Theater is not Dead; or A Night Away From Cable

Truly, the Wooster Group's Hamlet is an absolute revelation. It was so beautiful, and weird, funny, and totally thought-provoking. I was absolutely enthralled for the entire 3 hours. It was phenomenal. The level of technical accomplishment, detail, care and dedication in the production was truly inspiring.

Christmas Song of the Day: Rocking Around the Christmas Tree

Today's Song of the Day

Jingle Bell Rock, heard twice in the space of 2.5 hours.

Cyber Monday

Today is the day that all the people in the world too lazy to get our of the house on Black Friday buy their Christmas presents online. Though this seems to be a figment of the e-shopping industry's vivid and captivating imagination, I will wait until tomorrow to buy myself something on the web. Take that, The Man. I am the master of my universe.

At workstudy job (formerly known as eat-cake-and-play-on-the-internet-job), the Christmas songs have replaced our traditional light rock.

Christmas Song of the Day: Blue Christmas by Elvis Presley.

Free Cell: several wins, including two that were practically stalemated.

Final Projects completed: 1. (2 to go!)

18 Hours in Astoria; or An Excercise in Excess

Part One: Greek Feast

In the spirit of excess that characterized America's holiday of thankfulness and sharing, I was overcome by a desire to eat ethnic foods. On Friday night, Margo and I had burritos. So Saturday night was naturally the night that I was struck with an overwhelming urge for Greek food. I tried to find a place in Manhattan, but everywhere I looked was expensive and needed a reservation. Manhattan. You old so and so, you'll never change. So to Astoria we went.

Astoria is kind of the best. I will admit that I am thinking of moving there once my magical tenure in the dorm is through. I love all the Greek stuff, the old ladies in the park, the whole scene. Also, one time, I saw a girl at brunch wearing my exact same plaid shirt from H&M. It was such a magical moment.

So on the recommendation of Peter, our Astoria resident and Greek Feast supporter, we walked over to Broadway and went to Ethos. It was so good. We had skordalia (a whipped potato and garlic dip) with beets and fried eggplant, Greek salad and saganaki. It was delicious. we also split a nice bottle of white wine from Santorini. All told, a fantastic meal. And, because we are beautiful, we got special dessert on the house.

Part Two: Astoria Pub Crawl

Peter, our Astoria tour guide and generally fun graduate student about New York, met us for a drink at the surprisingly sweet and undeniably hip Crescent Lounge. This place is cute. Like a living room. And we were sitting on this couch across from a man (I think) who was napping in an armchair and occasionally sipping from a glass of either sangria or red wine with ice. In the bathroom, which featured an adorable vintage dresser and good smelling soap, there was a vase full of New York City condoms. Although they had "sold out" in a matter of weeks, there were still plenty in Queens. Which was funny to us. These are not condoms to be used, but rather to be saved and cherished. There was also educational literature, which I will save along with my "So You Have Mono: What Now?" pamphlet that I got at the Columbia Student Health Center. Being informed is so important.

Our next stop, an Irish bar on Broadway that had Stella Artois on tap for less than $5 a pint. Magic! Additionally, they had erotic photo hunt. The team of Peter, Margo and myself got three of the top ten high scores. Peter and Margo in particular take the game seriously and are gifted players. We are considering buying an erotic photo hunt machine for personal use.

Part Three: Sleeping in a pile in a bathtub

I made enemies with Peter's neighbor because I closed the door to his apartment too loudly. Our three intrepid fun-seekers took ourselves to the couch at Peter's house, and quickly realized that Greek Feast had turned into Saturday Night Extravaganza. Then there was sleeping until 2 PM. I had homework due at 12 noon! Good lord! I was reminded of my days when I played softball and would stay out all night drinking Stella and stay in bed until 3 in the afternoon because I was so wrecked. On the way home on the N, there was this way cute girl who was wearing a cute hat and some great boots. Also, I stood on the 1 next to a man who was singing to himself the entire trip, which was, needless to say unpleasant. To quote Margo, "Don't they know who I am?"

Part Four: Lessons

1. Greek Feast is amazing, and will be repeated; also skordalia is the best
2. Astoria is great, even though it is so far from Manhattan and can be directionally disorienting for snobby Manhattanites
3. Beer is not for the faint of heart and should be entered into soberly and with the fear of God
4. Russian guys spit on the sidewalk a lot
5. Erotic photo hunt of never about the nipples

And those were our 18 Hours in Astoria.

A Thanksgiving Tale 2: The Reckonning

A Thanksgiving Tale

A young woman sits under a great elm tree, reading. She is quiet and serene.

She puts down her book, and looks up into the sky.

"I know what I am meant to be," she says simply, placing the book in her lap. "A Horsewoman."

Fin.

