Sandwich Therapy Breakthrough

#12 Is a breakthrough in my Sandwich Therapy

 

The Thanksgiving Leftover Sandwich

 

Ingredients / Assembly sequence:

• 2 slices of stuffing bread. Jo gets unsliced sandwich bread, which I sliced thicker than normal but thinner than Texas toast. Place on a microwave safe plate.
• Spread mashed sweet potatoes on it.
• White meat, it's ok to show a little skin
• Cranberry dressing on topof that
• Dark meat on top of that
• Stuffing on top of that
• Spread mashed potatoes on the other slice of bread
• Cut chunks of brie and jam it into the mash potatoes

 

Put the brie-tatoe slice on the palm of an open right hand and in a swooping motion, flip it onto the pile of food on top of the other slice. Microwave 30 seconds... DO NOT TOAST

Flip over sandwich, don't be afraid to touch it. Put a piece of pumpkin pie next to sandwich

Microwave another 30 seconds

 

Cup you palm and push the whole thing down. The fillings will spread out and be mushy with odd hot spots. Cut into triangles and use a big spoon to help eat. Wash it down with hot apple cider or OJ. Something fruity and acidic. Delicious

Count Your Blessings

I admit that I don't often count my blessings. Part of it is fatalism: enumerating and explicating the good things in life is an invitation to have those things taken away. In part it is also because I often can be an ungrateful jerk who likes to complain about and expand upon the many hardships in life; big and little. But, Thanksgiving receives special dispensation from curses, so the first part is not a concern. And I'm working on the second part. Ergo:

 

1. My children. Every day with them is like gold.
2. My parents. They've gone on ahead, but are not gone. I am proud to be the link from #1 to #2 on this list.
3. Eugene. He likes brevity so...
4. Jo, my nieces, and the extended Li family
5. My sense of humor. Mom was right. It is really important for me in so many ways. Some guy yesterday said to me "You are aggressively smart, but you also seem like a funny guy and that makes you alright." If that could be the first impression that I make for the rest of my life, I'll take it!
6. Old friends. This trip has been like a mini-reunion, I've seen a lot of old friends. Its great to know that there are people out there who really get me, but they are spread all over the world. There are different ways to view that. I'll choose to say that they're inflitrating the collective unconsciousness, such that one day everyone will get me. I just read that over. Maybe I don't want the world to get me. "Ahhhh!!! The world's gonna get me!"
7. This photo of Cthulutu at carnivale (Thanks, Louren)
8. Being a lawyer. It was worth it. The point is not lost on me about how culture has really done a whole song and dance number on the profession on the profession in an effort to tarnish it's esteem. Nor am I blind to the proclivity of a few lawyers to live down to that dirtiness. But lawyers are like everybody else, and the system works to produce and maintain a competent group of qualified professionals.  The result of this effort is nothing less than the frontline of keeping this great experiment called the United States going. Many areas of law (I had a list here, but it got lengthy; lengthier than this parenthetical remark; and anyhow it was besides the point, so the list is gone) seem to draw out attempts to impeach the character of practioners in that area who are merely doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing, which is to diffuse power. I know I've gone on at length before about Federalist No 51 "if men were angels, there'd be know need for government" and whatnot, but the crucial vitality of our system of checks and balances matters. It matters as much today as it ever did. To quote one of my greatest law professors "People around the world are literally willing to kill and die in order to have a legal system as good as ours"
9. walking. Spend some time on crutches and it'll be in your list too
10. information. I said I'd get back to this topic a few posts ago. Here it is: Although law school has totally cured me of the desire (and means) to ever be a student again, my appetite for consuming and digesting raw iinformation lives on. Yay!
11. Holidays. I needed a break and this is that break.

 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Louren Li <lourenli@hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:25:49 -0500
Subject: Chthulu at carnivale
To: William Li <william.li@gmail.com>

 

--
Sent from my mobile device

Kids, watch this!

