Asparagus Mimosa

Return of an Old Friend

I don't understand why recipes drop in and out of favor. I used to make perlow following Mark Bittman's recipe for "this relative of jambalaya...our indigenous risotto" on an almost weekly basis. Maybe its vogue was superseded by America's new favorite, salt and pepper shrimp? I'm delighted to announce perlow's return to our table.

Kenneth requests Hollandaise

One Tree Thrill: Notes on the brilliance of "The Runaway Found"

One Tree Hill has never been a guilty pleasure of mine: I've long been a viewer-- it's long been a pleasure-- but never a guilty one.

My investment in the show has dwindled in recent years. However, SOAP Net's recent re-broadcast of the first season reconfirmed and rekindled my interest and enthusiasm. SOAP net groups One Tree with Beverly Hills 90210 and The O.C. and promotes all three with a slogan that masterfully captures the show's strengths and pleasures-- "Pretty people. Pretty messed up." I imagine this line does justice to all three shows, but I'm only interested in my One Tree. The first season layers reversal upon reversal, development upon development, collision upon collision to produce a masterfully-crafted chain reaction of plot and character development.

I had to cancel my season pass to One Tree Hill on SOAP Net because, with one episode airing a day, it took up too much time. I'm trying to read more and watch less TV. Not cut out TV altogether, mind you. Just temper things. My friend Chris reminds me that I've been saying this for years...

As a result of my recent SOAP Net experience, I have become more attentive to current episodes of One Tree. The show is an entirely different beast at this point. Some episodes are merely perfunctory: for instance, the most recent installment "Ashes of Dreams You Let Die." Other recent screenings, however, have seen me laugh maniacally at the show's audacious artificiality. The recent episode"The Runaway Found" highlighted the operatic brilliance that is my One Tree. It incorporates an operatic intensity, use of visual emblems that evoke masques of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, and dialogue at once staid and florid that makes me think of Dryden's heroic drama.

Some examples of brilliance from "The Runaway Found":

1) A drunken Dan accidentally smashes a bottle of booze on his brother's grave stone. Struggling awkwardly with a cigarette, he drops his lighter which sets the grave ablaze.



For those of you not in the know, Dan shot and killed his brother Keith.



2) Haley's assailant, Derek, is played by Matt Barr.



Barr has always looked like a gay porn star to me. In the Leo and Lance tradition. Or maybe a bottom akin to Kevin Kramer, seen here in Bruce La Bruce's Hustler White:


Derek's prison get-up only inflames any gay-porn resonance. But, One Tree delivers what gay porn, sadly, lacks. Whimpering and tears.



Now that's how a blond in a prison jumper is properly eroticized.

3) Dan takes aim.

Dan aims at stuffed bears (in a gun shop!?).

Dan aims at girl.

Girl drops dollie.



4) In a church,

Dan-- sitting in a pew-- loads a gun and

drops it into a paper bag.


5) A lovely example of chiasmus, Kenneth's favorite rhetorical figure:

Nathan: I've forsaken a game that's always been incredibly good to me. And teammates that have been like brothers. And a brother that was a teammate.

6) Dan, reflected in a framed photo of his brother Keith and his spurned son, Lucas.

Dan: I've done some horrible things. Unforgivable things. Lucas didn't need a father; he had one. He had a person that helped him breach the shame of my cowardice. Everything I've touch I've diminished: Deb's life, Nathan's talent, Keith...

Karen: You're not without redemption. I've seen it. I see it.

The implausibility of these terms, this phrasing-- their operatic pitch-- cinches the genius of this episode.

Two quick notes:
1) The image of Brooke Davis at the beginning of the post is not from the episode "The Runaway Found."
2) The images from the Hidden Palms blog look better than the above because we recently upgraded our equipment. I took snapshots of One Tree prior to the upgrade.

Christina's World, Palm Springs (2007)

Bradford emailed the NYT review of the CW's summer teen soap opera, Hidden Palms: "Will you watch this show and tell me all about it?" Silly question, despite the fact that I'm trying to cut down on my TV consumption. Kenneth, who recently caught me agog at the conclusion of Pochahontas II: Journey to a New World, smirked, "You'll watch anything!" Teen dramas are perhaps my favorite, and Hidden Palms features families with only children...how can I resist???

