Goodbye 2009

Another year gone. Good year. I'll miss it.

There's an old (2006), but very entertaining speech of Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondent's Dinner - Part 1, 2 and 3.

I made a quick painting inspired by a song from La Tarantella by Galeazzi, Beasley, Arpeggiata and Pluhar. It's a collection of (I think) mostly folk songs rendered in the style of Italian classical music. I don't like classical music, but I like this CD. The background of the collection is the old belief that those who are stung by the tarantula can only be cured by dancing - which was only possible if you could find the tune that "fit" the very tarantula. Could be slow and calm, could be fast and energetic. Lovely belief, ne?
(Just as cute as the belief about the Rauhnächte - twelve nights - which says if you have white linen hanging outside during the night, the death will come and take it down, only to return during the following year to wrap you in it.)

And a photo of the Christmas present I made for my brother and his girlfriend. It's a Baroque game:



I can paint, but I can't make cookies to save my life. Those two can. They made New Year's cookies. Best cookies I've tasted in my life so far. Plus, they look awesome:

Everything you want is not everything you need

I rediscovered Vertical Horizon's Everything You Want again after looking up some word concepts. I like the music video. Such combinations of visuals and text are always very appealing to me. They remind me of Serial Experiments Lain (although Lain's texts are of course much less straightforward).

Also came across a nice quote:
"Man muss noch Chaos in sich haben, um einen tanzenden Stern gebären zu können."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
("You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.")

***

Something from my thesis got me thinking...
Fairies might come from the Persian peris (it's a minority theory, as most researcher believe the Grimms' theory). That made me read up a bit on Persia. I've always had troubles with grasping that Persia and Iran are the same countries. I connect Persia with a rich culture, traditions and exotic tales; something out of a book rather than reality, and fully positive. Iran, on the other hand, is to me related to war, rural and poor areas and nuclear weapons. It's interesting how two words can refer to the same thing, but create completely different concepts in one's head. I bet the advertisement industry works a lot with that, just in reversal. Take something negative, give it a new name and image and turn it into something positive.
(I don't see the point in renaming geography, though. Persia turned into Iran, Edo became Tokyo, Lentos was renamed first Lentia and then Linz, etc. I mean, alright, I can understand the reasoning behind the renaming of Edo, but for the most part, there are no reasons given for renaming geographic points, and it's just immensely confusing when you find out after years that two names that you always treated as being separate from each other are actually one and the same thing).

***

I used the ending of last year and beginning of the new one for another cooking feast (because when there are so many people in the house who will possibly eat what you cook without running away in panic, you need to seize the opportunity). Unlike the Paella cooking in February, though, it was not one big thing but many little ones - sauces, desserts, etc. After not having been able to try out some new recipes in the last weeks, I had lots of fun with this.

Grapefruit-shrimps-salad:



Attempting to make sushi for the first time. I need to try this more often. Haven't quite figured out how to roll it in a nice way. I still have two other types of sushi to try out anyway. Here, Nigiri-sushi and Maki-sushi:



Finally, Dim Sum and Onigiri:



At some point I managed to leave the kitchen and joined the group. We spent a fun game evening playing Uno and Kragmortha (cool game - not quite as good as real roleplaying, but it really got me into the mood again) and following some superstitions and rites. Then the new year began with snowfall, and everything was perfect. I really like this year so far.