#wordlesswednesday 29 June 2022

 

#wordlesswednesday "Shapes that go together" [a-Ha]

 

#wordlesswednesday "Where water can go, you can go"

#wordlesswednesday Family visit and first aid

#wordlesswednesday Wish I may; wish I might; why are these images so very bright?

Twist of an Arthur C. Clarke quote:

Any sufficiently differentiated teenager defies the science and creates magic.
When an emerging writer met Frank Herbert when she was 13 - that was a magic moment which took her into a literary stratosphere and made it more approachable.
[let me think - the emerging writer was Catherine someone and she does speculative fiction].
And today's teenagers would have you LISTEN TO and FOLLOW the science.
Isn't that right, Greta and Beata?
#ourhouseisonfire

"As long as you wear your flippy-floppy hat and clean up after the dogs and don't have the dogs clean up after you;
you can go to the beach".

Geology in the garden: shells and rocks of every sort as well as leaves and flowers.
It is a great garden for science and for humanities and both of those sorts of learning.
#thetwocultures #cpsnow

Skating on roller skates.
Facing in the other direction, meanwhile ...
There were some waves which made the young ladies feel like celebrities.

"Keep your friends close and your animals closer!"

When tiredness passes over into overtiredness
it can be very unpleasant for one and one's friends.
Especially as it was past midnight.
Would they get the explorer into the blanket before the witching hour?

"It's not THAT he's frantic - it's what he is frantic ABOUT".
In this case - it was about a puzzle and putting it back from the floor.
"A place for everything and everything in its place".
The little fellow was taught some version of this.

A very sportive pair those two.
Lots of pennants; medals and ribbons.
And jodhpurs and boots in the case of the young lady on the right.
Some look forward to kicking their new footballs; others like to throw balls on or near a wall.

The Gingerbread Kid and the gingerbread cake - along with the gingerbread kid's biggest supporters.
Sometimes people are just too good to eat. Sometimes all you want to do is eat them.
You can do this in a dream.

Our youngest explorer in his grey nightgown and slippers.
It had been a very rainy week and the ground was uneven.
So someone put out the welcome mat.
What was behind the door? Was it a minibar? a refrigerator?

Flowers and balloons and pull-along ducks.
The kind that waddle.
Sometimes you can't choose your nicknames - they choose you.
For example - if people see you waddling like a duck - you get called "Waddle-duck".
"Coursework first - then celebrations!" said the lady in the purple hat and the green dress.

Not many people know that to swoon is to faint.
And f a i n t - one of these young ladies did that
when she was at the most central of Central Stations in Warsaw to meet her friends.
The other young lady is insouciant. As you would be if you travelled first class and expected Firsts in the coming five years.

Dreaming clouds and dreaming stones.
Everyone is supposed to be three stones apart.
And each one has their own cloud.
I believe Dibs said:
Every child should have a tree that is all its own.
Every child should have a mountain that is all its own.

Across from the Bodhi Tree and the misty mountains.
Sometimes the world can be so misty and so frosty.
That is when your shadow self steps in.

Chipotle on the brain! And tomatoes; avocado and so on.
Even malt from the malt shop.

Dreams are very strange things holding them in space and time.
And I don't know how that red got in there.

Some of these animals went on the live export journey
and from the United Arab Emirates to the Fremantle Port Authority they had to come.

Hands and feet and new friends.
If you look very closely you will see the Central Station young man
perhaps when he was very very young.
I think it's the eyes.

Rice paddies are full of work and love, very often.

There are four children and two animals.

And we will end today's adventures with a spa bath or the kind that comes in jets and has towels.

Schuman Day [8.v.2020] / Victory in Europe - Liberation Day [9.v.2020]

8 May 2020
Schuman Day

Did you know that
Pink Floyd
does Friday Fundraisers?
#pinkfloydfridays
#stayhere #withme
#pulse #runrabbitrun

Good writers do backgrounds when they can.
Better planners do the background FIRST
and respect it and put it in due proportion.
That way the foreground and the middle of the field can pop out
or stay disguised/camouflaged depending on what you want to do.

