I literally cried while reading a piece in Deadspin because it is correct:
Some hours have passed; my sons are now sitting next to each other on the couch, watching a movie on TV and muttering conspiratorially in their little gremlin voices about what they are seeing and drinking juice boxes I will later find on the floor next to the trash can. Before I became a parent, I sometimes felt bad about all the time I spent doing pretty much exactly this with my brother when we were kids: I wished I’d been motivated—or that someone had motivated me—to spend my time learning useful things, practicing valuable skills, acquiring discipline and applying myself toward a more successful and accomplished future. Toward competing and triumphing. That is stupid. No one has ever accomplished anything more worth having than the moments little kids steal away from the big grown-up world, together; when they wall out all of our sad hypocrisies and fucked-up values and grotesque striving, illuminate a little world for each other, and fill it with their easy goodwill and eagerness to participate.
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Yes, I will read a whole thing about Jello salad, thank you:
While Jell-O products are still very popular as snacks and desserts, the Jell-O salad—particularly in its savory forms—fell from culinary favor by the early 1980s. Though you’ll still find it in church basements across America, today you’re just as likely to find Jell-O salads on blogs like the Gallery of Regrettable Food. What makes the Jell-O salad such an icon of its time? Shaped by the rise of home economics, the industrialization of the food system, World War II, and changing expectations about women’s labor, few foods can tell us more about life in 20th century America than the wobbling jewel of domestic achievement: the Jell-O salad.
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your now-unemployed boyfriend is a dipshit, and Ask a Manager knows it:
My boyfriend decided to tell his job that he was having a medical procedure done and that it was medically necessary for him to have those days off. He presented a fake doctor’s note and they agreed to let him take the time off. He goes to Cuba for a week, and upon his return, they request a note stating that he’s medically ok to come back to work. From what he told me, his boss and manager were both very skeptical of his story for a few of reasons, but they couldn’t prove anything initially.
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The pitfalls of throwing money badly at the wrong things with good intentions:
It’s not just the site of the Make It Right houses that some object to, but the money Pitt’s project spent to build them—an amount similar relief organizations in New Orleans can only dream of raising.
“It’s just not a great solution to affordable housing issues,” says Laura Paul of lowernine.org, which marshals volunteer labor and donations to help former residents rehabilitate their homes. “If I had $40 million, I could run my organization, at its current capacity, for 170 years. If you do the math, it’s sort of like, we’ve rebuilt 60 homes in the neighborhood. We don’t do Platinum LEED certified, Frank Gehry has not designed a single house for us and never will, but we put 60 families back in their homes.” (Paul’s non-profit it took in $1.25 million between 2007 and 2010, the latest year for which documents are available.)
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This is an article about junk science putting serial rapists back on the streets, so just decide if you’re feeling that this morning:
What is the basis of Dr. Plaud’s “scientific reasoning” that he uses to determine the recidivism of sex offenders? It’s called “actuarial diagnosis” (as opposed to clinical diagnosis). It’s a scoring system based on several questions and answers that gathers past information about the offender, to establish the risk of recidivism. Many have dismissed this methodology as dubious, including the judge presiding over the case of Jeffrey Shields, who said, “I afforded [actuarial diagnosis] little weight in my final analysis,” after reviewing Plaud’s methods.
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Nine truly incredible breakfast hacks to transform your morning.
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Can my art historians and museum folk (I KNOW you’re reading) please tell me their take on this piece?:
True’s trial, covered with great fanfare at its start, fizzled out quietly.
“I understand why the Italians did what they did,” said True, 66, in one of a series of interviews in Newburyport, where she maintains a modest, third-floor walkup so she can visit her 91-year-old mother. “It was very clever, and it was very mean, but at least I understand why. What I never understood is why American museums did what they did. And my colleagues and my bosses never, ever stood up for me. They acted as if I had done all this stuff on my own, which would have been impossible to do. They just vanished.”
Former Getty director John Walsh, reached this summer, said that he gave a deposition explaining why True, as a curator, should not have been held responsible for Getty acquisitions. Those purchases were made by the museum’s administrators and board. But his private defense offered little solace to True. As she notes, the Getty did little to support her publicly.
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My friend Carrie’s new puppy is excited:
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Deleted comment of the day:
Tags: feminism, link roundup, the internet
I’ll be in that squad.
That deleted comment: would not pass the Turing Test.
I totally had a brain fart and thought of the Bechdel test first – but actually it wouldn’t pass that either.
Marx ebooks
1. I fucking love Jello Salad and I will not hear any argument against it. Perfect.
2. Your Man Is A Scrub, Alison speaks truth. Dump that dude.
3. I had a dream last night about the Toast having opened a new vertical all about weddings? And it was very, uh, traditional, and even in my dream I was going “Really? It surprises me that the Toast would run an article on why it’s awesome to have your father give you away and hand you over to your new husband!” It was…..strange.
RE: 3— I am having more and more Toast Commenter dreams, where I hang out with y’all IRL.
do you have a recipe for a good jello salad? I’m kind of interested in making one
I make this jello dessert all the time when I have parties http://m.allrecipes.com/recipe/20338/strawberry-p… it’s not a true salad but it is AMAZING
That is a midwestern staple right there.
