A Match Made in Heaven

I'm always fascinated by how creative partnerships work. When I watched the BBC's history of Soul, Soul Deep, they had a fabulous recounting of how Hold On, I'm Coming by Sam & Dave was written by the folks at Stax, including Isaac Hayes. One person can spark off another, and then that's it - you have a ridiculously catchy and brilliant song.

This springs to mind because yesterday TOH and I discovered one of the greatest musical partnerships we - and you - had never heard of. Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong wrote some of the most famous, glorious and celebrated soul songs of all time. Their discography is, frankly, ridiculous. Why did they work together so so well? Who did what? Who knows, but I do know that somehow together they wrote the following:

• Papa Was a Rollin' Stone
  
• I Heard It Through the Grapevine
• Car Wash (and also for Rose Royce he wrote Love Don't Live Here Anymore and Wishing on a Star)
  
• War
• Ain't Too Proud To Beg
• He Was Really Sayin' Something
• I Can't Get Next to You (which is currently my favourite song)
  
• Too Busy Thinkin' About My Baby

Fricking genius.

Boring Post About How Backing Up is Soooooo Important

Veronica Mars and Back Up.

Yesterday I got the mac equivalent of the blue screen of death. Just a whirring little circle and the apple. It's a dreaded thing, and I could hear the hard drive scrabbling away at itself, trying to boot, but just not getting there. Heartbreaking to hear my little machine struggle so, in what sounded suspiciously like its death throes.

And death throes they were - the apple genius bar confirmed something nasty had happened to my computer. Even after diagnosis, the genius bar dude looked confused, which somewhat confused me, until he remarked that I looked far, far too happy for someone who had just lost their hard drive. Then the light dawned - "Did you back up?"

For once, yes. I could answer yes. And, no less, as recently as Tuesday. It was the culmination of a series of "sensible" choices - when the hard drive got drowned by Clem last year, choosing the extortionate option that preserved our warranty and TOH's excellent decision to purchase an external hard drive to which I back up each week - which made me far more excited today than I should have. Particularly as it now proves that being prudent and sensible make me excited and, therefore, I am not gently slipping but careering, head first, into middle age.

Rats.

Resolutions: January Update

2011's resolutions are actually going ok so far. Here's an update (other than this update):

1. Shooting, Shooting, Shooting: Take the camera off auto-settings. Well, I'm definitely trying this stuff. It's proving a little tricky - I thought it was just the shutter/aperture but apparently I've got to mess with the ISO settings as well, it not being a film-based camera. I'm still not sure how to change the ISO settings - I seem to change them but end up doing weird things to the menu, too. I've also been using the wide-angled lens and messing around with it. I'm not getting classic shots but, hopefully, I'm getting a little better. Most things are, thus far, overexposed. I'm trying to use the histogram feature to teach myself what the problem is and, thus, how to fix it. But it's usually overexposure.
   
2. Cooking, cooking, and more cooking. Doing well on this one. On Thursday (SNOW DAY!) I made a "peppery beef stew" from our Italian slow cooking book that was absolutely brilliant, with fresh bread and acorn squash lightly braised in chicken stock. Very easy and very tasty.
   
3. Reading, reading and more reading. This is the biggest failure so far. I got out The French Lieutenant's Woman and had to promptly return it unread to the library. Oops.
   
4. Looking, looking and more looking - at exhibitions. This has been the best kept resolution thus far. On Saturday I went to the Balenciaga retrospective with someone who actually knows about fashion and art. The structure of the exhibition was to show the influence of Spanish culture - religion, art, flamenco, bullfighting - on Balenciaga's designs. It worked extremely well, I thought. One of the most remarkable things was how he took traditional male outfits - cassocks for monks/priests, doublets for knights - and made them into a feminine design. And he was doing this well before trousers became truly acceptable, everyday clothing for women. I really wanted to steal half the clothing - gloriously structured suits with remarkable detailing, and one extraordinary dress with a train that actually had pockets so you could switch it up into a cape. Plus one that looked like a giant black truffle that you could just picture being worn by a mistress at a funeral of a famous Casanova or conductor or raconteur - that would make a serious statement.
   
   Additionally, we rejoined the Brooklyn Museum and had a look around the Norman Rockwell exhibition currently showing. It was extraordinary. Rockwell took tens to hundreds of photos for each of his paintings, and then selected odd little bits here and there to compose his actual painting. How he chose them is beyond me - that shows the real creativity but also mastery and control he exerted over the final version. Yet it seems strange that paintings that were supposed to be naturalistic snaps of everyday American life were so carefully controlled and thought out, so contrived. A strange juxtaposition. Seeing the covers of the Post, too, provided amusement at some of the stories - one featured Klaus Fuchs, the traitor at the Manhattan Project who was selling secrets about the bomb to the Russians; another advertised an article querying whether husbands should be used as baby-sitters to your own children. Also remarkable - the only people of colour were several black people used in servile roles - apparently that was editorial policy and ended up contributing to Rockwell's severing of the relationship. We also saw The Dinner Party and an amazing Kara Walker - I find her work constantly interesting and beautiful - so it was grand.
   
5. Solving, solving, solving. I've been getting back into these and while not completing them, I am - with some, at least - getting back into the swing of them and increasingly able to do them. But I need be a more devoted student with concentrated blocks of time rather than small snippets here and there.

Right, that's January. Midnight on Monday and I start the now annual No Drinking in February. I'm actually looking forward to it quite a great deal.

ps I also managed to go to the movies on Friday! I know! Have now seen THREE of the ten movies nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars - what an achievement. It was True Grit and comes highly recommended by me - surprisingly funny, tender and tense - I really enjoyed it.

600: Slothful

When there is stress at work and lots of snow and cold outside and I'm having a back spasm, I can't help thinking life would be easier as a warm, cuddly little sloth.

Meet the sloths from Amphibian Avenger on Vimeo.

Although one does have to wonder how on earth they survived this far through evolutionary history. And I would absolutely adore to be described as a "legendary sloth whisperer." It's basic the same as corporate lawyering.

PS yes, this is the 600th post. Officially. So there.

Botanics: January

In a rather inspired move, TOH got us a family membership to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden for Christmas. It's just down the road from our place so a regular visit should be rather easy to do. And yet... it's on the far side of the Brooklyn Museum, and we did not really use that membership that well. So despite my grumps (having got back from a rather hectic if sunny time in Mexico), this morning TOH persuaded me to go out there and, last minute, we decided to take the Nikon with the spanking new wide-angled lens that TOH also got me for Christmas (what can I say? the man is extremely good at gifts). While en route we hit upon on a great idea to create an incentive to go to the BBG and to use the camera more: each month, we will return to the BBG and take photos from the same position to show the change in seasons as the gardens sprout and flower and then, in autumn, fade and shrivel and pass away until the next spring. So here are the first results. Month to month I won't add all of them, don't worry, but those that show an interesting progress, or them side by side. I'm extremely excited by this project - and, of course, I'll be doing it without the auto settings. Arrgh!

The View from the Entrance

The Bluebell Garden

The Herb Garden

The Visitors' Centre

The Fountain

The Cherry Avenues (from the North)
(I cannot WAIT for spring!)

The Cherry Avenues (from the South)

The Rose Garden (North West Corner)

The Rose Garden (looking south)

The View From the Top (Right)

The View From the Top (Middle)