Better than Gumby

More cool stop-motion animation. Afraid I’m experiencing a bit of a geek-out…

Poignant Cupcake

I’ve been looking at stop-motion animation videos, wondering whether I can put one together myself, and came across this amazing one about a cupcake. Even the sex scene between it and the butternut squash is rather endearing. Cuts the saccharinity, ya know?

Stop-motion animation looks hard.

Milwaukee

Before last week, my experience in the Midwest consisted only of a smattering of layovers at Chicago O’Hare and Minneapolis. But then my good friend Alia decided to have her wedding in Milwaukee in January. After a relaxing two weeks in Hawaii, I flew back to DC to collect my wedding duds before heading westward again (but only fell back by one time zone instead of six).

I’ve always wanted to visit Wisconsin, mainly because I have a great uncle who moved there from Hawaii for college and stayed. He married his college sweetheart, Cathy, and opened a Chinese restaurant in Milwaukee. Because of this uncle, Walter, I generally tend to think of Milwaukee over Madison whenever I am reminded of Wisconsin’s existence. (Wisconsin? Oh, yes, that’s where Milwaukee is.”)

But don’t mistake me for the typical East- or West-Coastie, who, though hailing from north Jersey or Los Angeles, habitually and casually lobs snide remarks at the Heartland. I was once one of these people; Hawaii folk are generally among the nicest you can find anywhere, but can be quite snooty when it comes to place of residence. I don’t know. I guess living in an unobviously pleasant place like Anchorage can make you impatient with people who all but force you into being an apologist for your beloved city.

Descriptions of Milwaukee from friends ranged from “a bombed-out shell of an American city” to “really nice.” Maybe the dressing of snow helped (snow is nature’s airbrush, after all), but I thought it was charming. Industrial chic is all the rage there as old factory buildings–tanneries and such–are being converted into funky urban spaces. We stayed in one such place, the Iron Horse hotel, about a block from the Harley-Davidson Museum. One regret is that I didn’t get to the Warhol exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum, which overlooks Lake Michigan.

Instead, I went cross-country skiing on the Whitnall golf course with my friend, Kelly, and the aforementioned Aunty Cathy (who, I quickly discovered, is one of my sweetest, most fun relatives). I hadn’t skied for at least 18 months and it felt like showering for the first time after going double-digit days without any form of bathtime. But 100 times better.

Bureaucrats Got Talent!

One of the perks of living in Washington is encountering the humanity behind government. Seeing up close that bureaucrats are people too goes far to demystifying the system.

Before coming to Washington, my mental shorthand for government bureaucrats came straight out of Russian literature. I would flash on Mr. Anna Karenina, geriatric and cuckoloded, or the pitiable protagonist from Gogol’s “The Overcoat.” I still thought of them as people, but only as character-people from a land far away. (Weird, on many levels: I’ve never been to Russia. In fact, my exposure consists of exactly one class in college, plus a James Bond movie. Oh, and in Alaska you could sometimes smell the vodka and fish fumes wafting over from Vladivostok. Not.)

A few months ago, Bill became a government bureaucrat. And the other day I went to watch him perform in the Interior Department talent show, which included lots of piano players, a flautist, some really good renditions of James Brown and Nancy Sinatra, and a magician with rings. There was also a well-executed non-G-rated rendition of MJ’s “Billy Jean,” with lots of sparkly-glove-on-crotch-action + generous thrusting of said crotch. And, an ensemble performance of “Thriller” by the much-maligned (during the Bush administration, to be fair) Minerals Management Service. Lots of humanity at its most human. I hear there’s a video of the whole show coming out at some point, but in the meantime, I got Bill’s permission to put up his video on YouTube and post the lyrics. He had a clever slide show too, which my pitiful camerawork didn’t completely capture. (There are a couple classic pics of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar thrown into the mix.) I must say, even from an objective standpoint, it’s a pretty good primer for what the Bureau of Land Management actually does. (I know a fair bit about Interior, having covered it back before the ol’ ball and chain started working there.)

“Land Management” to the tune of “Home on the Range” (my own comments in parentheses)

Oh, I want a home where the buffalo roam

Where burros and wild horses play (two controversial animals managed by Interior)

Oh where should I be in Washington, DC?

The ghost of Ickes* showed me the way (Harold Ickes, Interior Secretary under FDR, put much of the New Deal into action)

He said: Land, land management!

It’s the bureau where you should be

They manage the herds on land patterns absurd

In accordance with land-use plans

(Spoken) With robust public and intergovernmental (meaning Indian tribes) input processes

Now this you should know, there’s just one bureau

Not NPS* or FWS* (National Park Service; Fish and Wildlife Service)

Who from desert to coast, manages most

But we can’t move without getting sued (Federal land managers are responsible for both resource development and environmental conservation, so are pretty much guaranteed to piss off either conservationists or industry no matter what.)

(Spoken) Still, more than 253 million acres. That’s more than California, Arizona and Nevada combined.

It’s land, land management

It’s the bureau where I go to work

We’ve got lands you desire and we fight wildfires

And we’re closing the new energy frontier

In our ties bolo, we ain’t no sideshow (Interior is sometimes called the “Department of the West” because most of its land holdings are in that region. Secy. Salazar, a rancher and attorney, has a well-known penchant for Western wear.)

Most of your lands were once ours

We kept old routes for the mail and the Iditarod Trail

And we’re part of the department family.

Interior, the “department of everything else” (Interior contains a rather random mix of agencies, some with competing missions. A former department historian, Robert Utley, gave it the “everything else” designation.)

Everyday you and me come to MIB* and Salazar shows us the way. (Main Interior Building)

People, lands and water since 1849…

#1 Chocolate Chip Cookie

I’ve made turkey stock, chestnut and ginger soup, and two variations of granola in the past month. I sense the desserts are feeling neglected, meaning I plan to return very soon to my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe of all time. This recipe is what inspired me to ask for a food processor (not a typo) for my birthday last year.

The source is not all that original: The New York Times. But man, did they pour reporting resources into this one, devoting a whole 1,800+ words to the quest for the perfect cookie, not including the recipe. The result is one of the finest examples of investigative reporting I’ve ever consumed (these cookies will absolve me of that bad pun, you’ll see). Note: I could never quite bring myself to plunk down the bucks for super-expensive chocolate chips. Ghirardelli chips with 60% cacao work fine. They make for the best second-rate cookies you’ll ever eat.