Oh I do make this. Except my family kind of mixes it up and calls it pink stuff. thanksgiving tradition here
I’m beginning to suspect that every midwestern family has a different “pink stuff” jello salad concoction. Mine is as follows:
1 15oz can pineapple tidbits, drained
1 11oz can mandarin oranges, drained
16oz cottage cheese (large curd, if possible)
8oz whipped cream
1 large packet strawberry-banana jello
Combine in a bowl and mix well.
Chill for at least an hour (ha! I never follow this step. I’m lucky if I get out another bowl to put a serving in).
It has absolutely nothing like the consistency of a “jello salad” – it’s more like thick, fruity cottage cheese – but it’s still my family’s “pink jello”. Ours was always much more of a summer thing than a thanksgiving one, though (not that I care… now that I can buy my own groceries I’ll make it in the deadest of winter if I want to, mom!)
this. OHMYGOD THIS. i grew up not only midwestern but baptist and i’m pretty sure i have eaten this approximately eleventybillion times at a thousand church potlucks.. WILL LOVE ALWAYS AND FOREVER.
It’s literally impossible to count the times I’ve had this salad. Every church potluck and family Thanksgiving since birth?
I can vouch for the amazingness of this salad. It was a staple of my family’s reunions and Christmases when my aunt was still alive, as it was one of her specialties.
Thissun. This is the best one. http://www.midcenturymenu.com/2015/08/sea-breeze-…
The line “A salad at last in control of itself” in that piece is killing me.
That pizza eating picture is actually mis-captioned. It’s actually a pie-eating contest! http://www.snopes.com/photos/people/pizzawomen.as…
Tomato, tomatoh.
pizza IS a pie, correct???
While I applaud the Pizza Eating Suffragists’ efforts, we really don’t have to go to any extra trouble to annoy men. Just existing and being happy in public will do it.
Any mood will do really (“Smile!”)
Everybody saw Franzen’s next step in his efforts to become the Tom Cruise of fiction, right? http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/21/jona…
I was just about to link to that! I had to double check to make sure this wasn’t the Mallory parody version of Franzen. But no. It’s actually him.
I don’t even know where to begin
“they seemed politically not the way they should be as young people”
i don’t understand anything he’s saying. should i adopt a 59 year old to get any of this??
jesus christ Franzen
I regret that I have but one like for this. Maybe if I adopt old white dudes a lot of things will start to make sense to me.
OH MAH GLOB WHAT. I am cracking up in my office. And also want to slam my head into my desk.
Also I have to say (because it is my favorite thing to say about Franzen) that there is a bit in Freedom where one of the characters has to fish his wedding ring out of a toilet filled with poop (…sure, why not). And he is surprised that the smell bothers him so much because (AND I QUOTE, because this sentence is SO STUPID it is seared into my brain forever) “like most people, he secretly enjoyed the smell of his own farts.”
….
……..
Nope. Nope, Franzen, “most people” do NOT enjoy that. But the fact that you literally think that even your farts smell good says a lot about you and your over-inflated ego.
Damn you. I’d successfully excised that from my brain. Gonna take me YEARS to remove it again.
Sorry-not-sorry, I cannot suffer alone. Also I find it helps to think of it every time he starts bloviating. Like, “Jonathan ‘enjoys the smell of his own farts’ Franzen doesn’t understand why feminists don’t like him.” “Jonathan ‘seriously thinks his farts smell GREAT’ Franzen doesn’t get These Kids Today.” Makes it funnier.
I am literally suppressing hysterical laughter at my desk as I type this. Damn you.
Is Franzen a human parody account? Like is he a real person, existing. I don’t understand.
Personally, I commend AaM on not just going “Holy shit, dump this weirdo and let him drive his own go-kart straight to hell.”
…which would have been my response, verbatim.
Alison’s restraint and decorum is unparalleled, imo. It’s so wonderful and refreshing, but also very authentic. Hers is the only site other than this one where I truly, simply enjoy the comments as well.
Seriously! I love that she is probably thinking “oh COME ON, really? And also, break up with this dude” but she sticks to the point of the question. Bless the commenters, of course, for adding the obvious “maybe he is not a good guy, just sayin.”
I read through the comments and discovered the OP’s boyfriend is 40 years old.
NOPE!
Did the OP jump in? I’m going back – thanks for the tip!
Between that and her saying that he has “lots of other revenue streams” and had to go to Cuba to do business deals about his land there, I think I now have a 100% accurate mental image of him because that is just such a TYPE.
WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT I just assumed they were in their early 20s and this was, like, his first ever job. Not that that would’ve made it OKAY, but it would’ve at least been understandable to think such a bone-headed thing would work at that level of experience.
Jesus I know. I was reading it and it just kept getting worse with just the very worst, most selfish and immature and shortsighted decisions being made, and I just want this nice person who seems to have a good head on her (?) shoulders to just dump this loser’s ass posthaste and get the hell out of there. Ughhhhh.
J Franz is up to shenanigans again:
Jonathan Franzen ‘considered adopting Iraqi orphan to figure out young people’.
Novelist said the idea came to him as he felt he could not identify with ‘cynical and angry’ younger generation, but he was persuaded against it by his editor.
AAAAHHHH he sucks so much. He sounds like a parody of a middle aged white man writer:
“One of the things that had put me in mind of adoption was a sense of alienation from the younger generation. They seemed politically not the way they should be as young people. I thought people were supposed to be idealistic and angry. And they seemed kind of cynical and not very angry. At least not in any way that was accessible to me.”
