Cornucopia

Whatever you made for Thanksgiving, you probably spent the rest of the weekend finishing. Even though the last thing anyone wants to think of today is holiday food, the Times published an article last Wednesday that deserves another look. After interviewing the keepers of various recipe sites, the author provided a snapshot of the most searched-for holiday recipes by region, and the results are interesting.

Growing up, our Thanksgiving menu never varied, and because it never varied I assumed that the entire country ate what we ate: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green been casserole, gravy, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie. My mother always started things off with fruit salad, which I figured was her idiosyncrasy, since she believed fruit salad to be a "fancy" start to a meal. I therefore had no idea that, had I grown up in the Midwest, Thanksgiving would have been incomplete without a cheese ball.

Most of the recipe searches in the article are for items one would expect, although it's interesting to note that most of the searches for green bean casserole came from the West coast, as if San Francisco liberals have never heard of such a thing, and that most of the candied sweet potato searches came from the South, as if sweet potatoes and marshmallows are somehow ingredients foreign to the Southern diet. I had no idea, however, that deviled eggs were part of anyone's holiday menu, but they are in the top 25 most searched-for list, and would appear to be a staple of the mid-Western holiday diet.

What do Tennessee and Idaho have in common? Residents of both states apparently enjoy cheesecake as their holiday dessert. If you live in the South, you are apt to serve macaroni and cheese alongside the sweet potato pie on Thanksgiving day. If you happen to live smack dab in the middle of the country, your turkey was accompanied by corn casserole, based on this data. Those who live in the northern plains and the Northwest appear much more likely to brine their turkeys. In the South, green bean casserole was not searched for, while this was the only region of the country where cooks clamored for recipes for broccoli casserole, whatever that may be.

Looking for stuffed mushrooms on your holiday plate? Get invited to dinner in New England or Alaska. It turns out fruit salad is a Thanksgiving staple, just not on either coast, and that in this one instance my mother was a red-stater. Butternut squash is something I can imagine as a holiday regular, but either only New Englanders needed a recipe for this dish, or it's only served in New England.

I'm not sure what conclusions can be drawn from this data, but I did learn that we are a large and diverse country. I mean, deviled eggs? Cheese balls?

Notes from the Far Right

Did you know that Eisenhower was a communist? Neither did I, but when he wasn't busy leading the troops in WWII or leading the country as Commander in Chief we was apparently busy doing all he could for the cause of Red China. You can read all about it on the John Birch Society website.

The John Birch Society doesn't get much press these days, and I thought the whole thing was defunct, swallowed up by Glenn Beck and the Ron Paul Libertarians, but there they are, a bunch of really old men floating around cyberspace. John Birch was a soldier and Christian missionary who was killed by those dreaded Red Chinese in the last days of WWII, and so was in a sense the first casualty of the Cold War. Robert Welch founded the Society bearing his name to encourage Americans to fight for freedom from, well, from America, because America is one vast liberal conspiracy that wants to suspend the constitution, expand big government, invade the private lives of patriots, and harbor Commie subversives. I wrongly thought that the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union would have made the Society superfluous, but I guess vast liberal conspiracies never go away.

Birchers had their moment. The Society was founded and based in Orange County; from the mid-1950s through the 1970s Birchers had some degree of political heft in California and in Arizona, another stronghold. Barry Goldwater was their hero. They also loved Reagan, although he was careful to distance himself from the far right during his political rise. You'd think they'd have been pretty happy with the W. years, but you'd be wrong; Bush was way too liberal for this crowd.

The fact that the average age of Birch leadership appears to be 75 makes the presence of a website surprising. There's even an online store, where you can order a Birch polo shirt or a DVD explaining how the European Union wants to take over the United States. If that's not interactive enough for you, head to Riverdale, NJ on Tuesday, where a Birch board member will address the Riverdale Senior Community Center.

The real lesson here? Seniors are a captive audience who will listen to anyone who comes bearing pastry.

Magnificent Obsession

Like all obsessions, it began innocently enough. Join Facebook, my friend said, so you can play this game called Mafia Wars. It's really fun, it's a strategy game. I thought I might as well give it a try. After all, the whole thing was free.

I started slowly, not exactly sure what I was doing, but within a week I'd progressed to a level of play where I'd begun to acquire things: tommy guns, grenades, hideouts, body armor, members of my crew. Strangers began attacking me, which pissed me off. I acquired more defense and more attack, more weapons and more energy and more crew members. I began randomly attacking strangers in kind. I needed to do more jobs to pay for all the stuff I was acquiring, and then I needed more stuff in order to do more jobs. Suddenly it became necessary for me to log on to play the game three or four times a day in order to protect my assets, launder my money, ensure the survival of my character.

