Stupid Culinary Adventures!

A couple of years ago I watched "Endurance" a biographical film about the Ethiopian distance runner, Gold-medal winning Olympian,  and world record holder Haile Gebrselassie.  Since distance running is an interest of mine, it was fascinating to get an insight into the life and background of such an incredible athlete.

And since food is also an interest of mine, it was intriguing to see Haile's mother portrayed fixing some weird red pancake-bread thing in a giant frying pan for her family.  This stuff was evidently a staple of Haile's diet growing up, so obviously eating it would make me a world-class athlete as well.

After some internet research, I discovered that this flat bread is known as "injera" and it is made from a highly nutritious grain called "teff".   Unfortunately, genuine injera bread takes time and skill to prepare, neither of which I have in abundance.

Still, I had to have some teff flour for myself, and a few days after ordering the substance I combined pumpkin and teff pancake recipes to make (can you guess?)...pumpkin-teff pancakes!

They are dense and different than regular pancakes but tasty in their own way.  Immediately after eating them I went out and put together three point one-o-seven 4-minute miles on the track to break the world record at 5 K.  Unfortunately, there were no witnesses.  But I did document the pancake making:

The Election

Last night I became a duly elected public official.  It struck me as odd since I didn't remember running for office in the first place.  Plus, I was a little annoyed at myself for apparently not considering how much time political office would require me to spend in Springfield and how it would interfere with my work and other activities.  Fortunately, it was just a dream (whew!).

In non-dream news, I finally realized where I had previously seen Henry Ian Cusick, the actor who plays "Desmond" on the TV show Lost, now that his character has grown a beard (see what I'm listening to).  Incidentally, he does a great job in that movie.  I liked The Gospel of John a lot more than Mel Gibson's The Passion.

Star Queen

I meant to blog on this topic earlier but forgot.  A few weeks ago I had the chance to watch a talented father-son duo Tommy and John Thomas Oaks put on a fantastic performance at the Salem Theater of the musical Star Queen, written by John Thomas Oaks himself.  It's an upbeat, fast-paced musical version of the book of Esther, filled with humor and cleverly written show tunes of various genres.  It sounds really weird (and is quite campy), but they manage to remain faithful to the core material and message of the Old Testament book of Esther. 

Normally, there are 22 parts, but John Thomas Oaks and his father put on a special two-man version where they both play multiple roles. 

The father Tommy (also a minister) is a gifted storyteller, and John Thomas plays piano, sings, and acts.  Both of these guys are immensely talented. 

For more on John Thomas Oaks and his music, I recommend the website johnthomasoaks.com, especially if you have high-speed internet, to sample some of the songs.  Broadway-style show tunes are not really my kind of music, but seeing the live performance gave me an appreciation for the wit and musical talent behind some of this guy's work.

Reformation Sunday

was last weekend, but I had trouble getting this audio file uploaded and then didn't have time earlier this week, so here at last is a GarageBand (a nifty Macintosh synthesizer/sequencer program) version of a much-loved hymn* by Martin Luther:

I promise not to bombard this site with everything I put together with GarageBand, and to purists I apologize for my slightly cheesy two-verse version of the hymn.

For more on "A Mighty Fortress", look here.

For more on Martin Luther and the Reformation, look here.

* adapted from Lutheran Worship, Concordia Publishing House

Not Much to Say, Lately

I have high-speed fiberoptic internet now after living in the dark ages of dial-up for so long.  I can now download i-Tunes hundreds of times faster than ever before!  Unfortunately, i-Spent way too much money in the last two weeks on music.  Not that it isn't great quality music, of course. 

Great music is not pop radio "boy meets girl" and all that lovey-dovey stuff.  Nor is it depressing, ear-shattering, growly, angry and profanity-laced heavy metal (when did Cookie Monster get so foul-mouthed, anyway?).  Truly great music is about matters of depth, profundity and sweeping grandeur.  That's what I listen to.