SUCH A DOUCHENOZZLE:
“Speaking about a character in his forthcoming novel, Purity – a fanatical feminist who, among other things, forces her husband to urinate sitting down on the toilet to atone for his maleness – Franzen predicted that she would enrage his critics…
“There’s a certain degree of glee in putting that stuff in the book,” Franzen told the Guardian. “Because I know that if you are hostile, you will find ammunition. I wrote this deliriously praising celebration of Edith Wharton. People managed to find a way to make it sound like I was hating on Edith Wharton. So why not just let it all rip and [say]: ‘Have fun with that, guys.’”
UGGGHHHH
I actually did like The Corrections, but every interview of its author makes it much worse in retrospect. Franzen is straight edge Chip.
“Franzen is straight edge Chip.”
Hahahahahha. Yes. Amazing.
Who dreams about the sex Denise is having…
On the bright side, thanks to the Guardian piece, I had the opportunity to read this fantastic essay by Victoria Patterson taking down Franzen’s blatant sexism on Edith Wharton: https://lareviewofbooks.org/essay/not-pretty-on-e….
What’s incredible to me is how quickly Franzen concluded that, because he wrote a shitty sexist thing and people (with a restraint and generosity of spirit that I don’t think he deserves) pointed out that it was a shitty sexist thing, he “can’t win” and must therefore resort to writing facile feminist caricatures in his boring novels to punish women for criticizing him. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to him that there was any other option, like maybe taking on board the criticism and modifying his communication accordingly.
“urinate sitting down on the toilet to atone for his maleness” Oh Franzy, I’d buy it if she was making him atone for pissing all over the seat, floor, etc. Men really should atone for that.
Source: Used to have to clean the bathrooms at a fast food restaurant.
Ok so obviously I need to read this pile of garbage but then afterward I’m cleansing my palate with the History of Jello Salad which sounds glorious. It’s Friday, I refuse to spend that much time being angry.
Although to be clear the part about the feminazi (let’s be serious, that’s what he wanted to say) that forces her husband to sit down to pee isn’t what angers me. That bit’s just hilarious (and pathetic).
holy shit I thought you were making those quotes up
What a maroon.
Thank god for that editor.
I mean…. bless that person for not tossing him straight out a window i guess
what do you really say when some douchenozzle comes into your office and basically goes “i, accomplished Author, feel Young People are not as they should be so i’m gonna adopt one from iraq and study it”
“Adopted children are just tools to help me learn things, right? Not human beings with needs.”
It is amazing he wasn’t thrown out of a window.
Now that he’s introduced the concept to me I’m thinking of adopting a Greek person so that I can better understand the Eurozone financial crisis. Seems legit.
That would be a moment in which I would wish I could freeze time.
Because, on one hand, apparently this editor has enough sway with him to stop him from doing SOME terrible things. And that person maybe feels some sort of obligation to do what they can to save the world from the worst of Franzen. But…. that person probably then has to deal with much more of the terrible Franzenness than the rest of us. Although, on the eighth hand, the editor probably is getting compensated for that hardship.
Basically, if I found myself in that position, I would be torn between doing everything I could to remain a trusted confidante and extreme violence. I’d need a moment.
I suspect his editor has a keyboard shortcut set up in his email that enters the phrase “No Jonathan, that is a terrible idea. You should not do that.”
Oh good, I came here to make sure someone had posted that link. And thank goodness for his editor, who I suspect is constantly having to point out to Franzen ways in which to not suck (though I wish he/she did a better job). That whole article is a sustained exercise in Not Getting It.
This has to be performance art, right?
It makes me very happy that there are two threads tearing into this fuckwittery today. There could be infinite threads and it would never be enough.
CAME HERE TO POST LINK super thankful everyone is properly having the WTF moment this deserves.
What is with his genitalia obsession “I wrote a feminist who makes her husband pee sitting down because obviously feminism is about punishing men for their genitals” ??? my brain, it hurts so much. Maybe, jUST MAYBE, we don’t think about dicks like ANYWHERE as much as you do. Maybe. It’s a possibility.
Also his anger at the younger generations for being young and not understandable. “I may not be relevant and this angers me!” I guarantee you, bucko, that just a *conversation* with an Iraqi war orphan would not provide you with insight into why young affluent political hipsters talk the way they do. *headdesk*
In conclusion, his editor is a SAINT.
I want them to feel good about everything. I want to celebrate them for existing, to celebrate them for every day some absurd electrochemical miracle keeps their brave hearts beating and wards off entropy for a bit longer so they can wake up and wonder about things, to celebrate them for lighting up the world and for not having accepted its terms just yet.
Ugh, YESSSSSSS. I feel this way every day about my 12-year-old girl, especially that part about the electrochemical miracle because she has my heart condition and it’s a fucking miracle that she (and I) are here AT ALL. So shut up, stupid adults, about all that winning crap. Sometimes just existing is winning enough.
One of my biggest peeves in the “idiots on the internet” category is the people who are always whining about how kids these days get a trophy for everything and they’re deluded into thinking they’re winners when they’re not and that’s why all young people are terrible! Uh, do you have an actual example of this? Do you know any real-life children? Do you or have you ever experienced human emotions? No, you have not, and you sound like a curmudgeonly shithead.
In today’s Metro (awful, awful free newspaper which you find littered across trains and buses) there was a letter from a woman complaining that our children aren’t being taught to be properly competitive, because the sports day at her daughter’s school didn’t award prizes to the race winners. I feel so bad for her child.