The pilot was terrific-- ingeniously tooled, with much potential etched into each character and relationship and with a wonderfully balanced set of analogs, foils, parallels, and rivals.


My notes:

Beautiful sheet sets throughout.
1.

2.

3.


A favorite moment:

the red umbrella (with Johnny [Taylor Handly]).



A beautiful Palm-Springs moment:

a shot of wheat grass and a shot of vodka.

Exstacy [sic]:

youthful antics appearing early in the show, to be followed by Christina's World [above] near the episode's conclusion.

Speaker Meeting:
"Not fit for public consumption. I was too weird for the main stream, and I was too normal for the fringes. Hell, I didn't fit in anywhere. I. did. not. belong. And you know, all I ever wanted was just to belong."

That's the third step peeking out behind Jesse Jo [Leslie Jordan]. I don't know if I've ever seen a drag queen as a reoccuring character on television. Jordan's character appears both in and out of drag. I'd call his presence 1) a delight and 2) a smart move from the show's creators: a nice link (or wink) to the show's gay audience (what teen soap doesn't have a gay audience?) without the complications of gay-teen sex.

The pilot's main character, Johnny, is three months sober and without a driver's license after a downward spiral of drug and alcohol binges. It all seems to have started after he witnessed his father's suicide. Viewers get to share the spectacle, which opens the series: it, uh, starts with a bang. Thusfar, the writers offer an insightful representation of recovery and AA:

Johnny: I was thinking about going to a meeting. Dr. Hill gave me the name of a place.
Karen (Johnny's clueless mother): So soon? We just got here.
J: Well, they suggest I go everyday.
K: That doesn't seem very practical.
J: That was the plan. I think we should stick to it.
K: New town, new home: I thought we were done with all that.
J: That's not how it works, Mom.

Teen Sex Sublimation:

Johnny's wet t-shirt. Hints of Hayden Christensen and John MacNaughton's Wild Things.

Box of Beautiful Books:

the return of the red umbrella?

Neruda:

I don't think I've ever seen such a tight close-up of a book before. How lovely that they selected this attractive and plausible hard-cover. This shot ends the first episode.

Holiday Dressing

Feeling festive, I spruced up my regular fudgy brownies with mascarpone icing and strawberry coulis.

Clocks...

While I was making dinner, I began to hum Coldplay's Clocks, one of the many songs that I murmur unconsciously as I go about my business. At some point, I should catalog those tunes. The list is guaranteed to horrify: I often feel bad for Kenneth who has to listen to me as I mindlessly hum Sleigh Ride and Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy throughout the year...

Anyhoo, as I continued to make our shrimp salad, Kenneth and I began to rewrite the lyrics of Clocks.

My best effort, I think:

Some clocks you have to wind;
I prefer the battery kind.

Kenneth, of course, trumped me repeatedly. I favor these couplets:

Analog clocks, they have hands;
I sing about clocks with my band.

Clocks are square and clocks are round,
And alarm clocks make a sound.

Such silly boys today who poke fun at Coldplay.

Small Creature Dies

Repotting herbs this morning, I happened upon this wee creature whose life was ending at the base of our house. Some peculiar hallucination led me to think briefly that it might be a kitten. Must have been something about the light? I brought Kenneth out to inspect and consult. We went out for a lovely brunch party, and when we returned, the mouse had died.

Sugar Plum Fairy

Joe Campbell photographed by Harvey Milk

Timbale D'Asperges

My first foray into Mastering the Art of French Cooking, a pristine copy of which I recently picked up for $1 at my local thrift store. I served the timbale with meaty chunks of portobello mushroom and sauce Mornay. I certainly plan to use a timbale as a first course-- probably paired with a little salad-- at a dinner party. But, it was great as a main dish for just Kenneth and me on the back porch, eating, chatting, and watching the bats flip through the air.

Thank heavens for...

...summer salads and herbs from my wee container garden. I served these salads with-- that's right-- yet another salad of mixed greens. Also, big hunks of crusty sour dough bread. That's salmon salad on the right. I've taken to folding cubes of boiled potatoes into my salmon salad to give it a little more substance. I was worried that we might not feel full after this, but it turned out to be a perfectly satisfying quick summer meal. Of course, we topped everything off with some delicious cake...