And I haven't bought so much music that I can't still afford a little trip to the local Casey's: 

Weighty Matters

Doubt not that I know suffering, my friends.  Only yesterday
morning I underwent great anguish and physical torment which besets me
to some degree even today.  Yes, I sustained a paper cut on my
left index finger.  And then, at lunch time I had a meeting of the
Salem Chamber of Commerce Building & Grounds committee, at which I
had to forego eating since I did not have time to pick up lunch
beforehand.  Those of you who have seen me know that I can ill
afford to miss a meal.  So, to the soul-wrenching pain and
humiliation of a papercut was added deeper hunger pangs than your
feeble minds can imagine.  Oh...I know
suffering.  It got me thinking about this crazy world.  If
there is a loving God, how is it that good people get paper cuts, or
have to wait an hour before eating lunch?  People tell me that Job
suffered.  I've read parts of the book of Job before, but until
now have never been able to endure the whole thing.  Now it's
personal.  I feel like I can empathize on a deeper level with the
man after what I've been through.  I am halfway through reading it and
intend to finish today.  If you have ever pondered the question
of evil or the reason for suffering, I encourage you to read the book
of Job.  It's in the Bible (Old Testament).    

Deep in the Mighty Jungle...

by friendly, slow-witted apes!!!

These dumb yet kind and noble beasts accepted the little one as one of their own.
They named him "Car-zan", imparting to him their wisdom and raising him solemnly in the ways of the ape:

Showing little Carzan how to find food in the dangerous jungle...
 

...how to swing on vines high above the treetops...

...and how to defend the troop from savage predators!

Under their tutelage, Carzan grew dumb and strong!  Subsisting only on bananas, he grew and grew.  Oh, how he grew!

He became...LORD OF THE JUNGLE!!!

"Ah-ah-yee-ah-yee-ah-eh-aha-ha-ah, etc., etc!!!"

Then, one day...

He fell in love...

"Me Carzan--You Plane!"

"What?!  You conceited jerk!!!"

Alas, what she had heard was:
"Me Carzan--You plain!"
Off she flew!
 
(Thus ending abruptly their tempestuous romance)...

But that was not the end of Carzan the Apecar!  Or was it?

[clipart courtesy of classroomclipart.com (gorilla), goldenbooks.com (dinosaur) and antiquecar.com (muscle car)].

There is No Headline

for this entry.  It only looks like it since my first four words were so huge and I capitalized most of them.

We completed our final performance of Arsenic & Old Lace
on Sunday afternoon and had the cast party last night.  The second
weekend went better than the first.  Friday night's crowd was not
huge but they were great laughers--among them were RVMann and
Chesswrangler, who seem to have abandoned Xangaland for real life
lately.  Both of those guys have acted in plays I've directed and
it was great to see them there.  Saturday's crowd was more like
I'd hoped for all along.  We had about 150 and they laughed at
everything--with the positive feedback vibe between audience and
actors, Saturday was definitely our best overall performance. 
After that, Sunday afternoon was somewhat of a letdown, with only about
50 again.  I'm relieved to be done, still very disappointed in the
turnout, but happy with how we did and the fun that we all had.

Saturday night we also had a harrowing event involving our "Teddy
Brewster" actor who is quite a big guy.  He always puts a lot of
exuberance into his performances and his final "Charge!" of the night
up the stairs and through the door was so vigorous that inertia drove
him forward, crashing
through the canvas wall at the end of the 6-foot tall platform and
plummeting face-first off of it to the floor,
spinning around in air when his elbow clipped the platform and landing
flat on his
back in the narrow space between the platform and the back
brick wall with a huge thud.  Those of us backstage ran
over, terrified that he might be severely hurt, but after groaning and crying
out, he sprang up assuring us he was all right.  The action on the stage had come to a standstill after the crash
and immense thud, as everyone was wondering about his fate, but he went around and
poked his head through the door and waved at the audience and onstage cast
members to let them know he was all right and got a big cheer.  After
the cast members recovered their
composure, they went on with the show.  He was more concerned
about losing his pince-nez than with his injury.  Afterwards, his
elbow had to be iced, but that appears to have been the extent of it. 
We were all amazed and relieved that he was not hurt worse--it could
have been much more serious.

I'm a bit befuddled as to how we can bring in more audience
members.  People will come to watch their kids no matter how bad
the show is (Thanks, Mom and Dad).  But even if we put on a great
show few people attend.  Of course I'm partial since I'm
directing, but I think that even an objective U.N. observer would
conclude that our acting is not all that bad really, and that there is
no evidence we are concealing WMD's.

