Spidercamp

Russian Tea Cakes

This, like the other recipes I've written up here, are mostly for my own reference because I'm dumb and can't ever find my trusted recipes and index cards are apparently too hard.

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1 cup (2 sticks) butter (salted or unsalted, MUST be room temperature) 1 tsp vanilla extract 6 Tbsp powdered sugar 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 cup chopped pecans (smaller than chunks but larger than dust) more powdered sugar for on top Cream butter & vanilla until smooth. Combine flour & sugar and add it in. This is going to look DRY but it's ok. Keep mixing until it all pretty much sticks together. Mix in the pecans. Roll dough into 1 inch balls & place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 12 min in 350 degree oven. They will not change much in shape or appearance. When done their surface will look dry & bottoms will be browned. Let cool & throw some in a ziplock with more powdered sugar, toss it around till they're covered. Note to anyone who might try this recipe, or future self: don't freak if raw butter appears to be coming off on your hands when handling these things! Because it is actually a combination of powdered sugar & general butteryness, i.e. frosting, and all is as it should be.

Because why? Because CONSEQUENCES.

I was the last person there was room for. I apologized to those I stepped on and sat on the floor with a lot of other people. I was half under a chair with the corner of somebody’s book in my ass, but the room itself was nice, cool, filled with dark wood and the library smell. The windows were wide open and in the lulls I could hear the kids crunching past in the leaves outside, laughing and swearing.

Then an hour of helpful talk on the logical, practical tools of optimism, on how it might be done and how it might sustain me. Afterwards I got lost on the way to my car but with the ipod I don't care. Why do boys think I'm flirting when I ask for directions? I used to be, but now I'm not, can't they tell? Either I was always too subtle, I can't control my own lascivious pull, or men will flirt with absolutely anything on legs. I'm pretty sure that's the one.

On Ponce, somewhere between Decatur and skank, there's a little park on the south side. Traffic was light so as I flew by I had only a few seconds to observe the three people under a red tree. The big-haired guy, the girl with curves, and the tall elegant lady in the green suit who was holding an unfolded bible in both hands. The big-haired guy and the girl with curves were holding hands, both of each other's hands, er, both his hands holding both her hands. and smiling softly at each other and I had just enough time to think, oh, they're getting married next to traffic!

The illusion broke, and the big-haired guy and the girl with curves unfroze. They weren't holding hands, or at least not purely for romance, they were at the laughing, tense part of the slap game. The beautiful green minister folded her paper and walked down the sidewalk smiling, knowing she'd played it flawlessly, knowing she got me pretty good.

George Saunders is, as I expected, the superest of nice guys

I suppose it might be an awful thing for an author giving a public reading, to be introduced with lengthy enthusiastic descriptions. There’s really no need for it. The people in the room are there because they recognized the author’s name and came to hear what he had to say. Sure, not everybody’s read all his books, and it’s nice to hear the rundown of his latest projects. But when the intro turns into an effusive stylistic review, detailing the writer’s common themes and comparing his style to jazz music - yarg, if I were the writer I imagine I’d be embarrassed on my own behalf, and more so for the earnest young dude going on and on, reading from his printout, telling the room why and how it should appreciate me, when the room so obviously already does.

I really don’t know why Emory didn’t call me up instead. I’d have been glad to do it. I would have said, Call me a philistine but I’m also a pretty busy lady, and these days the only thing that can get me to buy a New Yorker is if it has a George Saunders story in it. George Saunders, you are my literary line in the sand. For such goofy stories, they sure crop up in my head all the time. You seem like a terrific guy, your handshake is warm and pleasant, and everybody’s just going to love it when you make yourself laugh with the story you’re about to read. I can’t believe you’re able to talk about your writing process without being coma-drug boring, but you are, and thank you. The floor is yours, please talk all night.

Mr. Saunders did take the floor and talked for quite a while, charmingly. My headache, gravelly brain and eyes, and the chronic gut stab were all still there, but for a few hours, I didn’t care.

Today I had the rare delight of thanking someone, face-to-face, for saying a specific thing, a few sentences on the way one might approach a problem, that made something go click in my brain (as I said this, I now realize, I gestured toward my heart), that changed the way I write, that made things easier for me all around, and that I treasure above any class, any workshop, and anything else I ever read about the process of putting words together. I said this to his whiskery face, which was grinning, and he thanked me for letting him know. It was what I needed; it was a very good night.

jim's beautiful hooks

This is something I’ve been meaning to put up for ages, but put it off until this morning, when I found out Boingboing had covered it. Thanks duders you’re tops!

