.  I am so excited about my copy of the Girl Annual, that, were it possible, I would join the cover girl and stand on the top of a ski slope and grin until I was red in the face.

     

    There is SO MUCH to learn from Girl Annual!  There is something for everyone!  Just look at the table of contents!  There is ballet, there are adventures, there are romantic castles!  You can learn about stenciled cushion covers, romantic castles, and fencing!  And somebody named Monsieur Potato!  (Spoiler:  sadly, Monsieur Potato is not a story about Mr. Potato-Head’s adventures in Paris, but is, instead, about Louis XVI thinking potatoes are a good idea.)

     

     

    But let’s see what else we can learn from Girl Annual, shall we?

     

     

    Eilly Bowers, Pioneer Millionaress!  Pioneers and millionaresses, these are categories that I assume to be mutually exclusive, based on my elementary school history classes and childhood love of Laura Ingalls Wilder, both of which taught me that pioneering was shitty because you were always living in rudimentary houses made of sticks or eating salt meat or dying of dysentery and/or consumption.  But now I have learned, from Girl Annual, that one can live the dream of a Little House on the Prairie, while also enjoying modern conveniences such as millions of dollars!

     

     

    I read this story, and it is less about masks than it is about hairpieces.  Basically the story is:  Sandra is shy.  She goes to the masquerade and acts like her True Self that She Has Hidden All of These Years because she is in disguise so nobody knows that it is her!  BUT THEN it turns out that she forgot to put on her wig, and everyone knew it was her all along because of her curly hair, and they ALL LIKED HER ANYHOW.  What can we learn from Sandra’s story?  We can learn that I need another glass of wine before I read more Girl Annual.

     

    Instruments of the world!  For the Girl who wants to be an ethnomusicologist.  My favorite is the horn player.  The caption reads “European playing a French Horn.”  I hope they mean European in the euphemistic sense, as in “his predilection for bowties and good grooming seems awfully…European.”

     

     

    Clearly this story needs a subtitle, and that subtitle needs to be “A TALE OF TERROR by Stephen King.”

     

    And speaking of Tales of Terror!  Do you know what more publications need today?  They need drippy horror movie font.  I love drippy horror movie font.  Back when I used to sing in a church choir in undergrad, the church ladies were having a tube sock drive for the homeless.  And the poster for this event was done in drippy horror movie font.  ”TUBE SOCK DRIVE:  A TALE OF TERROR.”  Anyhow, good font, well done, Girl Annual.

     

    YES!  I am very excited to learn about America’s first SPACE GIRL!  I want to be America’s first space girl!  Hey, Girl Annual, tell us what it takes to become America’s first space girl!

    How to become a Space Girl:  Get frozen in carbonite.

     

    And speaking of ethnomusicologists!

    This picture needs a new caption.  Here, I have thought of one:  Peggy Seeger has giant monster hands.  Her husband, Ewan MacColl, is from Williamsburg and plays in some band you’ve never heard of.

     

    And no girl-oriented publication would be complete without a teen hearthrob!  Like…Burt Lancaster.  Who would have been a young, virile 50-year-old in 1963.  Nothing creepy here.  Moving along.

     

    But, really, no girl-oriented publication would be complete without an important lesson about fashion that makes us feel inadequate!  Thanks, Girl Annual, for showing me that all girls, fat and thin, can all feel vaguely ashamed of our bodies TOGETHER!

    Category Awesome, Books | Tags: | 2 Comments

  5. And then there were dinosaurs.

    August 21, 2011 by ms. xandra

    Somehow…I have not updated this blog in a month!  Dinosaur Day was long ago, as was the Donut Summit!  In the meantime, I have been doing a lot:  I’m finishing up a dissertation chapter.   I taught a summer class, which went pretty well, although I am somewhat concerned that, while a disproportionate number of students wrote me to tell me the class was amazing and changed their lives, a disproportionate number of students also wrote AMAZINGLY INCOMPREHENSIBLE THINGS on their final exam (example:  ”‘It’s Raining Men’ demonstrates the influence of 1970s lesbian separatist folk music,” which is so completely not true that I would probably argue that “It’s Raining Men” is THE EXACT OPPOSITE of lesbian separatist folk music), which really makes me wonder what, exactly, was coming out of my mouth when I was standing in front of the classroom for three hours a day, twice a week, for six weeks.  In addition, I have also been working in UCLA Performing Arts Special Collections where I am processing the Jimmy Durante Papers, which is so much fun and is the best job I have ever had.  It is also worth noting that my Special Collections job was paid for by the very generous donation of a fabulous famous lady, who shall remain nameless.  But I will tell you that I can now officially include a line on my CV that says that I was a Midler Fellow.  And also, somewhere in there, we hosted a bigger, better Donut Summit, which you can read all about at blogging.LA.

    So you will forgive me for forgetting to tell you about Dinosaur Day.

    Go on, click through for dinosaurs.  You know you want dinosaurs.