My Thoughts About Thanksgiving (reprint)

The following was originally published in 1981 for Ms. Edelstein's first grade class. I suppose that makes it property of the Yonkers School System or perhaps its dedicated to the public domain because
its academic writing. Anyhow, its the sort of thing only your mom will keep:

MY THOUGHTS ABOUT THANKSGIVING
A long, long time in England there were Pilgrims. But they were not happy. They had no freedom. So they sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and they landed on Cape Cod thanks to the Mayflower. Some people, were still alive after the winter. They found Squanto. They had a party and the Indians got drunk and had the party for three days.

William
-----------------------------------------------
The point is not lost on me that if I were a first grader today, writing an essay about death and drunkenness would draw a big fat "letter home to Mom". I wonder how my mom would have reacted. No, I don't: she would have told the teacher to do her job and stop bothering her. She would have also given some sort of lecture about academic freedom.
--
Sent from my mobile device

William Li, for real not fiction

I named a RPG character "William Li, for real not fiction."

Dr.Mitchell once told E$ that most of his students' first plays/novels/etc. are a thinly veiled pantomime of their unfulfilled fantasies. OK, but that's not really a criticism. "Your fantasy world is boring" or "You are a d-bag who, unlike the Heezy, we can't root for." Now, THAT's criticism. But I digress.

Fiction is a construct that can never be made real. I've spent a lot of time thinking about the ontological status of fictional universes. And trust me: fiction is always fiction. Naming a character with your name and adding the suffix "for real, not kidding I mean it" doesn't change it.

Neither does slavishly recreating it in real life (a la the first "Harry Potter" movie).

"What about the fact that the same images, characters, plots, feeling, etc. that you have... can also exist in someone else's head?" Good question that I've asked myself as a rhetorical device. Here is the answer:

•  "Abraham Lincoln"
•  "The mystery of the Adam Walsh kidnapping"
•  "The Challenger Disaster"

Get it? It is the ontological status of semiotics and memory, not of fictional characters. To illustrate further, you can also make fiction that is totally unsharable for those who didn't already have the necessary keys to decode the signal.

• While visiting Palette town town, Ash saw a Chimchar evolve into Snorlax.
  "Impossible!" he shouted.

Where am I going with this?

The topic that originally made me write about this at Rice (a few times, actually) and which still puzzles me is reality television. Starting with the 1970's PBS series, "An American Family", which featured The Loud family, and which was supposed to be mundane television about an upper middle class family but turned into juicy voyeurism, reality television seems to cast doubt on my ideas about the ontological status of fiction. To explain further: The Louds themselves were somehow freed by the presence of camera crews... The eldest son got a whole lot less closeted, the awkward daughter got a whole lot more bulimic, the bemused wife kicked out the overbearing jerk-face husband, and EVERYONE in America hated on them.  Big time.

Today, The formula remains is basically unchanged.

But the format itself did not re-surge until the 90's with MTV's "The Real World." The original rationale for "The Real World" that Bunham and Murray had for using real people without scripts was to improvise a soap opera rather than pay writers.  The essence of the genre is now various attempts to perfect this formula. My personal impression is that reality television is often a tautly-paced contest between real people trying to do an unscripted and grotesque hyperbole of what they think are the most interesting aspects of themselves, and the producers trying to keep the cast members drunk, tired, hungry, cut-off from any means of emotional anchoring, and under duress.

So at precisely what point, in this reality tv circus, does the fiction begin? My best guess is that fiction begins immediately. It flows from the bare lie of the whole contrivance.

But! There is a major difference from fiction. Notwithstanding, the fact that non-professional actors are merely pretending to be themselves, the real people who are on these reality tv shows can actually hurt each other; psychologically. The producers can really hurt them, too. And, as we saw with the Louds, pundits can really really hurt them (far more so than a TV critic could ever hurt an actor playing a character)

Most of this reads like a big "well... Duh." And I'm not satisfied to simply leave the issue there. Why should there be this dichotomy between the artifice that gives rise to fiction in reality tv and the very real human suffering? The answer has got to be "intent."

For a good demonstration of this, I recommend (no kidding) "Pauly Shore is Dead"

What, you say? You say Pauly Shore is really low brow and that he has no talent? You are so wrong. The movie is hilarious cringe humor with the sensibility and pacing of "Curb your enthusiasm" but with a much more likable protagonist.