NEVER travel on Thanksgiving; an open letter

Dear Thanksgiving:

Every person I talk to about the holiday tries to give me the same advice I have been living for years: Don't travel on Thanksgiving. Living in the Midwest, it was always the time when it finally snowed and everything was a disaster. Now, living in New York, the idea of going anywhere near LaGuardia (or JFK, or Newark) makes me want to hurl. This is not the NyQuil talking people. This is real. I say to the people of the United States: stay where you are! If we created a mass movement of staying the f*ck home, we wouldn't all hate each other so damn much.

Also, it might make the After Thanksgiving sales at Macy's and other fine institutions of fashion easier. I don't have any money, but if I did, wouldn't it be nice if 97 million people hadn't just flown in from Florida.

So, truly, Thanksgiving, tell the people the secret that you and I know for sure. Stay home! And keep it real close to home. That's why God invented Skype and cell phones and Chinese food. And friends!

Anyway, Thanksgiving, you know I love you, I'm probably just bitter. But it's mainly because I cannot find whole unshelled walnuts to bring to sweet Margo tomorrow, and I have failed as a family friend. Also, I got a new dress that isn't quite what I thought it would be. I thought it was navy, but it is more of a purple. I should know better than to order stuff half off at Jcrew. After all these years. Truly.

So here is a list of killer things one can do at home for YOU that will make your life better and keep the skies clear:
Learn how to cook a turkey
Get drunk on Wednesday night and sleep in on Thursday morning
eat until you die
watch all the TV in the history of time
download music illegally from the internet
inappropriate phone calls to long lost friends and relatives
reading all those magazines that you never have time for
learn to crochet
adopt a pet
write on a blog
have a cold
discuss politics with the dad of a friend of yours you don't know that well
see a movie
go to a museum you've never seen before
revel in the loveliness of your new SmartWool socks
have a nap in the midafternoon during the course of which you dream about a tall blond man
internet shop
fight terrorism with your love of freedom (ongoing effort)

Keep it real, Thanksgiving! You are such a good holiday!

Love,
Nyquil Marie

This One Time, we talked about putting this on the Internet

I was in Chicago last weekend, and an old joke was resurrected, much to my delight.

How can you combine people's names and the names of countries to create hilarious hybrids?

Like this:
Ann Mariethiopia
The Seanited Arab Emirates
Elizabethuania
Chad
Miguel Salvador
MargOman

Seriously, this is a fun game! Try it at home! It's almost as fun as playing 'Foreign or Gay' at Charles De Gaulle or a game we invented in Arts in Context class called "Is it an art or a craft?" This game is based loosely on the book Art Worlds by Howard Becker. In the game, you determine if an object (or even an auteur) is an art or a craft based on basic differentiators like the usefulness of the object, or the education status of its creator. Who knew?

I need to learn how to put pictures on this blog. So I can show kids from high school my baby and how thin I am compared to when I was 17! Suckers!

When One Has a Cold

One is forced, when one is sick, to consider the many things that would make one feel better.

A short list:
Roast Beef, truly
a bath
an uninterupted night of sleep
a Law and Order marathon that didn't have a majority of episodes I have already seen
shoes
a deep friendship with Alton Brown of the Cooking channel
a large chair in which to sit and read
the metabolism of a 5 year old boy
a $120 Air-O-Swiss ultrasonic combination humidifier
the love of a good man
peaches, strawberries, chicken soup, Vitamin C tablets and juice
an unadulterated love of situps and other exercise
a manicure and pedicure

A Short Play on the Nature of Workplace Frustration

Names have been altered to protect the innocent and point unwavering fingers at the guilty.

Kallie, Bibby and Elizabeth appear onstage, lit by a swinging naked bulb, sitting around a Formica table. There is tons of smoke, though none of the women are actually smoking. The table is covered in papers, maps, colored pieces of paper, and other detritus.

They work furiously, throwing away crumpled notes, muttering to themselves. The chaos starts to build as they are obviously overcome by frustration. A high pitched whir, like a fan, but more metallic and awful sounding begins to consume the stage.

The fan becomes a whirring squeal.

Bibby stands, faces forward, throws her fist in the air.

Bibby: I am Citizenship! I take pride in my community and hope that it grows stronger every day! I accomplish this goal by yelling inappropriately at my coworkers and doing crappy plays about lesbians in Mike Berg's living room.

Elizabeth stands, faces forward, first in the air.

Elizabeth: I am Ensemble! I hope to embody the community and live each day as a member of the fabric of the America dream!

Kallie stand, turns forward, first in the air.

Kallie: I am Innovation! I look backwards, to the past, to make sure that we tread over meticulously plotted ground. I believe that our elders know best, that children should be seen and not heard, and I like to tell people that I sew my own clothes, even though I buy most of them at Anthropology!