Such was the German President's speech
and Queen Elizabeth the Second's
on the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe / Liberation Day.

Orientation, too, is important.

In the theatre set design can be very abstract and symbolic.
So, too, in music videos and their staging.

Such was the case in The Eddy
which was released on the 8th May in the Netflix world.
It was done by the director of LA LA LAND.

What a wonderful first episode.
I needed something to keep my hands and brain busy.

The drawings come in three by three.

I used five colours and/or shades.

The bottom is a sunset-type image and there is much showing through when it comes to yellow and pink and purple.

The top has a two-toned brown background and then there is red green yellow and blue.

And I wouldn't be me if I didn't do all the colours at some point.

The middle illustration reinforces the point about backgrounds.

There are people walking all over the pile of rocks and other people floating in fine-tip pen.

One of my more amusing philosophical moments this May
when I was reading the Oxford Companion to Philosophy [the 2005 edition which I acquired in 2012-13]
was about SLIME - not the Internet phenomenon precisely
- how SLIME is applied in philosophy.
It takes up this third space between what is concrete and what is abstract.
And it often connotes feelings of disgust and of fascination - this emotionally ambigious space which is a sense of productive uncertainty.
A sense - too - of sensoria and qualia.

I had some more serious moments too.
On the 29th April 2020 for instance when I spent time with Makers of Modern Culture
and I wanted to know more about the speech act as one of the UK's greatest philosophers has it.
This philosopher is J. L. Austin and he disseminated these ideas about the three forces
[well, these are the three forces which are the most famous].

Illuctionary which is defined as what is done IN saying something

[Anthony Flew: 1981]

Locutionary which is the act OF saying

and finally perlocutionary - what is EFFECTED IN OTHERS by the saying.

These are applications of performative utterances. 

Quickly summarising: we have in, of and by - "little words that pack a big punch" [I seem to remember an almost preternaturally verbally agile young man called Billy in Beautiful Child {T L Hayden 2002} who said that - and specifically about the word bad

Could easily have been his classmate Jesse - probably unlikely to have been Gwennie because she only came to the class sometimes - and the others Zane and Shane and Venus].

In philosophy - and especially in analytical philosophy - you have to look after the pennies. Even then you have not the guarantee that the pounds will look after themselves and grow interest.

I credit/blame Stephen Toulson and his definitive logical text The uses of argument [1959].

That same day was the 250th anniversary of Yorkshire merchant seaman and explorer
James Cook
and his coexplorer Joseph Banks
when they arrived on the east coast of the Australian continent.
You can read more about James Cook and Joseph Banks in The Conversation.

Also in the Conversation's CURIOUS KIDS section there was an 11-year-old who wanted to know

CAN THE WORK ON CORONAVIRUS STOP WAR?

Good question! And never too soon to learn about the roles of multilateral organisations!
For those of you who can read on the side ... and especially the green highlighted bit ...

The legacy, of course, was and continues to be deeply contested.

During the beginning of May I was pointed to a review of a movie called In Deed which was about a young boy called Benny and how he and his mother Melva meet Abe.

Abe is a churchman of the evangelical persuasion [that issue of the Monthly: Schwartz Media was kneedeep in evangelicalism and charismatics - Shane Danielsen was not immune!] and essentially he thinks/hopes/wishes his church can cure Benny. #mentalisation #filmmaking

A lot of my neurodivergent friends and interested and interesting people will probably have perceived and conceived where this is going.

Unfortunately [?] I did not get to that bit.

I did see scenes of Benny in his school - Abe is a cleaner there - and how he and Melva interact in church - and some attempts at exorcism and getting the demons/spirits out.

And how the rest of the family is - like the sister - and the woman who visits after an interaction in the waiting room.

Another interesting movie I watched - and had wanted to watch since January 2019 -

was Marwencol

which was an artistic and technical paracosm very relevant to this weekend - the macro and the micro ones.

Marwencol is this Belgian town which became a stopping place for veterans and travelling folk who are represented in the form of dolls - Barbies for the women and action figures for the men.

