Wandered the old walled city solo, posed for at least a hundred cell phone “snaps,” had tea in a handful of homes, squeezed into one of those jittery hand pushed kiddie ferris wheels (those things are WAY more exciting than you’d think!) and temporarily joined a biker gang. True story.
I’m currently stuck in a Chicago airport hotel, en route to Karachi to accept a reporting fellowship with The Express Tribune, which is Pakistan’s affiliate with The International Herald Tribune. Wish me well!
Friday a coworker was singing the praises of this small-town newspaper.
“One of the reasons I love The Journal is the Cooking Corner,” she said. “Everything is soooo fattening.”
Specifically, she was referring to this recipe, published in yesterday’s paper:
Marshmallow Bread
2 cans crescent rolls
3/4 stick butter
1-8 oz. block cream cheese
1 cup sugar
1-2 large handfuls of mini marshmallows
1 cap full lemon juice
In a 13×9” baking dish, place one can crescents in the bottom. Mix together butter, cream cheese (room temperature), sugar and lemon juice. Spread onto crescent roll dough.
Toss marshmallows evenly onto mixture. Finish by placing second can of crescent rolls on top. Bake at 350° until brown. Cool and cut into squares. (Yields about 24.)
For better or (more likely) worse, I think this says more than I could about my home state.
Today is the ninth anniversary of the Al Qaeda-sponsored attacks on New York’s World Trade Center and the U.S. Pentagon. The physical targets were emblematic references, chosen for their relevance to America’s core identity. We think of ourselves as an economic and military superpower, and to many Americans, the audacity and the sheer actuality of these attacks was inconceivable. But in the decade since, American identity has become confounded. This is particularly true for those of us who didn’t witness the Great Depression and the country’s subsequent recovery and were too young to have had our patriotism shaken by Vietnam and covert Cold War scandals.
I grew up in the 1990’s. The dollar was strong, every adult I knew had a job, technology boomed and America’s military engagements were largely successful. But post 9/11 America—thus far, all of my adult life—seems bleak. We’re a broke and battle-weary nation with stubbornly high unemployment, Congressional stalemates, malfunctioning social programs and a distrustful and recession-laden constituency. We hastily invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, a cause that now seems hopeless, even as we gulp guilt to think so and secretly wonder when, how and if we’ll leave.
We’ve become fearful of the principles our country was founded upon—freedom of religion, freedom of speech and assembly, freedom to bear arms and an open-shore policy for immigrants. Despite the counter of both President Obama and former President Bush, September 11, 2001 indiscriminately made terrorism synonymous with Islam for many Americans, and as we approach this benchmark, the media is obsessed with our nation’s paranoia.
Continue reading at Pakistani paper The Express Tribune.
Governor's Island, New York. via geocities.com
Art comes to a TV near you, keeping an eye on Chicago, porcelain bandits, and a 40,000 year old painting were among the week’s headlines.
THE REAL WORLD: REALITY TV, LEHMAN’S FIRE SALE, AND THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE’S INGENUITY
Reality hits (your TIVO) this week, when “Work of Art: The Next Great Artist,” an American Idol for the painterly set, debuts on Bravo. But there’s no way Bravo can match the reality Lehman Brothers gave us all a year and a half ago, and now, the bankrupt financier must sell their art collection to pay off debts. Among the 447 name brands expected to be auctioned by Sotheby’s in September are Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol, Maya Lin, Claes Oldenburg, Julie Mehretu, and Robert Rauschenberg. The new Athens World Fine Art Fair recently announced that its country’s own financial woes have led to plans for a postponed opening, from November 2010 to May 2011. Meanwhile, The Chicago Tribune gets creative with their extensive photo collection dating back to the 19th century. The newspaper has begun digitizing its photo archives and selling them to collectors as fine art prints. Artists and musicians band together to protest Arizona’s new “show your papers” statute, including photographer and performance artist Harry Gamboa Jr., who is distributing a “Boycott Hate State” graphic for free via his website. And sculptor Louise Bourgeois, noted for her sexually charged spider imagery, died in Manhattan at age 98.
Keep reading at ArtWeLove.com.
