Month: June 2007

Categories
nostalgia

How to be thin – don’t eat enough

Well it’s all downhill for me, intellectually speaking. I’m experiencing a strange symptom of what is probably an early-onset form of dementia. It’s this: I’ve completely lost the ability to guesstimate how much pasta to cook to feed a family of four.

I used to be an overestimater, if anything. I figured that extra was always good, because you could always make tomorrow’s lunch. But now through no intentional action of mine, I’m an underestimator. When I cook pasta – which is something I cook at least three times a week – even though they all howl with disappointment. Not just that it’s pasta (boo!) but that there’s not enough. They’re always still hungry.

It reminded me of when I was growing up. We were never, ever given meals that left us feeling satisfied. My stepfather had grown up during the post-war rationing period and believed in small portions. (It was different in Mexico, obviously, where you could eat until you popped and proud relatives would stand by going ‘Look how well she eats!’)

But I was stick-thin until I was about 20, so this not-eating-enough thing clearly has something going for it. I’m sticking to the underestimating and telling my family to be glad of going to bed hungry. I try to fool them by heaping salad on top so they don’t notice the pitiful serving of pasta underneath. When they complain, I growl, “S’more than I used to get, so think on!”
They don’t listen though, these kids. They head for the cupboard and eat big spoonfuls of peanut butter.

P.S. No-one suggest using a balance, please. Weighing ingredients is for cissies who can’t cook in anything but a properly-equipped kitchen. That’s not the way I was taught Domestic Science by Mrs Blackwell. It’s acceptable to weigh amounts for confectionary and high-end baking – say French pastries – but nothing else.

The principle can transfer to some aspects of laboratory work. I speak as one who even learned to make tissue culture medium and bacterial growth broths by flicking out The Right Amount, who added DNA and restriction enzymes in amounts we referred to in the lab as A Smidgeon, A Wodge and A S***load. (a s***load was 10 microlitres, just to give you the scale)

Categories
nostalgia

Pokemon Revisited

I’ve got a real soft spot for Pokemon. Oh, I don’t keep up with it now. Where are they…Johto? Probably far beyond that. But I remember being addicted to the first few seasons. I even remember being bitterly disappointed at the lameness of Pokemon – The Movie. Our eldest daughter (now fourteen) collected trading cards (the excitement of her first Charizard!)and stickers, all the Gameboy games, had the soundtrack and everything.

Time was, I even knew part of the Poke-Rap. I reckon I watched every episode of the first two seasons with my eldest girl. That’s over 100 episodes!

So today, when our little one (aged 5) asked to hear the Jigglypuff song and wanted to hug a cuddly Pikachu she found in her mountain of inherited soft toys. I felt a stab of nostalgia for:

  • Squirtle and Jigglypuff
  • Any episode featuring the childhood memories of James of Team Rocket – especially the one where he is going to be married off and ends up cross-dressing – again
  • The brilliantly kitschy songs in the first two seasons

I remember one of our accountants back then sitting in a pub with me and chuntering over the phenomenon. “It’ll all blow over, won’t it,” he said. “Like Beanie Babies?” “I don’t know,” I told him. “It’s got a richly detailed world and story. It could have longevity.”

Well, it may not be the worldwide phenomenon it was years ago, but as far as I’m aware, it’s still going pretty strong. And from the way our five-year old went to bed singing the Jigglypuff song to herself tonight, I think we may be in for a major revisitation of Pokemon round our way.

Categories
Joshua Files writing

Rare books mark climactic page in archaeology’s history

This article in the Boston University Bridge caught my eye two years back and inspired a chapter in ‘Todd Garcia, Boy Archaeologist’, a chapter which didn’t make it to the first two drafts of ‘The Joshua Files’.

The article describes how a book collector came across a super-rare copy of a book by the explorer who kicked off the whole field of Mayan archaeology, John Lloyd Stephens. The bookstore didn’t recognise quite what they had in their shop, not having realised that the apparently insignificant inscription in the flyleaf was from the author to President Martin Van Buren.

Only two copies of this book (‘Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan’) would be more valuable and are in fact still missing…the author’s own copy and the one he gave to his friend and collaborator, the artist Frederick Catherwood.

In real life they are still missing. In ‘The Joshua Files’, however, one of these might be hiding, unnoticed in a second-hand bookshop in Jericho, Oxford…

And today, that deleted chapter (rewritten for Joshua) will be making its way into Invisible City version 3.0.

(Provided I don’t get tempted by something else, like an afternoon at the pool. Fingers crossed for rain…)

Categories
cuba

WOW! Havana Rakatan

We saw the terrific dance show Havana Rakatan in London on Saturday. Performed and choreographed by a Cuban ballet troupe who specialise in folkloric dance, it demonstrates the evolution of dance in Cuba. From the fusion between Spanish dances like flamenco and African rhythms and dance from the Santeria religion, the show charts the development of dances including son, mambo, cha-cha-cha, rumba and salsa.