Pauly is keenly aware of his meteoric rise and fancies himself to have had an F Scott Fitzgeraldesque fall. On this conceit, the movie milks the idea that Shore faking his death would be the ONLY way to revive his career for many laughs. (In real life, I believe he eventually went back to his family's business of running a big LA comedy club.) Stylistically, the movie stands out for the unrelenting stream of highly personal put downs and humiliations that Shore endures.

But, he is also the director.

That means, "the wee-zel" can yell "cut" whenever he wants.  Moreover, all the actors are keen on making "Paul Shore, for real not just a character" as funny/real as possible. Big difference from reality TV, which just scoops up hours of footage and then plumbs it for the depths of human depravity.

 Pauly Shore... solving life's mys-teries BUUU-dee

Dakota and Dad's recipe for Thanksgiving Cranberry Sauce

People think that havinga a recipe for Thanksgiving cranberry sauce is
very important because of tradition. Here is ours:

Step one: get money
Step two: go to store
Step three: buy a can of canberry sauce
Step four: for Thanksgiving dinner, open the can and pour it into a fancy dish
Step five: put dish on table
Step six: say "Look we have cranberries"
Step seven: ignore the dish for the rest of dinner
Step eight: throw cranberries out

--
Sent from my mobile device

My idea of what poetry could and should be

I
A Guy
A Guy who Buys Pies

Hi.

The Forgotten Joke about Moses

I had something funny to say about this picture that I drew on MS Paint, but I started it months ago; well after I thought up the joke and then I forgot to finish the picture. Then I finished it a few weeks ago, then I forgot I had it.  Now this is the sad end to a really funny joke.

This was a joke that was so funny, it would have made Angels cry tears of joy and deamons wet themselves.  It would have united Yankees fans with so-called fans of baseball who do not love the Yankees.  It would have turned cat people into dog people and dog people into fish people.

Such is the nature of things that don't come to pass.  They are awesome beyond all get-out.  We'll never know by how much my absurd hyperbole isn't so because I forgot.

But Will, you can't do that! You can't claim to have made up a funny joke and then when asked to tell just say "I forgot." That's even worse than stealing someone else's 40 year old punch line.

Well excuuuuuuuse me.

Duets (the Karaoke movie)

I'm in the cafeteria, so I can't remember if I have already posted
this, but in any case, there ought to be at least one post about
Karaoke.

I re-watched "Duets" on cable the other day. As much as I'd like to be
more like Huey Lewis (and to sing like him too) the fact is that I am
more easily identifiable as Paul Giamatti. I think most working
professional men are, so its not a particularly stunning insight.

That said, there are many things the movie gets right and more that
the movie gets wrong. So in no particular order:

1. Karaoke contests are a rarity. The movie depicts a pro-am
underground of karaoke singers akin to "the color of money" (not akin
to "the hustler") but so far, I have only been in one Karaoke contest,
although I missed the Halloween "scary-oke" contest. Which brings me
to my next point:

2. Karaoke is extremely corny and the people who sing regularly are
nerds, like me. Except for Huey Lewis (who has made it hip to be
square) and Maria Bello, the movie is very accurate on this point.

3. The crowd is mainly indifferent unless you are awesome or
extremely terrible. Most people eek out an unimpressive middle. Paul
Giamatti on beta blockers getting the rock star treatment just doesn't
happen.

4. If you don't jump up on stage when you are called, you get skipped.
Maria Bello puking in the can... would get skipped.

5. True dorks bring their own CDs. Except now its a USB thumb drive
and the KJ kinda doesn't mind because it increases his catalog, but
Huey Lewis gettin his a** kicked for being the jerk with his own
special personal version of "Lonely Teardrops" is accurate in spirit.
Most places are not alright for fighting, not even on Friday nite.

6. Its better to have a friend. You don't need to know them all that
well either. So, a hitch-hiking escaped con, your newly discovered
illigetimate daughter, or a down-on-his-luck cabbie will definetely
fit the bill. Your local meetup.com group or the regular gang at the
watering hole will fill in those blanks, and that brings me to the
point of this post.