I so appreciated the many conversations about this on that Toast piece about the woman who was convinced her children were narcissists. As someone very rightly pointed out, lots of things in life are about participation/showing up every day. That’s an important lesson and if you want to hand out a trophy for it, great.
I would go so far as to say most things in life are more about showing up and working hard than about being the best all the time. I am not and will probably never be the best at my job, or the best boyfriend, or the best friend, or the best rec league soccer player. But that doesn’t make me worthless, and it doesn’t make working to be better at those things pointless.
What does “his a prise” even mean
I think it means “I don’t understand jokes”
I think “it is a prize”
ETA: the first time i read it, i definitely wanted it to be “prise” as in french for “taking”, but that’s just the fencer in me, I couldn’t come up with any sort of justification for that one.
I figured it must be some incorrect usage of “apprise”, but then I stopped trying to get it to work and went ahead with the rest of the comment, and realized it didn’t matter.
Ha! I immediately thought of “vis-à-vis” but that doesn’t make any sense either. But so does the whole comment…
And yet he spells oligarch correctly. Bless his heart.
And yet he claims Mallory is the one with poor prose. Bless his heart.
What is this puppy’s NAME though
Carmella! It was told to us a few link roundups ago.
THANK YOU
PUPPY
Whatever, Mr. I-make-no-grammatical-sense. Go ahead and call our prose poor. Just know we are all pointing and laughing at you.
The breakfast hacks are killing me. Aside from the canned pineapple I think I’ve done all of them at one time or another. I can’t do the morning pastry thing anymore, though… I had a M/W/F 9AM quantum physics class junior year of college and would get a desperation breakfast of a cafe cart cinnamon muffin nearly every day. They were so sweet and greasy and having them 3 days a week was too much, and forcing one down while not-at-all following a proof of step operators in wave functions just cemented their unfortunate aura.
I’ve done the cinnamon thing. I still do the cinnamon thing. Cinnamon is wonderful.
I did the cinnamon thing this morning. Cinnamon toast on sourdough with a sprinkle of cardamom because I’m fancy like that
Sometimes I make scrambled eggs with cinnamon and cardamom and sugar. Yum.
I used to do the canned pineapple thing. It was cheap and delicious but not exactly a balanced breakfast.
Also, I used to have a roommate who had an automatic egg boiler– you just put eggs and a cup of water in this little appliance and it would cook them in like 5 minutes. I ate hardboiled eggs for breakfast almost every day for the duration of that lease.
My toaster makes eggs! It is the most genius appliance I’ve ever purchased, and it wasn’t even expensive. It is this, and if you enjoy breakfast sandwiches but hate mornings, I highly recommend.
That’s incredible! It can cook the eggs three ways?!
Two for sure (hard-boiled or steamed, which is similar to poached). Uncertain what the third would be.
My favourite breakfast hack is an entire french press of coffee, but apparently that doesn’t count as a meal? Even if you have it at 2pm
Who says it doesn’t count? You’ve described my daily breakfast. If it makes me or you happy, it’s perfect. Lifting my breakfast mug to you, Strophoria.
lies
YUM.
Also, coffee lovers question– have you all heard of “single source” coffee or “shade grown” coffee? Is this new a trend? Or are people in my neighborhood trying to make FETCH happen?
Shade-grown is apparently A Thing now, supposedly it’s naturally less bitter? Or something? I don’t really know, I just drink the coffee my boyfriend brings home from his cafe job. I’m more of a quantity person.
I’m more of a quantity person.
Thank you, now I have a good way to describe my feelings toward coffee. I’ll go horrify some Californians with it now.
Shade grown helps avoid clear cutting forests in order to grow the coffee, and reduces the need for pesticides and fertilizer, and thus is supposed to be better for the earth.
I remember learning about this several years ago, so I don’t know if these benefits have been shown to play out in practice.
Some people say it also makes better tasting coffee, but I will leave that judgment to the connoisseurs.
literally it is a few minutes before 2 pm & my freshly made entire french press of coffee is sitting next to me, waiting to be consumed.
Toasties I <3 you forever.
I agree with the writer that Cracklin’ Oat Bran is the best breakfast cereal. Once I was checking out at the grocery store and the clerk started to comment on how “healthy” all my choices were. He does this a lot, but he usually just says “Looks like you’re eating healthy,” like this is grocery-store small talk, and I just kind of smile politely and say “hm.” This time he was commenting on individual items and said something about how I was being virtuous to buy Cracklin’ Oat Bran, and when I said something like “I like it, it’s sweet,” he said “Cracklin’ Oat Bran is not sweet!” and I was kind of lost for words. I did not want to have an argument about Cracklin’ Oat Bran, or really to talk about my grocery choices at all. I will grant that it’s not a very good or accurate name for the cereal, since it doesn’t make noise. My spellchecker is now mad at me for writing “Cracklin'” so many times.
“I don’t know, eat a fucking bagel?” – I am in NYC for work right now and damn it, I will. Such great breakfast hacks!
I love the tiny tiny village where I work. We have far more good food than we probably deserve, including a couple of super, super legit breakfast joints. But. BUT. We have no, zero, nada, zilch, NO bagels. It is a sadness in my life.
Thank heavens Karl Marx has this Brave Soul to defend his honor on the internet!
