No one will remember me, I can't bake madeleines

No stomach for it

A marching army
The way through to a man's heart
I can't cook

Watched The Transporter with friends yesterday, and now I have a craving to bake madeleines.

For a Reverse-Engineered Madeleine, you can't do any better than this article in Slate. Remember the scene where Tarconi is in the Transporter's kitchen, nibbling on a madeleine and musing about memory? If you've read Proust, it's actually quite droll... *

Anyhoo. I have no more content for you. Check out Is My Blog Burning? and Endless Banquet (Parts One, Two and Three) and see what they have to blog about madeleines. They have actual recipes.

{Addendum: May your eyes alight and rest on the delightful Chez Pim.}

* "Oh, The Transporter? You can't really appreciate it until you've read it in the original Proust."

Endless Entertainment

... a Function of Pi?

Wishing you an infinitely happy Pi Approximation Day.*

Borrowed from Mr. Christopher, tender of The (un)Official Zen Garden.

To celebrate all things Pi, Pi-esque or Pi-historical, you need Cocktail Party Physics. And Physics Cocktails. And some mathematical humour (you heard me, mathematical humour). And some recreational mathematical games.

* What the heck; enjoy a few other mathematical holidays too.

Throwing people out a window? We invented that.

If only there was a word for it...

Roman Catholic Imperial officials claimed that they survived due to the mercy of benevolent angels assisting the righteousness of the Catholic cause. Protestant pamphleteers asserted that their survival had more to do with the horse manure in which they landed.

Thus proving divine intervention to be a pile of horse poop.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And then History happened.

Found on the web a family tree which happens to include my mother.

She had always said that her side of the family was Austrian; our entire town was populated by people whose ancestors emigrated from Austria, she had said.

Turns out this is only partially correct.

When I traced back to see from whence my ancestors emigrated, I found that all the first-generation immigrants were listed as having been born in Bohemia.

By the time they were born, the Kingdom of Bohemia had been under the control of the Empire of Austria for generations upon generations of Hapsburgs.*

Skip ahead, skip ahead, skip ahead; WWI & WWII, yadda yadda yadda... And the bottom line is: if you were to stand today in the villages where my ancestors were born, you would be standing in the Czech Republic.

So are we Czech? or Austrian? ... or can I say, we're Bohemian, with a straight face?

Now I'll have to go visit. I hear their Ossuary is quite nice.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

* And when we say upon, we really do mean upon.

Human Fabric

How overlapped and connected is our human fabric:

The streets of London are chaotic as thousands of commuters continue their journey on foot.
(Photo: Bettina Strenske) From the BBC.

I like this image. Unlike all the others I've seen so far, it's neither a picture of the violence nor of the evidence of its fallout.

It reminds me of the idea that the environment is all one thing, not isolated, unrelated compartments; and it makes me think of how that relates to humanity.*

Speaking of humanity, take a look at these two posts by Gia: 1, 2. I like her attitude; wish more people felt the same way, hopefully they do...

~ ~ ~

* Also reminds me of "spooky action at a distance" :)

Out of principle, not value.

... because he calls for justice, not charity

I want you to make poverty history.
Now give me back my hat.
And my pants.
And every photo you've ever taken of me.