And so here we are, three weeks later. Because I work on my computer most of the day it's possible for me to check in on the game every few hours, and I find myself doing just that. I'm always running short of energy, but I can fill out ridiculous consumer surveys that lead nowhere but provide me with enough points to refill my energy and play the game even more. It's a downward spiral, solitaire on crack. I need help.

It would help if more people joined my mafia, but then again a larger crew would just enable me to fight and win more often, and to purchase more safe houses. What I really need is a different online activity, one that's less addictive. Or a real life. I need for spring to finally really arrive, so I can leave my house and turn my back on the soft glowing call of my monitor, sucking me in. Maybe what I need is to finally and irreversibly be whacked. Someone, please kill me, so I can live again.

I Guess the IRS Can't Afford Spellcheck

I found this in my inbox this morning. I have only one question: why $120.50? If I'm going to be scammed, I want it to be for $14 million USD wired from Nigeria.



After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity
we have determined that you are eligible to receive
a tax refund under section 501(c) (3) of the
Internal Revenue Code. Tax refund value is $120.50.
Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 6-9 days
in order to IWP the data received.
If u don't receive your refund within 9 business
days from the original IRS mailing date shown,
you can start a refund trace online.

If you distribute funds to other organization, your records must show wether
they are exempt under section 497 (c) (15). In cases where the recipient org.
is not exempt under section 497 (c) (15), you must have evidence the funds will
be used for section 497 (c) (15) purposes.

If you distribute fund to individuals, you should keep case histories showing
the recipient's name and address; the purpose of the award; the maner of
section; and the realtionship of the recipient to any of your officers, directors,
trustees, members, or major contributors.

To access the form for your tax refund, please click here

This notification has been sent by the Internal Revenue Service,
a bureau of the Department of the Treasury.

Beast Without Burden

Even as the economy continues to tank, the business of business rushes onward. Perhaps you've heard that Tina Brown's website, The Daily Beast, launched this week. Can the magic that she worked on Vanity Fair and The New Yorker (and even the short-lived Talk) be translated to the Web? Follow the link and check it out for yourself.

The Daily Beast isn't quite a full-fledged webzine. It's an aggregator, meaning that the editors cull content from all over the web. Although the site contains some original content, as well as blogs, it's main focus is distilling what's news and buzzworthy onto a easily navigated homepage and providing links to those stories.

There are other aggregators out there. Some, like Digg, are reader-chosen; the stories most often "digged" by readers top the list. Others, like Huffington Post and Daily Beast, are "curated" by editors. I go to the Huffington Post not to see what's popular on the web, but to see what's new in liberal politics, just as I would go to Drudge to see what's new in conservative politics. Most curated sites cater to particular sensibilities, particular audiences.

I'm not sure what niche TDB is meant to fill or who it's intending to reach, but in its first week, the editors undoubtedly don't yet know what it's niche will be, either. Right now, it appears mainly to be a destination for people who like Tina Brown, which I guess means people like me, in that I have always enjoyed her publications. I sense it will be a place for me to go when I don't have the time to read longer-form content in Slate or Salon, and am interested in news beyond the narrowly political, financial, or gossipy. I'll give it a shot, in other words. It beats watching my net worth disappear day by day.

Since it's new, TDB is also currently ad-free, which is refreshing. It's design is clean, and right now it can be enjoyed free of clutter. Oh, and one feature really worth checking out: the Video Cheat Sheet, an accumulation of must-see clips from around the Web. It's worth a visit just to find the view-worthy in one place. Why watch the Dow plummet when you can catch Bill Murray's SNL cameo from last night instead?

Does Lassie Twitter, Too?

Fan fiction is nothing new. Wander around the web and you can find fan-generated versions of your favorite books, movies, and TV shows, especially if you like science fiction or anything with a supernatural element. Some fans take their creative impulses beyond the written word. YouTube is filled with home-made versions of reality shows: The Real World Perkiomanville, Survivor New Paltz, etc. Marketers setting up social networking sites to promote fictional products is somewhat new, but not unexpected; finding a MySpace page for a movie comes as no surprise. What is new, and altogether interesting, is the use of social networking sites for the creation of fan fiction, and the best example of this is the use of Twitter by some dedicated Mad Men fans.