So I’m going to a game night on Monday and considering making an old fashioned jello salad mostly because i never have and think it would make my friends laugh. Anyone have a good recipe (preferably for a sweet one and if you give me a recipe for jellied tuna salad I don’t really know how I will react)?
I don’t have my own recipe but this was recently served to me at a work function and it was so good I had to look it up IMMEDIATELY: http://m.allrecipes.com/recipe/19529/pretzel-sala…
Sunshine Salad (as made by my grandmother)
Lemon jello
finely shredded cabbage (how she would love the bags you can buy now of already shredded cabbage!)
finely shredded carrots
Sometimes she’d mix half a small orange jello with half a small lemon jello for this. So Gourmet! Such taste!
my grandmother’s is, I think, lime jello with shredded apples, raisins and walnuts?? It’s not bad.
My mom does two that are pretty tasty (and she makes them in a bundt pan so they look nice).
One is just strawberry jello and then once it’s partially set, you add whipped cream (or cool whip, if you must) with a hand mixer, plus assorted fruits–berries or bananas usually, sometimes pineapple. Then let it set all the way.
The other one is a layer of strawberry jello, fully set (berries inside if you want!), and then in a separate pan, make lemon jello, and when that’s partially set, mix in cream cheese and sour cream/plain yogurt, and pour that over the already-set strawberry, and let them set together. Layers! I think it’s 2 parts strawberry to 1 part lemon. Then when you tip over the bundt pan, it’s a thinner layer of the lemon stuff with a lot of strawberry on top.
Lazy Ass Jello Salad
jello in a flavor of your choosing (i like pinks and reds)
fruit cocktail, drained
a few handfuls of mini marshmallows
pour into bundt pan
make self actual cocktail
The museum piece: I’m posting as someone with a museum degree and a lot of years of experience, but at the technical and visitor-services end, not curation. I’ve worked with the curators, though. Some things to understand:
1. The curator is an academic. In recent years, academics have been very overshadowed by businesspeople and their interests in the acquisitions end of things. Even if she’d made an ethical argument about acquiring looted works–and this is generally an unethical thing to do; acquiring anything without known provenance is risky, as demonstrated by legal wrangling over art “acquired” by the Nazis or sold by fleeing European Jews at fire-sale prices–there’s no guarantee anyone would have listened to it. Part of the business end of a museum is acquiring pieces that have business value, and things that will attract visitors and donors, which also can be acquired at rock-bottom prices because they’re not being sold on the open market, fit the bill.
2. I strongly suspect that she was targeted at least in part because she’s a powerful woman in what is still often a boys’ club, especially for people of their respective generations (and it’s an aging profession; people stay in that job for decades, and it’s very difficult for young people without the proper social connections to break in. You have to have the education and know the people). That’s why Hecht has his book deal and she doesn’t. This story where she’s in a backed-down position and Hecht isn’t is pretty much a perfect demonstration of what made her vulnerable. If Hecht is guilty of wrongdoing, he clearly isn’t letting that stop him, and True is saying, well, my career is over now because they won’t let me do it anymore. They took her out because they must have suspected she’d make it easy for them in the long run, because she knew she’d done things she shouldn’t have, as a scholar and professional. This is far from the first questionable transaction involving the Getty, also.
Agreed on all counts, particularly about the Getty being a hell of a shady organization. I seem to recall the MFA in Boston going through some (vaguely) similar things a few years back, and basically what it all boils down to is curators either willingly shirking their responsibility to verify provenance as legitimate, or being woefully naive. IIRC, the MFA’s problem was a curator trusting a seller who was forging records. There’s just levels and levels of ambiguity and deceit when you start talking about the purchase, acquisition, and (occasional) return of antiquities, or really any art that is not coming straight from the maker.
To be fair thought the MET (and probably all American museums) were just as shady in terms of acquisitions. The Getty just had deeper pockets. The Italian investigation, quite rightly, put the fear of God into these cats…
Oh absolutely. Every major art museum in the country has ties to questionable-at-best acquisition, and all of them vary as to how apologetic they are about it. Many of the museums in Europe are the same way. I’m sure many of them view reparations as bad for business. They’re correct, but that doesn’t make investigations/returning things to their rightful owners any less necessary.
Speaking from a curatorial perspective – I didn’t initially know about this affair, but I can say that there is a ridiculously stringent culture of due diligence surrounding museums acquisitions these days, presumably to avoid this kind of scenario. Proposed acquisitions go through several layers of checking and approval, and items over a certain value have to be approved by our Director and trustees.
Also, every contact I have ever had with Italian museums has shown them to be lax as hell in so many ways: security, conservation and handling. It’s partly to do with the way they’re structured, as a quasi-independent state bureaucracy with very little accountability.
I am now seized by an urge to make a savory molded salad, like chicken in aspic or something, but I don’t think anyone would eat it.
single serving chicken in aspic??
It would require one of those tiny bundt-shaped muffin tins (because it is important to me that my hypothetical single-serve chicken-in-aspic be very beautiful), but I have been looking for an excuse to buy one of those. There are no downsides.
I bought a set of four miniature springform pans to make a variation on this chocolate cake with poprocks and I love them even though I basically never use them.
I would definitely try it. I’m down with aspic when it’s, say, lightly coating a rillette or something, but I’ve never had it in quantity. And the savory molded salad really appeals to the history nerd in me.
I mean, if you’re down with someone repeating, I’M EATING LIKE [insert 18th or 19th century author], between bites.