    (more…)

    Category Adventure, Awesome, Dinosaur! | Tags: | No Comments

  6. Land of the booze jello, home of the brave.

    July 7, 2011 by ms. xandra

    I am not really one for displays of nationalism, especially nationalism for a country in which I am not actually even a citizen.  HOWEVER!  I am one for elaborate, themed desserts.  I am also one for stiff drinks.  And therefore I decided to combine dessert and stiff drinks into one shiny, gelatinous package for a 4th of July barbecue I was invited to this past long weekend.  The results were gorgeous.  Behold!  It is my Chocolate Cherry-Berry Nationalism Mold!

     


    You would like to make one of your own, wouldn’t you?  Well, here’s what you need:

    1.  Some plain, unflavored gelatin

    2.  Cherry juice (or other tasty juice of your choosing)

    3.  Blueberries

    4.  Raspberries (my preference would be for fresh, but the store was all out, so I used frozen, which served their purpose quite nicely.)

    5.  Some sugar

    6.  MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL:  CHOCOLATE VODKA.

     

    Here is what you do!

    1.  Dissolve 2 packets of gelatin (Knox unflavored comes in handy individual packets) in 1.5 cups chocolate vodka.

    2.  Stir in 1.5 cups of boiling water, until everything is dissolved.  Add a couple of spoonfuls of sugar if you want.

    3.  Pour this into a five cup mold.  I HIGHLY recommend the vintage tupperware molds with the interchangeable festive design thingy on the top because they are FABULOUS and also very easy to unmold.  You can usually find them on Etsy pretty cheaply; that’s where I got mine.

    4.  Put this in the fridge (or freezer, if, like me, you are impatient) to partially set, just until it’s kind of gooey.

    5.  MEANWHILE!  Dissolve two packets of gelatin in 1 cup of cherry juice.

    6.  Bring another cup of cherry juice to a simmer over low heat, and then add it to the gelatin/cherry juice mixture.  Stir until everything is dissolved.  I used pure, sugar-free cherry juice, so I also added two tablespoons of sugar here to offset the tartness.

    7.  Drain and stir in your raspberries.  If you use frozen, make sure they’ve thawed first.

    8.  Remove the partially-set chocolate vodka gelatin from the fridge, and stir in the blueberries.

    9.  Put this back in the fridge until it sets a little bit more and is gloopy.

    10.  Pour the cherry/raspberry/gelatin mixture on top.

    11.  WAIT FOREVER.

    12.  Once it is set, unmold, and amaze your friends and family!  And remember not to jiggle and drive.

    Category Awesome, Food | Tags: | No Comments

  7. Things! Stuff!

    July 2, 2011 by ms. xandra

    Remember last blog post when I mentioned the Ford Treasury of Favorite Recipes from Famous Eating Places?  Well, I wrote about the LA-related entries at blogging.LA. You should check it out, and then go make yourself some chicken pago-pago (which is chicken stuffed in a coconut, because that sounds like a totally reasonable Sunday dinner).

    ALSO!  Today I dragged Aaron to an estate sale where I bought one of those boxes full of Betty Crocker recipe cards (it is from the 1970s, which is not technically my historical period of interest, but it was so colorful that I couldn’t resist!) and also a boxed set of Culinary Arts Institute cookbooks, which is the series that the Meals for Two and Lunchbox cookbooks I wrote about earlier are from.  I learned from Bonnie Slotnick that these cookbooks were often given out as promotional items (the box I bought is from the Empire Savings and Loan Association) and that they were re-issued a number of times between the 1930s and 1970s.

    ALSO ALSO!  We bought a boxed set of 1960s teach-yourself-science books.  There are four books in the set, covering the following scientific fields:

    1.  The Universe

    2.  Flight

    3.  Rockets

    4.  Classical Archaeology

    DON’T TELL AARON THIS OR HE’LL START AVOIDING ME:  I am going to start dragging him to estate sales EVERY weekend!

    Category Awesome | Tags: | No Comments

  8. Detritus and dessert

    May 25, 2011 by ms. xandra

    1.  If you see a lot of me in real life, then you have probably heard me rail about the Mysterious Objects that are constantly appearing in front of my apartment building.  If you do not see me regularly, then allow me to ‘splain.  Mysterious Objects!  Mysterious Objects large and small!  They are constantly appearing in front of my apartment building.  This has been going on since we moved in.

    The items usually stick around for a few days, sometimes up to a week or two.  At first, if an item was particularly large, I would let it sit there and annoy me for a few days, and then I would file a large item garbage pickup request with the city.  However, I quickly learned that this was an exercise in futility because no sooner would the item be picked up when something else would appear.  To wit:  the first large Mysterious Object to appear was a bedframe.  It sat there innocuously for a few days, and then soon the neighbours started dumping other crap on it:  bags of garbage, a broken mirror, even some literal crap!  Yes, friends, honest to god crap, in the form of a bag of used cat litter, upended on the bedframe.  And so I reported it for pickup, and it was taken away, only to be promptly replaced with a crappy particle board desk, which, eventually, was replaced by a crappy particle board desk that  looked like someone had backed a car into it.