Yes, Don Draper Twitters. So does Betty, Roger Sterling, Peggy Olsen, Pete Campbell. Not only does every major character on the show Twitter, the minor ones do, too, including the Drapers four year-old son Bobby. They post updates, tweet one another, and will even respond to those who tweet them. The whole thing is done entirely in character, to the point where, when I first discovered the Mad Men Twitterverse, I thought, "What brilliant marketing. I had no idea AMC was so with it!"

AMC isn't with it. The entire project is the work of We Are Sterling Cooper, whose avowed purpose is the creation of fan fiction through social networking. AMC, in fact, at first sent out a cease and desist, and for a while all the Sterling Cooper Twitter accounts were suspended. Someone in the AMC marketing department finally figured out that this is ultimately a good thing, allowing the characters to Twitter away. What was Peggy doing last night? She was home alone reading, of course. Roger and Don went out for drinks. It's 1962, with Blackberries.

I honestly don't see the point of micro-blogging. If I posted occasional updates that described my actual activities, I'd end up producing a string of "writing a press release" or "drinking coffee and reading," a string of banalities. I'd want to make my updates more interesting than that, because the point of social networking is to interact with others. I'd need to make myself more fascinating than I am. I'd need to be performative rather than merely descriptive. I'd need to turn my "self" into a persona.

In that sense, all of the selves presented on Twitter are works of fiction. The line between "Elucidator" and "Don Draper" is a thin one indeed. The possibilities that We Are Sterling Cooper's project raises are, in the end, not about fan fiction, but about fiction itself. I could easily set up multiple accounts, each belonging to a different character of my invention, and create a narrative through the tweets these characters send each other. What I'm waiting for, in other words, is a novel conceived and composed this way, a novel that unfolds 140 words at a time, a novel that is performed as it is composed. It's coming, if it isn't already here.

Palin-polooza

I thought I'd be experiencing withdrawal today, since the conventions are over and the US Open is finished. Thank god for this internet-thingy, where all things Sarah Palin are alive and well. For a good chuckle, I highly recommend that you follow this link to the PalinDrome, a fake Palin blog written by a dedicated impersonator. Really, it's good for at least an hour of amusement.

If you're not in the mood for humor and instead desire a dose of outrage, link over to Women Against Sarah Palin to see some of the reasons women won't vote for just anyone with a pair of breasts.

Finally, I'd like to state for the record that I will not miss Matthews and Olbermann as anchors on MSNBC. I will not miss their annoying voices, I will not miss their pontificating, I will not miss the fact that they are both so in love with their own opinions that they barely allowed the actual commentators air time. It was painful, not wanting to listen to people I tend to agree with. Thank you, MSNBC, for making the election season easier on my ears.

Technological Advances

When I moved last fall, the size of my living room tripled. All in all this was a good thing. In fact, I moved largely because I wanted a bigger living room. The one downside was my 20-inch TV; you simply could no longer see it from across the room. I set out Wednesday evening in search of an upgrade. At the same time, I'm working on a 4 1/2 year-old computer, and I've been worried about the health of the drives. I also decided Wednesday night to back-up everything and erase and reinitial my hard drive to try to help the computer out. The upshot of all this is that technology is wonderful, and technology at the same time sucks.

Sometimes changing one thing irrevocably alters a delicate technological balance, so that a new monitor screws up the DVR, the surround sound, etc. This was happily not the case. I swapped the smaller TV for a huge HD model seamlessly. In 20 minutes the deed was done, and I was looking at the pimples on the nose of the McNeil Lehrer newscaster. It's all excellent. I can now watch crappy reality television from every corner of the living room. For a moment life was complete.

Moving the contents of my hard drive to an external drive didn't take too long. Erasing and reinitializing the drive, then installing the new OS, took until 1 AM. No problem. However, I awakened yesterday to a computer that didn't have a single application. No Office, no Creative Suite, no Firefox. Everything got moved back, but my history was gone. My bookmarks, my contacts, my address book, my saved emails, my passwords, all gone. It was as if I'd never written or received an email, never browsed the Web. Restoring some semblance of the computer I knew took, literally, all day.

I spent most of my life without dozens of user names and passwords. It used to be that a Social Security number was all I needed. I spent most of my life without even the notion of email. How did it come to pass that I felt deeply troubled at the prospect of one day spent without access to my Netflix queue? And why did I give myself different passwords for different sites? And why couldn't I remember them all? How is it that technology runs my life, rather than the opposite?

It's all done, all worked out. All that's missing is the day of my life that this took. In Eastern cultures today is a lucky day, though, and the Olympics start tonight. I can watch table tennis in high definition glory. I can add Wikis to my dashboard. My new technology will let me get on with the business of living. Or at least the business of living inside my house. Technology hasn't yet figured out a way of coming along when I walk my dog, or of walking the dog for me. It won't be long, though. It won't be long.