100% would eat.
when we get shredded pork from the local BBQ place, they put it in a tall, skinny styrofoam container and all of the fat settles into the bottom layer of meat. that bottom layer is what my partner refers to as “revolting meat jelly” and which i refer to as “MINE!”.
i don’t imagine a savory aspic experience would be dissimilar.
Can we… can we pit the Marxists against the Randians and watch them have a cage fight?
That’s not going to go well for the Marxists, at least not any of the ones I’ve met. They’re lovers, not fighters (or, y’know, workers). Say what you will about the Randians (and I have said so many, many mean things about them), they mostly seem to put in time at the gym.
Do u even embrace the morality of life and refuse to sanction your victimisation, bro?
You know the Randians fight dirty. Straight for the crotch with those people; anything else would be coddling their opponents.
Marxists can try to baffle them with obscure German philosophers – I think it’ll even out.
Two birds, one stone. I like your thinking!
I’m now wondering if there’s an article that could be published to piss both of them off, other than a sequel to the books all men own article.
The new ideal!
“Noblesse Oblige: Basically The Best Idea Ever”
I am giving you all fair warning that I am going to word-barf for a very, very long time in the OT today.
I’m going to be suggesting a hair thread. Mostly because I want to talk about my hair. I mean, I care about other people’s hair too, but I am a self centered human so it’s mostly about me. I am glad I’m not the only one already plotting OT stuff.
It’s been a week there too, eh?
OH MY GOD.
Like. I biked to work this morning mostly for the exercise; and the fear that if I didn’t come in and make phone calls I would be awake at night ALL FRIGGING WEEKEND worrying.
At present I am so keyed up about all the BS of this week that I am in adrenaline-fueled anxiety fight-or-flight mode. It is… it is not pleasant.
Oh, I know those feels.
Am currently self medicating with cookies.
Perfectly reasonable. I have made tea.
The big grown-up world is coming up behind my children—behind James Harrison’s kids and yours, too, if you have them. To sort them: those who will prosper, or falter; those whom the barbarism we have enshrined into our way of life will reward, and those it will devour; those who will strive with their whole selves to make their way in that grown-up world and then unknowingly choose to attend the same prayer meeting as Dylann Roof and be snatched out of it in violence and fear and confusion, whether they got trophies for participating in sports or not. Along the way it will beat them up and overwhelm them and punish or exploit what is best and bravest about them; it will make them feel small and lonely and bad about themselves, each and every one, because that is what the grown-up world does to all our little kids when they grow up into it. It is cruel and arbitrary and vicious; it will tempt them to be cruel and arbitrary and vicious, too, and even if they accept those terms—even if they break their own big hearts to make their way in it, even if their fearful, bought-in father holds them down and breaks their hearts for them—it may just betray them anyway. It does not care.
NO, SHUT UP, YOU’RE CRYING
I AM
Yep, on the Purple Line, as stealthily as possible.
Art historian here. I am continuing to throw shade at True (not feeling sorry for a woman who got to retire to France and continues to live a cushy life – there are good scholars out there with ethics who can and should do the work) but I do get the point that, if she went down, so too should the museum directors and boards WHO ACTUALLY DID THE PURCHASING. Curators’ due diligence is one thing, but these boards basically just shoved their fingers in their ears and went ‘NA, NA, DIDN’T HEAR YOU, COULDN’T POSSIBLY HAVE COME FROM ILLEGAL LOOTING, LA, LA LA’
And the idea that these senior curators all turned up to toast Hecht tells you all you need to know. The relationship between curators and dealers can be disgusting. A ‘buccaneer’?!?? The man traded in stolen goods of cultural patrimony. ISIS is now doing the same thing at Palmyra.
You know who we should be reading glowing long form stories about: Khalel al-Assad, a scholar who was beheaded a few days ago for refusing to tell his torturers where to find the artifacts he helped hide. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/18/isis…
/ end rant
Your ISIS comparison is chilling. In 70 years we will be reading these same articles again (probably in giant print and using magnifying glasses; I will be A Very Old by then), but with ISIS instead of the Nazis.
I also think you’re spot-on about the culpability of the directors/boards – if people can say things like “I’m a buccaneer” in public without fear of being excommunicated from the art world like True was, clearly they feel that they have powerful people in their corner who will Take Care Of Them and Have Their Back when la polizia come knocking. Makes me so upset.
I haven’t read anything other than headlines about Mr. Khalel al-Assad, but I very much want there to be a long form essay about him.
I kind of want to make an art piece about him. Anyone think that’s too…appropriation-ish? vulture-ish?
I read the news report about Khalel al-Assad and I cried like I have rarely cried in my lifetime. A part of it may have been the heart of the trained anthropologist in me breaking at the thought of Palmyra being destroyed & the wanton destruction of ancient human history, but Khalel’s bravery and dedication in the face of all of this makes his story so poignant. I hope there are more pieces published about him, because I want to read them all.
Hmm, I did not accurately assess whether I was “feeling that” serial rapist article. unggghhh I need to lie down. I’m going to need a bit of time to learn to live with the knowledge that there are people who hear “he only rapes his exes” and think “oh, good, he’s fine then.”
Is that guy like, oh, well, no way a “breaking up” situation could happen again to this homicidal sociopathic monster. Or does he really just think “mmmm so what those bitches had it coming, that’s on them for imposing an “unwanted breakup situation” on this poor rapist maniac”?