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My friend Jim, in his own words:

In case you've an interest, I'll tell you how it came to be that a guy who likes to make shavings came to making crochet hooks.

Years ago my sis and I lived on a ranch up in the mountains of northern Washington State. We both loved the place dearly and were heart broken when our dad became ill and the place had to be sold. Since then it's been my life's dream to get the place back. Dreams do come true, and a few years back I was able to buy 30 acres of the ranch back.

What's that to do with hooks? Well back in the olden days my sis and I used to play around an old apple tree on a slope behind our cabin. Now years later, the cabin is gone but the tree is still there. Also, my sis lives in California and isn't really well enough to come back home much, so on birthdays and other occasions that warrant a gift, I try to make her something that originated from the ranch. I've done picture frames from shingles salvaged from the cabin, tealight candle holders from small aspens that grow on the ranch, and finally, crochet hooks from dead branches donated by the old apple tree.

Well, the crochet hooks turned out to be really special because every time she uses them, she's holding a sacred little piece of the ranch, in addition to something I made with my hands. But it has turned out to be more than just a nostalgic sort of thing... the hooks really work well. So I made more and found that other folks (who aren't quite so biased) marvel at their feel.

Now, one of my objectives since buying the ranch back, is to build a cabin; one that will fit the whole family on holidays. My initial daydreams had me building the place myself from logs and stones gathered from the ranch itself. I still like that idea, but I can't make the cement that is used in the concrete, the nails, wiring, plumbing etc. So I've set about letting the ranch help me produce the finances.... in an honorable sort of way. I refuse to log the place although I'm told the timber would pay for the cabin.

The wood for the hooks, hairsticks, candles, etc that I make, come from the ranch. And every dollar that is made from these crafts goes toward building the cabin. Yes, I know I'll never cover all the costs this way, but I love the idea that the ranch and I are doing something together this way, and that my customers can also feel that they are doing something to help make a dream come true.

Right now, I'm still working on the foundation, but every step is pure joy and I'm still pinching myself that I should be so blessed as to have the place back.

-Jim Price

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If you’d like to get in touch with Jim, please use my contact info (spidercamp AT gmail.com) for the time being. I will forward everything Jim’s way.

holy shit internet, you sure know how to bore a lady

Disclaimer: not that I think I’m so awesome. But I am pretty good at knowing when to shut up. The reason I do not post every day is because I know it would bore me, and when I am bored I am boring.

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There’s no such thing as the “blogosphere” and for christ’s sake I wish people would stop saying it. It’s embarrassing. Blogs are a method of communication used by people who do not necessarily have anything in common except computer access. “Blogosphere” is like saying “telephonosphere.” I suspect this is a(nother) desperate sad way of grouping people just for the sake of claiming to belong to a group.

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I read a lot of blogs, written by moms and painters and students and many kinds of people. This is some excellent free entertainment / education and therefore I don’t care if they’re boring sometimes:

because everything in the world is boring at some point or another,

because different things are important to different readers/writers,

because who am I to judge because all the time I am thinking a story will be clever when in fact it is drop-dead dull when told out loud,

and because I am an infinitely forgiving grownup and can deal with skimming a page of babble about somebody’s eternal love for caffeine once in a while (whoa seriously? you’re in love with coffee, I mean Anderson Cooper, I mean that children’s book phenomenon, I mean Terry Pratchett, I mean that online community that makes you feel less lame, you must be the only one on the planet mister, tell me more!).

The good blogs I read are pretty well-balanced - sure a guy might ramble on about his commute or socks, but then he’ll counter with a really good story with a point and everything. So it stays worth reading. I am totally relaxed with the idea of peppering a blog with some less-than-breathtaking, real-life details, to more fully illustrate the writer's life, for the writer's personal reference, or because the writer frigging feels like it.

I actually don’t need much of a “point” to keep reading - I don’t require big wisdoms. I have coffee with people, you know? Sometimes Ingrid talks for twenty minutes straight, and if it’s about grand literary concepts, that’s cool, and if it’s about the cat, painting her apartment, or how much she loves receipts, that’s all cool too. But she would never spend twenty minutes giving me the rundown of her daily errands, hygiene rituals, or sandwich details, and if she did I know damn well she would make it interesting.