In light of this, I think that for our next production we will invite
the U.N. and cast
about 40 children in "Demolition Derby:  The Musical" in order to
blend two popular activities around these parts.   We can
take for granted that the children's families will be there every
night.  We can
probably market it best to the general public however as simply  "Demolition Derby at
the Theater!" without specifying that it's a theater production.  The Marion
County Fair Demolition Derby last month attracted 3900 people for one
night, and I think last month's "Wizard of Oz" brought in well over
1100 (some repeaters, since family members went to multiple
performances to see the kids).

Readers Heartily Invited to Attend "Arsenic & Old Lace"

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to see it, was it
still a tree?  Is the forest any less a forest for having lost the
tree?  Why should it care, anyway?

The Salem Community Theatre has put on our first weekend of the
hilarious classic comedy "Arsenic and Old Lace".  Everyone
involved has been spending a huge amount of time lately to get this
play on the stage, just one month after "Wizard of Oz," with some of
the same cast membes.  Through Sunday we had spent several hours
the last 13 of 14 days either rehearsing or performing, with extra time
spent working on all the last minute details involved in a stage
production (set and prop details, programs, press releases). 
After all that, we ended up with an average of a little over 50
audience members per show in an auditorium that seats nearly 400.

Of course, attendance numbers are just one measure of a show's success,
but I would like to see more people come and enjoy the show. 
There were other events going on here this last weekend (home football
game, Apple Festival), and our publicity probably wasn't the greatest,
but I would think we could get more people out to see a play in a
community of 8000 when people are often complaining that there's
nothing to do.  We are making a concerted effort to get the word
out this week, and hopefully it won't end up being too little, too
late.

We're not professionals, but we put on an enthusiastic performance and
those who do show up seem to really like it.  Sure, lots of people
have already seen the movie version, but live theater offers something
special.  I wish there were a way to convince people of that in
this age of television and computer games.

Do you feel guilty yet, even if you
live several hours away and/or didn't know the play was on?  You
should!  You're really missing out.  All the cool people are there.

Anyway, one more weekend to go (September 22-24, see flyer
above).  Now that we have that first weekend out of the way, I can
relax a bit.  It's been enjoyable and I know we'll put on a fun
show regardless of attendance.

The Genuine Article

Wow!  The mail choo-choo just keeps on chuggin'!:


Dear Mr. Stupidocles,

As a "persyn of straw" I wish to address a recent issue on your Xanga
which might cause me great offense were I possessed of an overly
sensitive nature.  My purpose in writing is neither rebuttal nor
revenge, but simply to clear up any misconceptions about "scarecrows"
that your recently posted "letters" may have cultivated.  While
these "letters" are obvious hoaxes, I prefer to put the best
construction on everything and therefore stop short of accusing you of
malicious intent.  Perhaps you published them out of
ignorance.  Please allow me to educate you.

Someone reading your last two letters might very well get the false
impression that scarecrows are just brainless individuals writing
venom-laced diatribes to obscure blog personalities who hide behind inane
pseudonyms like so many cowardly lions.  A genuine "scarecrow" does nothing of the kind. 
Neither does one simply stand around in fields all day and scare crows
(as the imaginary "Ms. Hoyteetoytee" states), although that is
certainly a small part of how we persyns of straw spend our time.

Alas, fully explaining what we do would be too time-consuming and
technical for the scope of this blog and frankly, above your
head.  I merely ask that you use some restraint and consider
refraining from posting letters (real or imaginary) that malign other
people groups and perpetuate negative stereotypes, and just stick to
what you know...Admittedly, it will severely limit your subject matter,
but I can't see as how it can possibly lower the current level of
discourse on this blog, hovering as it is at the lowest end of the
Kelvin scale, which incidentally describes you aptly.

Sincerely,

A Genuine Persyn of Straw

What
an awesome compliment!  That's a really clever way of saying I
couldn't be any cooler!   Not sure what you mean about those
letters being "hoaxes" but I'm always willing to post a dissenting
opinion.