    So I have stopped attempting to solve the problem of the Mysterious Objects, which, since the bedframe, have included such treasures as an extremely large cat tree, a pair of sparkly pink hi-tops, a Barbie dreamhouse, a dresser, a dead tree in a pot, and, weirdly, a dozen croissants and a loaf of garlic bread.  But I have decided that this phenomenon needs documentation, and so, voila, I have created The Detritus of Postmodernity (because who do we want to invoke at a time like this?  Frederic Jameson, that’s who), a twitter account through which I will be documenting each item as it appears.  I tried my best to reconstruct the chronology of things that have appeared over the past few months, and, starting with today’s item, a weird, outdoor fireplace/cheminea type thingy made out of paving stones (which is now the official mascot of the Detritus of Postmodernity) I will be photographing all items for posterity.

    Et voila!  Finally a productive use for the information superhighway!

     

    2.  Here is a mathematical equation I can really get behind:

    ONE package of coconut luau dessert mix

    PLUS:

    SIX tiny baking pans shaped like roasted chickens

    EQUALS:

    SIX tiny, gelatinous, coconut chickens.

    Category Awesome, Food, SCIENCE! | Tags: | No Comments

  9. A SONG FOR XANDRA!

    May 12, 2011 by ms. xandra

    I appreciate the Eurovision Song Contest so much this year.  I mean, I appreciate it EVERY year, and I am obviously going to have a Sandie Shaw/Lulu/Eurovision dissertation chapter, but this year, it has taken on new meaning in my heart.  After the disappointing and yet also somewhat exciting Canadian election, and after the disastrous and soul crushing union election that made me lose my faith in human decency, Eurovision is a blessed change, because it is a voting-related event in which, no matter what the outcome is, it can only end well.  It can only ever end with singing and dancing!  This is an election I can COMPLETELY get behind. I can also get behind Serbia’s entry, because look at these go-go dresses.  This is probably my favorite of this year’s crop:

    And I can get behind Ireland’s entry, because look at that hair on those two fabulous young lads who are inexplicably called Jedward:

    ETA:  BREAKING NEWS.  Do you know what we are missing by not living in the United Kingdom?  We are missing the fact that last year, THIS was Jedward’s debut single.

    Macedonia, I can sort of get behind, because there is kind of a profound and belligerent idiocy to this song that is nonetheless somehow endearing:

    The only way I can explain Belgium’s entry is that Belgian used car salesment are, like, really into Glee, or something?

    And Portugal, well, sadly Portugal did not make it past the semi-final.  Possibly this is because their act basically already looks like what a Saturday Night Live parody of a Eurovision act might look like.  Possibly it is because these people cannot actually sing.  But, my heavens, they do have the one essential quality of a Eurovision performance down pat:  EARNESTNESS.

    And I was going to end with some profoud remarks on the gloriousness that occurs when artifice and earnestness spectacularly collide, but I am tired, and thus I will leave you with my personal Eurovision muse, Lulu, singing the greatest song of all time:

    Category Awesome, Music, Uncategorized | Tags: | No Comments

  10. And and and.

    May 10, 2011 by ms. xandra

    Lots going on!  I ran for office in the TA union, it became a disaster, there was a farce of an election, and now I’ve been elected and I feel kind of like Jack Layton must feel right now, because while my slate didn’t exactly win, we didn’t exactly lose either.  Also, this experience has  helped me hone my ability to emotionally disconnect myself from bullshit.  So that’s good, right?  Right.  Right?  Bottom line: Next time I am going to listen when wise spinsters tell me to not get involved in things and just write my dissertation instead.

    And last week I was part of a panel discussion at Cal State LA that was entirely about Lady Gaga.  It was really excellent – the room was packed and the audience were mostly undergraduates who were so involved and engaged and interested that it has somewhat renewed my faith in the fact that Children Are Our Future.  Also, I am getting paid for having done this? For speaking on a panel about Lady Gaga and having a lovely time?  Which I think means I just won at musicology?

    And this weekend is the Echo conference, which my friend Jill and I are running!  And it will be excellent.  There is a  paper about GWAR.  That is reason enough to go to a conference, frankly.  And then once the conference is over on Saturday night, all of the Major Stressful Events of the quarter will be over and done with, and therefore I am spending Sunday at an amusement park.

    And my efforts of the past few months, which involved applying to every single travel fellowship for which I am eligible, have finally begun to pay off!  I have accumulated several nice little pockets of money that will hopefully pay for another research trip to England.

    And right now I am watching a documentary about Phyllis Diller.  She is quite an inspiring lady.  Did you know that she is a keyboard virtuoso?  Did you know that she is a painter?  Did you know that she has all of her gags and one-liners written on index cards, cross-referenced and filed in a giant card catalog?  I aspire to such heights of organizational skill.  Also, she invented hat boxes that are see-through so you can see what hats are in them.

    Anyhow:  Lest anyone fear that I have abandoned my forays into mid-century cuisine, never fear!  Indeed, I have a backlog of tasty treats (and also one very unfortunate treat) to tell you all about!  These include:

    Lemon Fluff!  (Delightful!)

    Avocado Mousse!  (Slimy and slightly abject!)

    Burnt Sugar Cake!  (Wonderful!)

    Chili Sauce Meringue Meatloaf! (Someone wrote a recipe using madlibs!)

     

    Category Adventure, Awesome | Tags: | 2 Comments

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