A silence. As Kallie speaks these next lines, Elizabeth and Bibby come over and try to support her as the is obviously about to fall over (she could be drunk, or just on a boat, it doesn't really matter). Every time Kallie almost falls over, Elizabeth and Bibby catch her, and it causes physical pain.

Kallie: I am Innovation! I am satisfied by nothing more than the status quo! I am innovation! I teach my children to beg from their father so I never have to make difficult decisions. I am innovation! I steal from the break room instead of buying my own lunches. I am innovation! I like Green Day. I am innovation! I am innovation! I am innovation!

Two more women enter and begin to throw popcorn, or maybe stones, at the three women. They are Pimberly and Tobin. They laugh and laugh, as they throw more at the three women. Somehow Elizabeth, Kallie and Bibby become buried in popcorn or stones or something.

A women walks by. She is The Boss.

The boss: Can one of you get me a Diet Coke?

Fin.

Stuffing, y'all

Super Delicious Stuffing recipe that my mom borrowed from James beard, and that I forced her to add cranberries to when I was 10 because I was/am obsessed with dried cranberries.

2 batches cornbread, 2 days old, crumbled
I large onion, minced
8 cloves garlic, minced
2 C celery, sliced
1 stick butter
1/2- 1 lb mushrooms, any type, sliced (optional)
2 T fresh thyme (and other herbs, if you want)
1 bunch parsley, minced
2 C cooked wild rice
1/2- 1 C pine nuts, toasted
2 t salt
several grinds black pepper
1- 2 C dried cranberries
1 ounce dried porcini, soaked in hot water (save water)

Sautee the vegetables in the butter, adding the mushrooms last.
Combine w/ the rest of the ingredients. Moisten with the porcini water
as necessary, taking care not to pour in the sandy bits at the bottom.
Bake covered at 325 for 45-60 minutes. Uncover last 15 minutes if you
want the top toasted.
This makes a vegetarian dressing.

Thanksgiving, AMWOSIP style

Okay, here's a stab at it:

you have a Kosher bird, so I don;t think you need to brine.

This is what I usually do, and you can add or take away whatever you want based on taste.

(what I told you about the other day was making an herb butter and spreading it under the skin, wherein you take herbs, salt, pepper and a stick of butter, mash together until they are soft and evenly mixed, and then put the butter mixture under the skin of the breast. Hee. Then, using your fingers, you massage the butter so that it gets under all the skin of the breast and will baste the turkey under the skin.)

Take your bird, rinse it and pat dry with paper towels. then salt and pepper the inside cavity, and throw a sachet of herbs including hella garlic, rosemary, sage, thyme, whatevs, in that momma. Also, squeeze and lemon in there and throw half a lemon in the cavity. Then, throw
some butter, maybe 3 TBsp in there. Tie up the legs if you are into that. You can find instruction for "trussing" on the iWeb. Yeah. Oh yeah.

Then rub the outside of the turkey (both sides) with butter, salt and pepper that bad boy, and tuck butter into the folds by the thighs and wings so that it bastes during the first part of roasting. also, I usually will throw some herbs and garlic in the bottom of the roasting pan along with some olive oil of butter. I also try to tuck some herbs and garlic into the folds by the thighs and wings. Squeeze a lemon over the top of that thing. Because you can.

I think the rule is to roast 15 minutes per pound, but you should check that on the inet. I like to start the turkey breast up to get a nice skin, then turn it about 1/3 through to get some juice down into the breast meat, then turn it again to finish breast side up so the skin gets wicked crispy. If at any point, you feel like the skin is bringing or too dark, cover it with tin foil. Baste with the juices from the pan ever 20-30 minutes so keep it moist. If it seems really dry for some reason, you can put some turkey stock in the bottom of the pan, but you should be fine because you have a kosher bird.

Then, girl, when it's ready, rest the turkey breast side down. On a carving board.

Take the roasting pan and either transfer all the liquids into a pot, or just cook directly in the roasting pan itself. Toss some flour (should be about equal portions to the fat) and stir until you make a roux. The deglaze with white wine and stock and stir until it bubbles. This creates pimp as hell gravy, which you can salt a pepper to taste.

Then make Chad give you a back massage.

Then you are done. Uh huh.

Take the temperature of your turkey in the thickest part of the thigh. It should register at 180 degrees. The turkey will keep cooking as it rests, and will become even more delicious. I recommend to serve after resting for 20-30 minutes.

Damn. Girl, damn.

Damn It, If Not Now, When?

I need to get my blog on. I am in grad school and have so many thinks to do that I must write about them on the internet. Plus New York is super boring. I'm kidding

So, world, here they are: all the thoughts I have. Ever. And useful advice, tricks, ideas and life strategies. Like "Never watch an entire day of The Real Housewives of Orange County. Ever."