I honestly don’t get it. I know I’m repeating myself a little bit but help me. I just don’t know who could possible hear the facts of his case and think the next logical conclusion is that he is not at risk for recidivism. LIKE EVEN IF you are 100% absolutely certain he only does it in these circumstances, how or why would you assume those circumstances wouldn’t come up again, especially when the circumstances are, I don’t know, a fairly regular/normal part of life? Ughghghghghgh LIKE I think even trying to put myself in the mindset of a monstrous rapist-apologist asshole, putting “this guy going free” and “tortures-rapes his exes brutally” together I would be like, oh, well, that’s probably going to happen again. Is it that he doesn’t care? Is that what I’m missing?
I mean. I understand a little bit of the logic I guess? Only rapes exes -> rapes are predictable -> and therefore preventable. Except we have a mechanism for preventing people who have attacked their exes from ever having exes again, and it’s keeping them in prison. He has literally made the best possible argument for keeping the guy in prison, except he and the judge don’t seem to see it that way and that’s what scares and baffles me.
(Okay, fine, I know what they’re thinking, they’re thinking it’s the women’s fault for breaking up with him so who cares. So I’m not baffled. Still scared, though.)
Oh, the number of profiles I’ve read about Marion True that detail her personal life more than her professional one….She’s a fascinating person and obviously very smart and driven. Her devotion to the enhancing the Getty’s collection led her to do a lot of questionable things, not the least of which was contributing to the continued demand for looted antiquities. Even if she was hopeful about ultimately returning these antiquities to the sites/countries they came from, the fact is that looting makes the likelihood of identifying an artifact’s provenance extremely difficult. I don’t believe she was ever naive about that. I do believe that as a woman in a powerful position at the Getty, she was unfairly pegged to take the fall for everyone else. I hope she gets to say her piece, but I doubt her male counterparts will ever experience the same level of public disgrace that she did.
anyone who says Jello salad is over has CLEARLY never been to Minnesota. smh.
Personally I am in favour of sweet jello salads – they’re actually one of the things I miss most since I went vegan. Strawberry jello + whipped cream + bananas + marshmallow!!! Love you, Manitoba.
Vegan “gelatin” is a thing! So is vegan marshmallows! I’m on my phone so linking is awkward, but google them!
Yeah, I could use agar powder probably. Good tip!
When I was young, sitting at the young people’s table, we had contests for the most creative ways to eat jello. Much fun and lovely squishiness in the Minnesota summer.
Or Utah
Lime jello marshmallow cottage cheese surprise!
That Burneko piece ripped me up. He’s a great, fun writer. Another good response to that idiot controversy was here, by Jon Bois. I’ll never understand people who want to make the world a shittier place than it already is, especially for kids.
I want to remind the people that object to participation trophies that the Military & Government give out participation trophies all the time, they just call them service medals. People who work in Antarctica for more than 15 days get a medal! For, you know, showing up and participating!
Looting is pretty entrenched in the history of museums and archaeology — the UNESCO convention to which so many museums theoretically adhere dates only to 1970. This is, by no means, to suggest that people like Frel or True are blameless (and I DON’T think that True is, though she has been a scapegoat / symbol / so on), just that the acquisition of antiquities through looting / unauthorized excavations is pretty tried and true (pardon the pun).
I have to add — I am annoyed by the implication that Jiří Frel (whose name the article naturally misspells) is some sort of wild Soviet, wantonly betting on looted antiquities because that’s what they did in the Eastern Bloc. Frel was definitely not a model curator, but I’m not sure that it had much of anything to do with his origins in Czechoslovakia (where, off the top of my head, I don’t believe he did very much in the way of antiquities procuring — both because of lack of resources and limits on traveling — though I’m not completely certain). Frel was an eccentric (to say the least), even in Czechoslovakia.
ALSO, True’s suggestion that, if art is on the market, it’s best for museums to acquire it — as an archaeologist, I kind of think that’s garbage. This is a super complicated topic, and I don’t believe that the market forces that shape looting have been terribly well-studied, BUT I’m not convinced that museums’ contribution to demand for looted antiquities is necessarily a net good…anyway, once the object is on the market, you’ve lost most of the information that makes that object valuable to scholars.
I am going to rein myself in now because I could talk about this shit foreeeever.
Yes! The idea that museums are NOT a part of the market (particularly the Getty) is preposterous. So-called ‘source’ countries always get blamed for not protecting ‘their cultural treasures’ to imply that museums in the US will ‘take better care’ of these objects than their home nations. That is some colonialist/imperialist b-s. The pressures to loot are fed by dealers and smugglers who know there is a market.
Also, if you are interested, just look at US museums provenance records for LOTS of antiquities, Far Eastern material and note how many provenances conveniently skirt right up to the 1970 date. Dealers are still concocting a lot. You are telling me that like 70% of this stuff was conveniently found in an unnamed private collection in 1969/70. Hmm. Rings no alarm bells at all.
Yes, I’m glad that you bring up the wider context. I’d also add that the UNESCO convention was only adopted by the US in 1983, which is towards the beginning of True’s career at the Getty. I certainly don’t think she’s blameless, but I do think she was unfairly singled out for practices that pretty much every major museum has engaged in.
Other than the nine hours spent clinging to a rooftop, the loss of the house she’d bought in 1977, and the two and a half years spent shuttling back and forth to her daughter’s home in Atlanta, Hurricane Katrina has been pretty good to 72-year-old Gloria Guy. That’s because, about five years ago now, Brad Pitt built her a really, really nice house.