7. Singing is what you do for about 8 minutes of a 2 to 5 hour
evening. Most of the night, you will be working the nerve up and then
waiting. Have something else to do, preferably talking to your friends
and not getting fubar.

Here are some afterthoughts not related to the movie:

8. I think its ok to watch the TVs at a bar, not just special sports
events like the NCAA tourney. Its there and its on for a reason. You
don't have two or more TVs set up next to each other in your house, do
you? So relax and enjoy the Rockets, a re-run of "The Practice",
Jackie Chan and american sidekick buddy movie, and sham-wow commercial
all at once. You aren't being rude to the person singing.

9. But you can't play the jukebox during Karaoke.

10. If you are going to get up and dance to someone singing, the time
to do it is right before the first chorus. That way you know the
singer isn't butchering your song but there is still enough song left.

11. Karaoke night does not make a bad place better. But you and your
group taking over karaoke night can make any place fun... For you and
your group.

12. A good KJ can run a fun karaoke with even a bare minimum of songs
and the equivalent of a home boombox with a B and W monitor. A bad KJ
can destroy even the best setup.

13. The bartender likes tips. The KJ likes drinks. If its backwards
and the bartender drinks and the KJ has a cash tip jar: leave.

14. Caveat on #2, karaoke is sometimes also enjoyed by really really
old people. Its nice to have one person much older than the rest of
the crowd to be colorful, but a bunch of old people together means
you've walked into an old person bar.

15. There are a lot of great country songs to sing, and if you hear 5
in a row... You've walked into a country bar. If you hear 5 songs in a
row either in spanish or an asian language... You've walked into a
latino or asian bar. You will not get the same indicators for Celtic
themed bars.

16. Use your smartphone to lookup the lyrics before you go onstage.
Really you should do that even before you pick the song. You might be
surprised at how you only know one line to "I want you back (abc 123)"
or "come on eileen"

--
Sent from my mobile device

Whatever is the opposite of self-doubt

This is how my kids see me. I was going to post this a week ago, but I got bronchitis. And the cat ate my homework. And gentrification, let's blame gentrification as well. Ok, back to the story. This is how the kids see me.

I was going to rent a costume at the RenFest, but Dakota had a very clear idea of how I should look and couldn't articulate it. But at the "House of Dra" as I was talking to the shop wench (chortle) Dakota jumps forward with the green tunic. At the "haberdasher of doom" (not the name, I just forgot what the other shop was really called), Dakota picked out the Robin Hood hat, which I was skeptical of because it is too small for my giant noggin. But Jason liked it too, and the kids begged me to get it. So I say, that's how they see me.

A few months ago, I was out with a friend who told me that my problem was that I aspired to be my family's "White Knight" and how that wasn't realistic or healthy. She observed that White Knights are chaste, delusional, violent, and ultimately suicidal. (Nice!) Her advice was that I needed to change the story; be something else; see myself as something else.

"Maybe I could be a rouge, like Han Solo?"

"Great choice, but I just don't think you're Han Solo."

Maybe not. And at 265 lbs, I am a bit more Little John than Robin Hood, but I certainly can be a "Merry Man."  Somehow, that term always makes me think of Mermen, then Ethel Merman. But, I digress.

Maybe I could be the portly Robin Hood, the Howard Cunningham Robin Hood (think about it...) Anyhow, I wasn't going to post this one either, but after 2 AM Walmart shopping this morning, I watched "Robin Hood" (the one with Uma Thurman) on cable and saw the movie as a sign (yeah, a sign of bad sleeping habits!)

Actually the sign, or signs, are the two "blessings" that my kids picked up from the vendor who sold me the tunic. There was a stack of cards ("Imbued with magick... pick one m'lord") But because, I feel fairly cursed with when it comes to inanimate objects that predict my fate (I once got a fortune cookie that said "You suck!") I told the kids to each pick a blessing. And this is actually the point of this post, as each picked the perfect blessing for them.

Dakota picked:

When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.
-- Albert Einstein

Jason picked:

If there is any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now and not deter or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.
-- William Penn