It grabs the viewer and never lets them go in the central dilemma between worlds.

Photography plays a role in disseminating Mark's universe of World War II figures that are based on people in his life that he imagines and reflects on and remembers.

People like Wendy and Colleen and Anna and various of his male friends from before and after the cataclysmic attack which results in brain injury and the associated effects.

There are moments when Mark walks on the streets of the real world with a well-modelled and sturdy tank.

There are so many swirly feelings and swishy feelings [the latter my invented set of concepts for dress; costume and genderplay / genderbending and exploration].

Thank you to the maven who recommended Kanopy.

One can watch 15 movies standardly - that is one movie every two days if you are sensible and/or use the credit-free work.

I noticed there was one on Valued Roles and Normalisation and another musical one.

Lots of sporting interests covered/explored too.

Was looking for a book about The death of the Fitzroy Football Club ...

That was one of those slimy moments of machination and Machievellian feeling - Holmesby represents it so well and so objectively.

One of the more wonderful sporting and human interest moments was when Adam Scott called up a fellow golfer and turned up to their club through the help of a significand ...

A very lovely Tete-a-tete. Probably not like the ones in Paris cafes between 1929 and 1979 between de Beauvoir and Sartre and their circle - which are so well covered by Hazel Rowley #goodthingscometothosewhowait #andtothosewhosurvive #thriving #flourishing #copology #continentalphilosophy #existentialism #riversideoaks

#finishthesentencefriday Hot chocolate with chilli for dead gentlemen [Waitrose]; choc banana muffins with psychologists [Henshaw]; tiger salad with friends on/for your side [Liaw]

15 April 2020
Hot chocolate is for gentlemen; not for dogs or parrots!
Chutney, on the other hand, is an inclusive recipe
and a great gift...

I will always remember reading an early scene in the Readers' Digest Condensed Work of Sound of a Miracle when Annabel Stehli and her younger daughter Georgiana were cooking together in the labour-saving kitchen device world of 1960s Connecticut.

It was with a mixer and a blender - both of which give vibrations on glass or in a wooden pot - which in the frequencies that complement or over-ride speech and language input/stimulation - and then the yelling.

Say it! - Annabel said to Georgie.

It was after Georgie had failed to say cook several times.

Annabelle felt failure and disappointment at that. She thought her daughter was deliberately withholding.

It is possible that Georgie might have heard only O or everything exceptionally loud and intrusively... or the hard consonants may have clashed and clanged.

And if Georgie had any attachment or feeling for mechanical things or their sensory effects ... this was countered by highly aversive stimuli. Hence her response.

A #textandcontext point for you lot: this was before Georgie had any sort of formal diagnostic process. And certainly before she was institutionalised - first in a very famous New York City hospital and some years later - the early 1970s - a place known as Childville in the book.

Georgie thought other people were strong and brave because they coped with all the sounds in the world and within their bodies - like heartbeats. As you know I think Georgie is strong and brave for so long - until 1976 when she came to Annecy to work with Guy Berard and Cecile Wuarin for those ten days. And all the work afterwards when she came to realise her potential as an artist, a mother, a polyglot and a highly engaging TV guest on shows like Sally Jessy Raphael and I think Donahue - certainly the talk show culture of the early 1990s.

Stehli wrote two other interesting books called Dancing in the Rain and a Snow book which I read about in the early 2000s on Amazon [I remember it was mid-December 2000 when I was answering a Christmas quiz] - or possibly in a review or two. These are short essays of other parents and children who had auditory integration therapy or another closely related sensory-friendly/sensory-informed treatment.

A few months after I read that excerpt and I was watching Blossom or Full House I tried to cook some gingerbread in the microwave.

The microwave had come into my house about a year before and it may or may not have opened so much.

In my house fresh food and garden-sourced food is very important. So most things - snacks and meals - are eaten more or less raw. Levi-Strauss for the win!

Warm drink-making was an important part of my training. Cause and effect is somehow more easily seen - and the role of contribution - when you make a smoothie or a milkshake. And a sound-proof and distraction-free room is important.