I literally felt my blood pressure rise as I read this paragraph. I realize it’s probably not intended to do that, but after that sociopath at the Trib wrote that Katrina piece last week, I went back and re-read some of the coverage of Katrina, and some survivor’s accounts, and they’ve left me very on edge. I was 16 when Katrina hit, and I didn’t really realize the full scope of what had happened, but it was a horrifying, entirely avoidable catastrophe and the fact that no one will ever be held accountable for it has been randomly making me sad and angry all week. And these articles about the aftershocks of the disaster are just rubbing it in that we let a major American city drown and the rest of the country essentially shrugged and moved on.
MALLORY’S poor prose?
Oh yes, that phrase took me aback, considering the context.
Jelly salad? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU AMERICA!
Jelly is served with ice cream and wafers and that is it. Reading that article is legit gonna make me vom.
I feel you! When I read “jello salad” I thought it meant different flavoured jelly cut into tiny cubes and mixed up, but no. That’s not what it is.
It’s pretty terrifying and it’s the one of the few longstanding US foodway things that my 2nd gen American self can’t delve into. DO NOT WANT.
but the money Pitt’s project spent to build them
but the money Pitt’s project
money Pitt
Oh my god, people, 129 comments so far and nobody pointed and laughed at this yet?
To be honest, I don’t see the problem with Brad Pitt’s project in New Orleans. He built some lovely houses for some people whose lives had previously been destroyed. He built them to high environmental, hurricane-proof (as can be) standards and involved the people in the decisions. And it’s not like he made them million dollar houses – I read somewhere that each house cost about $150,000, which seems reasonable. Of course there are organizations who don’t have access to that kind of funding. But it seems to me that it’s better that at least he did something, rather than nothing.
I’m inclined to feel like this. There’s always a way to spend money better. People need tons of things to live comfortably – houses, jobs, food, clean water, electricity, working roads, public amenities, good school districts… I mean he could have spent that money on anything. And he chose to build several dozen entire houses for people who otherwise wouldn’t have had them. Perfect should not be the enemy of good.
I don’t think the only options are something or nothing. For example, he could have helped raise funds for one of the many local organizations that have the ability and the experience to do the most good, rather than starting his own vanity charity.
We’re so used to selfishness from the rich that we hesitate from critiquing any of their rare good acts. But well-intentioned idiocy is still idiocy.
Back in the slightly traumatic days of Garde Manger class we made so much freaking jello. Jello with fish, jello with chicken liver jello, jello with grapefruit that of course didn’t set, and of course aspic trays. I feel like of all the useless gelatin things, aspic trays are the one that should get popular again. They acknowledge that they’re not for eating, and you get to make something pretty. (This is not to say that the nursing homes peeps who got bussed in to eat our projects didn’t stick their fingers in and try to pull out the veggies)
(random pintrest image of said)
Thanks to that Jell-O article, my mother and I are planning a trip to the Jell-O museum in LeRoy, NY when I go back home to visit in a couple weeks. We are a family that deeply appreciates the Jell-O salad as the art it truly is.
Also, you can order Jell-O museum merchandise from the website, but not via the Internet, you have to call them. Bless their souls.
They called a meeting with him and the HR department and asked if there was anything he wanted to tell them about the medical note, and he told them he had nothing to say regarding it.
Just imagining being in that situation makes me want to start weeping and apologising. I am not cut out for a life of deception.
Over in the comments on that story, commenters were remarking that HR probably knew exactly what had happened and were asking him to see if he’d come clean immediately, and it might have gone over better for him if he had. It’s still a firable offense, but at least then the story looks like momentary-lapse-in-judgment-you-regret-and-swear-never-to-repeat, as opposed to fundamentally-deceitful-person-oh-god-he-could-say-or-do-anything-at-any-time-if-he-thought-it-was-worth-500-bucks-don’t-leave-your-office-unlocked-while-he-has-a-key-to-the-building.
And I’m pretty sure that’s the longest hyphenated phrase I’ve ever taken the time to type out.
I'm inclined to feel like this. There's always a way to spend money better. People need tons of things to live comfortably – houses, jobs, food, clean water, electricity, working roads, public amenities, good school districts… I mean he could have spent that money on anything. And he chose to build several dozen entire houses for people who otherwise wouldn't have had them. Perfect should not be the enemy of good.
Over in the comments on that story, commenters were remarking that HR probably knew exactly what had happened and were asking him to see if he'd come clean immediately, and it might have gone over better for him if he had. It's still a firable offense, but at least then the story looks like momentary-lapse-in-judgment-you-regret-and-swear-never-to-repeat, as opposed to fundamentally-deceitful-person-oh-god-he-could-say-or-do-anything-at-any-time-if-he-thought-it-was-worth-500-bucks-don't-leave-your-office-unlocked-while-he-has-a-key-to-the-building.
And I'm pretty sure that's the longest hyphenated phrase I've ever taken the time to type out.
Thissun. This is the best one. http://www.midcenturymenu.com/2015/08/sea-breeze-…
The children and trophy article made me cry too! Like, what would you rather teach your kids: that exercise is hierarchical and all about winners and losers and if you lose you should feel bad, or that exercise can be a fun and joyful thing entirely independent of how many points you score or people you beat?