It covers similar ground to the show Lady Salsa but in a more balletic manner, without any explanatory narrative. The music is performed by son band Turquino, a tight ensemble who play a hugely impressive set.

The dancers are all gorgeous, but my favourites were Joel and Yordy. It was hard to take my eyes off the beautiful men, (especially during the little striptease at the beginning where, breathing hard after a strenuous introductory number, the men line up at the front, slowly unbutton their shirts to much audience encouragement, and strip to the waist, revealing a row of the most delectable torsos you’re likely to see this side of Cuba…)

I did occasionally watch the women too, who were pretty darn fabulous.

Act 1 focuses on the African dances of the Orisha deities who intercede, in the Santeria/Lukumi religion, between humans and the creator God. That very morning I’d written a scene featuring a Santeria chant to Ochun. Watching Havana Rakatan, I was delighted to hear that very chant being used to open the sequence of breathtaking dances of the Orishas.

(It is also the chant at the beginning of Adalberto Alvarez’s santeria-rap-salsa composition, ‘Y Que Tu Quieres Que Te Den’.)

Act 1 alone is worth the ticket price. To see these dances performed by the world experts in Afro-Cuban folkloric dance is a huge treat. The music adds another level. I was simply astonished at how well Turquino and their singers performed this Afro-Cuban music. Mesmerizing is the only word for it. I could have listened to them for hours. At one point five singers (including two percussionists) joined in, singing tight close-harmony. Spellbinding!

The other highlight is the blistering performance of rumba near the end. Echoing their earlier roles as warring Orishas, the two lead dancers performed a rumba contest, including the fastest tembleque (shaking of the shoulders and pelvis) I’ve ever seen.

It’s on at the Peacock Theatre in London’s West End, until 23rd June. I may have to go again…

The reviews use words like ‘dazzling’ ‘spectacular’ ‘rip-roaring’. They’re NOT exaggerating.

(NB If you go on a Wednesday, Thursday or Friday there are salsa classes, DJ and dancing ’til late.)

Categories
raves writing

The Secret

Whilst dining together at a Lebanese restaurant in Andalucia to celebrate her wedding for the third time, my lovely friend Alison turned to me and asked me if I knew of the secret.

Ummmm, no, I said.

“I mean, ‘The Secret’ – a movie, now a book too – it’s a publishing phenomenon.”

I didn’t know anything about it, living as I do in a claustrophobic fog of adventure stories, school governance and salsa dancing.

Well, I’ve been missing out, by the sounds of things.

From Wikipedia:

The Secret, described as a self-help film,[2][3] uses a documentary format to present the “Law of Attraction.” This law is the “secret” that, according to the tagline, “has traveled through centuries to reach you.” The film features short dramatized experiences and interviews of a “dizzying dream team of personal transformation specialists, spiritual messengers, feng shui masters, and moneymaking experts”.[4] As put forth in the film, the “Law of Attraction” principle posits that people’s feelings and thoughts attract real events in the world into their lives; from the workings of the cosmos to interactions among individuals in their physical, emotional, and professional affairs. The film also suggests that there has been a strong tendency by those in positions of power to keep this central principle hidden from the public. The previews or “clues” to the film, show men who “uncovered the Secret…”.

Oh.My.Giddy.Aunt. It’s prayer for the secular! That is too, too wonderful.

There’s so much I could say about this…but I won’t be tempted. I’ll just relate the rest of mine and Alison’s conversation. (We were enjoying the best part of a bottle of vino tinto at the time.)

“So I don’t need to work hard on making my novels exciting…and the publishers don’t need to work hard marketing them…all we need to do is to visualize the book being a big success…?”

Alison nodded. “Visualize your success. Don’t let any negative thoughts interfere at all! Don’t have anything to do with people who cause you to experience negative thoughts or feelings!”

“Visualize my success…?” I repeated. It surely can’t be that simple. But according to Alison, that’s just what The Secret is all about. If you visualize it enough and with enough of the right vibes (and none of the wrong vibe), the universe will align itself with your wishes. Don’t ask how, but I’m sure there’s an underlying pseudo-scientific explanation designed to bamboozle.

“Visualize it…massively,” Alison said. “Look, I’m doing what I can, babe. I’m already visualizing you paying for us all to come here again next year…”

The following day, more sober, Alison pointed out the flaw in The Secret.

“Anyone who’s ever experienced unrequited love knows that it’s a load of hooey. I’ve spent most of my life fantasizing about various women, visualizing and everything…and it never worked!”

I thought about this for a second. “But did you ever consider asking any of these women…?”

Alison’s face fell. “Wha…? No… You think I should have…?”

The Secret. It’s one of those things that only works if you put in the hard work also. As with prayer – God helps those who help themselves.