I Don't Think I've Seen it All, But This Comes Close

If, like me, you watched the raid on the FLDS Yearning for Zion Ranch in Texas and the attendant court cases and thought, "I want to look like Holly Hobby, too! Where do I get those clothes?" then you're in luck. Although currently only children's sizes are available, the FLDS has begun selling clothing that adheres to the Church's standards for modesty through this website.

Why the Web venture? Spokesperson Maggie Jessop told the Salt Lake Tribune last week that "(they) have to make a living the same as everyone else does." A living they should make; a basic dress will run you around $40, which seems steep even if the child will outgrow it before it goes out of style. I didn't feel like going through the motions of check-out, but I am left wondering whether or not they are charging sales tax, given their precarious relationship with state and federal government.

I'm also left wondering when the competing e-commerce sites for Amish wear and Hasidic garb will be launched. Everyone does need to make a living, after all.

Wonderful World

I've just spent the first part of the morning searching for images from 1974. Please don't ask why; I'm not even sure I understand my own obsessions. Thanks to all the kids and this newfangled Internety-thing, images from that period abound. One site in particular stands out, and if you haven't already discovered the glory that is the 1974 Weight Watchers Recipe Cards, follow the link to that site immediately. In 1974, weight loss was obviously accomplished by turning food into "food."

Blogging To Go, Please

Sometimes writing an entire post containing both ideas and words feels like too complex a proposition, even for me, who is pretty much never without words. For those of us who eschew paragraphs and desire either immediacy or the visual, there's Tumblr, a site for micro-blogging. Some users include short written posts, but many instead create narratives or evoke emotions by posting photographs or images. Tumbler seems to aim to be a lot like Twitter, where the longer blog post is replaced by a series of updates throughout the day.

I'm not convinced anyone wants to keep up with my daily activities, which involve reading, writing, editing, and making sure the dog pees when he's out in the yard, but fans of social networking all over the world are making a go of this kind of communication. It's sort of like sending an instant message out to the world, and seeing where it sticks.

I recently spent some time exploring Tumblr, and while diary-like sites by 20 year-olds abound, I also found some little blogs that are worth checking out. Somewhere out there exists a man who realized that if Garfield were removed from each day's Garfield comic, we would be left with a daily meditation on alienation and paranoia. The images on Garfield Minus Garfield are indeed scary, haunting, and pretty funny.

I can see becoming addicted to the Cutest Puppy Ever site, a production of the "Cute Puppy Institute." I can see hours of my life wasted trying to figure out how much of this site is irony, how much sincerity. Today I'm going with 90% irony, but that's because I'm in a mood to feel good about humankind.

White people complain about the darndest things, and you can find some of them collected on White Whine. It really does suck when Whole Foods is out of arugula, you know?

One final link for you comes from Blogspot rather than Tumblr, and it's something you may have heard of, but I recommend a visit if you haven't been there before. Post Secret is a project where people anonymously send in a postcard, either storebought or handmade, on which they've written a secret, and each day some of these are posted. This site will tell you more about our collective state of mind than any Gallup Poll, I promise.

It's a damp and rainy day, so go ahead, waste some time in cyberspace.

How to Find Me

This blog is signed up for analytics, which means that I can check to see how many visitors it gets, what pages people click on, how long they stay on the site, things like that. I can also see what led people to the site, and if they came by a Google keyword search, what those keywords were. This is where things get interesting.

Most people find this blog by searching for it, which is gratifying and makes sense. However, other people find their way here by way of some interesting searches. Here are some examples. Think of it as a test: can you remember any post that would relate to the keywords?

Thomas Jefferson is hot
This really seems to be the consensus; three people came here from this search, and several more by searching "Jefferson + hot."

What not to wear
I must have used this phrase at some point, and it must be greatly sought-after advice. Twenty-eight people in the past month have visited here based on this or the related "what not to wear + over 40" search. If I dedicated this blog to fashion tips, I'd quickly become the Huffington Post for the early middle-aged.

Carol Alt + underwater
Huh?

Barnabas Collins attractive
I remain certain I didn't use these three words together in a sentence.

What period of culture is Spring and All from?
Whoever conducted this search must have clicked through pages and pages of links before stumbling here. Whoever you are, if you're still out there looking, Spring and All was first published in 1923 by Robert McAlmon's Contact Press. Modernist period, baby, modernist period.

Mary Tyler Moore + sex
That's just...I don't know how to feel about my prose satisfying that search. Enough said.