It just kills me how many people apparently cannot see that the same things that would bore someone’s face off in person will do the same thing via interweb.

I am starting to see that many blogs written by otherwise intelligent people (often people I know and admire in real life) are composed of 100% boring-ass bullshit. I would not expect ALL of a person’s blog to be peppy vivacious “hahaha you got to read this” forward-it-to-your-buddies funtime, but holy shit dude! If it’s entirely pointless to every reader, even those who are close friends of the author, if it is stuff that no one but the author could possibly ever, ever give a damn about, then WHAT IS THE POINT unless it is literally typing practice that you are doing for a grade.

I am now going to get some emails from people I probably adore who will say that there is nothing wrong with the neverending posts about their breakfast menu, their fucking new shoes, or, my favorite of all time, posts about how many words they wrote for the current popular writing challenge, you know what I am talking about, I don’t like to say it because it’s such a retarded word, the one in which the actual interesting writing goes elsewhere and is not shared with the blog reader while the blog itself is filled with the driest most boring descriptions of the writing process, e.g. “the craft” or whatever, and is mostly numbers, oh I wrote 1,453 words today, oh my, 2,310!

It should be in the rules that if you’re going to do the enforced-write-novel-in-month game, the text of every blog post you write about it must also be included in the body of the novel. Mandatory! Don’t worry, it will count towards your total! Would that make anybody either shut up about it in the blog for a bit, or make those NaNo blog posts a little spicier or lyrical or anything, or would it only create a sick wave of bloggers writing novels about blogging, in blog form, about the process of writing novels? Actually that is an awesome idea because it might get some of you off my internet for five minutes. Some of you would disappear all the way up your own bottoms and that would be all right too. I want there to be an officially sanctioned writing contest where the challenge is to keep your blog from being so fucking boring for thirty days, and only then do you get the certificate and the handjob. NaDoBeSoFuBoMo.

I suppose some people will claim to have a devoted readership of all their endless content-free yammering, and if this is true all your readers are shit too.

mister capers

IN,LINE,AT,THE,POSTOFFICE I was less bored than everybody else because of my ipod. Then I heard something in between tracks, music that wasn’t coming from the headphones. I hit pause and listened and heard a man’s voice, deep, bellowing gospel from the mailroom, from behind the wall of silver p.o. box rectangles.

I looked around to see if anybody else was hearing this, to see if we would have the little moment strangers can share when something totally weird is going on. Nope. Everybody was bored and pissed off about standing in a line and staring grimly straight ahead, clutching envelopes and packages, pretending nothing was happening except their boring line they all hated so much.

He kept singing, it wasn’t just some guy humming under his breath for a moment, it was a big rich voice booming out some serious old-timey gospel, song after song. Grace and mercy, suffering, the real stuff. It was beautiful music and I scorned for the dull-asses who refused it. Then Ken from Phelp’s Engineering (he was wearing a shirt) met my eyes and smiled and we chatted and we had the moment, which was nice.

By the time it was my turn at the counter, the singing had stopped. The lady was not Mrs. Pitts. I don’t remember her name because she is a bitch. I don’t like talking to her but I wanted to know, so I asked, Was that Keith singing just now? Keith is the only man I know who works there, except for that shrimpy other creepy little guy who I doubt could carry that voice.

She said with disdain that no, that was not Keith, that old mess was the truck driver, not that anybody asked for a serenade.

Okay. So I figured I’d missed him, he would be long gone. Nope. I left with my armful of weird mail (this was the week of sweet anonymous postcards; thank you) and there was the truck driver, a stocky man standing in the street and banging a hammer on the truck ramp. This was Mr. Capers.

I asked him if he had been the singer and he immediately apologized. Sometimes I start up and I don’t even notice. He heads an a cappella group, he said, which does the circuit of local Baptist churches. Every time we go to a new one, we start out sitting in the pews, scattered, just in the middle of everybody else. Then the hymn starts and I stand up and they stand up and we get louder than everybody else and we walk up real slow to the front and then, well then we just kick all they asses.

...Then on the drive home I pulled up next to a bus driver practicing furious karate chops on his steering wheel. w tf??