The AP reports “Mothers in Kenya have marked Barack Obama’s historic win in the U.S. presidential elections by naming their newborns after him and his wife. More than half of the babies born in a Kisumu Hospital on the day after the election were named either Barack or Michelle Obama.”
Woooooooooooooooooo!
I didn’t celebrate in the street, but I’m happy to see the pictures of everyone who did (and hear about the celebrants in Seattle who picked up other people’s litter after, and were thanked by the friendly police people who had been indulgently watching the hoo-ha. That’s Seattle all over, I must say).
I am also happy to hear that this election had the highest national voter turnout since 1908 (!!!!!), when not everyone could vote, you know, so it should count as the highest turnout ever!
We get a new president and Sasha and Malia get a puppy. Huzzah!
Bits and Bobs
If more than 30 percent of the student body pledges to abstain from sex, it doesn’t work, again showing that evangelical Christians need to feel persecuted.
A telecoms-based order of nuns answers phones at the Vatican (except at night).
A Newfoundland specialty, the Jiggs Dinner!
Mine All Mine Review
Mine All Mine, Davies. No. Davies seems to want this to be Soon I Will Be Invincible, or at least Bad Monkeys, but it’s just not. At the same logical point in the plot where I settled in to finish Half a Crown, I could very happily have set Mine All Mine down and thought of it almost never again. Davies is a decent writer, but he’s simply not good enough to succeed at the level of cleverness he attempted. Footnotes are especially not recommended.
Addendum: Turns out I hadn’t even finished the book; I was about a third of the way through the last chapter, and the book demonstrated its put-downability by letting me put it down and imagine I had finished it (I realized my misapprehension only when I was packing it up to take it back to the library and wondered why the bookmark was still in it). I think I like the ending I imagined it had better than the one it actually has.
Cooking a la Ritz
by Louis Diat, Chef, Ritz-Carlton Hotel, New York, 1941
A 524 page long book of recipes from the famous restaurant, supposedly for the American housewife. I think most American housewives would look on this beast with horror in their eyes. It’s packed with horrifically complex sauces and dishes containing huge ingredients lists, each requiring extensive preparation. One of the basic sauces, called for in many of the subsequent sauce recipes? First ingredient is a lobster. It is the very definition of mid-century fancy food.
Maybe there's some cultural movement?
I have a posting on the back burner regarding Top Foods’ completely missing the point of “Natural”, and a larger project somewhere in the pantry involving an investigation of just how many of the calories in the American diet are derived from corn (between cow feed and HFCS—to say nothing of using it for fuel). In the meantime, it’s nice to see that the ridiculousness is getting some attention.
Half a Crown Review
Half a Crown, Walton. Yes. In most respects this last volume is the best of Walton’s “Small Change” series (Farthing and Ha’penny being the first two). I don’t know how long it’s been since I last burned through the final third or so of a book in one sitting, but Walton succeeded completely in making me need to know what happened next. My complaints are quite minor, arguably ironic, and outside the scope of my review
A Mixture of Frailties Review
A Mixture of Frailties, Davies. Yes. I can think of only so many ways to praise the writing of Robertson Davies. The present work is up to the high standard, engaging if not quite compelling. This gem most caught my attention:
Wit and high spirits and a sense of fun—yes, they’re wonderful things. But a sense of humour—a real one—is a rarity and can be utter hell. Because it’s immoral, you know, in the real sense of the word: I mean, it makes its own laws; and it possesses the person who has it like a demon. Fools talk about it as though it were the same thing as a sense of balance, but believe me, it’s not. It’s a sense of anarchy, and a sense of chaos. Thank God it’s rare.
Yet another web comic
Wondermark is usually pretty entertaining.
Morning to Midnight Cook Book: 340 Unexpected Treats from Aunt Jemima
1969
In the category of cookbooks requiring ample quantities of the sponsor’s products, the Aunt Jemima one knows it has a bit of a stretch on its hands with the “to Midnight” portion of the menu. But they gamely soldier on with suggestions for every meal!