Various relatives have been in the hospitality industry - one made Mexican [more properly Tex-Mex food with Commonwealth of Nations characteristics] food on the regular; another worked as a saucier and knew the five basic sauces very well indeed.

I can make a decent tartar sauce.

Some years later - we are in 1996 here - I was expanding my literary powers and for the first time I killed off a character. I will clarify - this is the first time I killed off a character in my Fenland educational narrative.

This character was a psychologist and he really loved his Ovaltine. His name was Dean Swallell.

My protagonist was writing a fictional work which sent her and several of her friends and classmates all over the county and country. And she met Dean.

The point about Dean is that he was a gentleman - gentilhomme - the sort of person who being more than non-threatening - is a joy to work with.

Someone you can be honest with and be able to stay honest - or even in the room!

Sometimes les psychologues like or prefer you and them to maintain the relationship outside the session and the offices.

In that context you may make - or they may offer - in this third place/location:

Hot chocolate and chilli

Today I borrowed a recipe from Waitrose and the only change I would make is the chocolate can come from anywhere - it is the proportion which matters. Also the multiples. Taste.com.au also have several good ones and I think another recipe website. If your favourite magazine or one you read has a Test Kitchen [not a Test Chicken!] that is so much to the good - like GOOD HOUSEKEEPING or the AUSTRALIAN WOMEN'S WEEKLY or BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS.

And there are Test Kitchen principles and practices you can adapt.

Chilli Hot Chocolate

This is the most fantastic combination of rich chocolate with spicy chilli. South Americans have been matching these ingredients for centuries - we are just catching on! If you'd prefer not to use chilli, the hot chocolate will still taste delicious without it.

• Preparation time:10 minutes, plus infusing
• Cooking time:5 minutes
• Total time:15 minutes, plus infusing 

Serves: 8

Ingredients

• 1.136-litres whole milk
• 2 red chillies
• 200g Plain Chocolate, broken into small pieces
• 200ml single cream

Method

1. Pour the milk into a saucepan. 
2. Carefully slice the chillies in half lengthways and deseed, leaving the stalks attached in order to remove them from the milk easily. 
3. Add to the milk.
4. Slowly bring to a shivering simmer. Remove from the heat and infuse for 10 minutes, so that the milk takes on the chilli flavour. Reheat the milk, add the broken chocolate and cream and stir on a low heat until the chocolate is dissolved. Remove and discard the chillies. Serve garnished with a slice of fresh chilli.

Ah - seems simple!

I thought there would be 700 grams of the chocolate.

When Maman and I would type recipes we would make the verbs bold and put them at the start of the sentences/phrases. This applied to school and community fundraising campaigns throughout the 1990s and even into the 2000s.

Many companies have a public service interest when it comes to recipes. You never know when someone might like to eat choc banana muffins. A challenge for you: when it comes to muffins do you say --

• banana and chocolate muffins
• muffins with chocolate and banana

If muffins were people [and sometimes parts of people are referred to as "Muffin"/muffin] there would be a split.

Some of you - or most of the people who read Halfway up Rysy Peak - would want to respect the muffin's identity as it itself has stated it. For example, a muffin might be a banana muffin through and through and doesn't acknowledge their chocolate part. That is fair; we respect that!

Thank you Laura Henshaw from Keep it Cleaner - she also works as a Vitality Ambassador for an insurance company.

I noticed there was Greek yoghurt; milk; rice malt syrup/healthy sweetener - and that there is a lot of choice and option within this recipe. Yes - it is important to be flexible!

• 3 medium ripe bananas
• 2 eggs
• 2 heaped tablespoon Greek yoghurt
• 1/2 cup milk of choice
• 2 tablespoons rice malt syrup
• 1 cup almond meal
• 1 cup flour of choice [gluten free/plain/spelt]
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 80 grams dark chocolate chips
• coconut oil or butter for greasing [optional]

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
2. Line muffin tray with patty pans or coconut butter.
3. Mash bananas in large mixing bowl.
4. Add eggs; Greek yoghurt; milk; rice malt syrup to the banana mixture

In another bowl [this is the whole wet and dry ingredient issue] combine almond meal; baking powder and chocolate chips.

Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and mix until combined. The next mixture should be of similar consistency to a standard muffin mix.

Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until muffins are cooked through when checked with a skewer and golden brown on top. As oven temperatures may vary, be sure to check these are thoroughly cooked through before moving on from the oven. You may need to leave them in a couple of extra minutes.

There - that was not so painful - at least not to type! It may be painful to make.

If you like savoury muffins those are good to be able to make as well. Especially with spring onions and/or chives and pumpkin.

This recipe of chocolate and banana muffin was found at the back of a magazine - one where a comedian is being interviewed about what he knows about women. This comedian's mum was really fun to hang out with!

The comedian was king of a big Labour Day parade. The festival's name means up your bum and more officially "Let's get together and have fun"...

Right now it is Ramadan and the crescent moon was in the sky a week ago.

Coronavirus became very serious with the Lunar New Year and all the travelling which could not be done. We are all trying to #stayathome and #slowthespread.

This recipe comes from a Master Chef of ten years ago - Adam Liaw. In Mandarin it would be called Lahou Cai and nearly every website - New York Times; British Broadcasting Corporation; Special Broadcasting Service; France24; Deutsche Welle - has a version or two of it. 

Liaw's serving suggestion is that TIGER SALAD is sufficient for four people. He also makes a comment about the role of salads and side dishes in northern Chinese cuisine:

• 4 thick spring onions

• 1 Lebanese cucumber, peeled, deseeded and cut into thin batons

• ½ green capsicum, very thinly sliced

• 1 large red chilli, very thinly sliced

• 1 cup loosely packed coriander sprigs

Dressing

• ½ tsp sugar

• 1 tsp soy sauce

• 2 tsp rice vinegar

• 1 tsp sesame oil

Halve the spring onions lengthways and slice very thinly on a steep diagonal. 

Place the slices in a bowl of cold water and refrigerate for 20 minutes to curl. 

Combine the cucumber, capsicum, chilli and coriander in a bowl and refrigerate along with the spring onion....

Combine the ingredients for the dressing and stir to dissolve the sugar. 

Drain the spring onions well and combine all the ingredients and dressing together. 

Toss and serve immediately.

Now this is quite a mouth-watering recipe!

And I do not quite understand 'thin batons'. When I cut cucumber I cut it into halves and then slice it. Usually with the skin on.

I do understand 'very thinly sliced' though ...

and it seems that half the recipe has disappeared? The bit of the recipe to do with the dressing? Some people have their stuff white-linked or reversed. Or perhaps this came through in the wash.

The chilli does make it very tiger-like, doesn't it? So do the coriander sprigs.

It is a terrific recipe to have with friends - especially if they love cuisines which are on the edge of cultures.

And some people love tomatoes - or tomato sauce - with everything. One example is Australian footballer Tayla Harris... another example is a tour guide and traveller.

At least one literary character is passionate about tomato sandwiches.

I have noticed in both the chilli recipes that deseeding is important. What do you do with chilli seeds? Do you save them; do you dry them out; do you replant them?

I will end as I began - with another cooking story from the world of educational psychology as that has come down to us in the popular literature.

Group work this time [though much good cooking and preparing is group work especially for entertainment purposes] - an eight-year-old with a very big heart and who can barely read has a moment with a mixing bowl.

This author has a very famous ice-cream recipe and is a great hand with dulce de leche.

It is a moment worthy of Flora Rheta Schreiber and her belles-lettres.

Our young lady breaks the bowl and the whole world comes crashing.

She did have other positive cooking experiences where her friends were on her side and for her.

At least five years of abusive behaviour targeted to her in the educational setting comes down up on her and affects the way she recovers.

When this girl grew up to be a woman she educated her children at home and those children are adults now.

She exposed them to a life full of recipes and beyond recipes.

What's cooking?