Emchap's Shit from the Internet 3/28/18 🍠
This weekend, I went on a tour of the graveyards associated with early colonial settlement in Los Angeles, in order to continue with my #spookybitch brand.
We kicked things off at a church downtown, and in the two block walk from the train station to the church I saw a classic car show, a memorial service for war dead, a blessing of the animals, a busy (and I think permanent) market, a celebration of Native Californian culture (complete with a solid dance demo), and a very large church's Palm Sunday celebration (complete with stands and stands of folks selling woven palms, hotdogs wrapped in bacon, and ice cream). It was very busy, and very cool, and was the first time in a little while that I've felt that LA is very culturally distinct from where I grew up.
The walking tour covered the indigenous graves still at the church, included a discussion of early Catholic burials, and ended in front of a Catholic church that is itself in front of the earliest Jewish cemetery in town. The gist of the whole talk was that burying people is hard, and the fact that they tended to wind up unburied was a source of some ongoing distress for the early settlement.
We got to hit some fun history (Union Station used to be Chinatown, what is now Chinatown was originally Frenchtown), and I got to eat a completely excellent cheese croissant from a place in Chinatown, and before I ambled back to the train station I stopped at a place I was assuming would be hella expensive but which served me a margarita the size of my head for $10, which seemed reasonable. (The babyfaced waiter was chatting with the folks sitting next to me at the bar about food markets at a particular city in Mexico, and a woman was lamenting giving up tortillas for Lent, and it was nice.)
I'm excited to see more of the city, and to check out more new-to-me art, and happy to live somewhere where the restaurants are a little bit bigger and all have chairs. I look forward to what I'll get up to this weekend, when I'll be touring an art museum I haven't been to before.
Shit to read
This short story about weird Youtube shit is fucking fantastic, go read it now.
I was nourished by reading this stupid interview with a guy wanted to fuck the wedding planner and if you haven't read it, go do so, because there is a gentle reassurance to just hating someone who sucks.
I loved this exploration of what it means to travel without too much luggage, framed against the author's youthful memories of traveling with immigrant parents.
Something that I haven't seen brought up in the #deletefacebook conversation as much as I'd assumed it would be is that Facebook is the internet in huge swaths of the world (Aminatou Sow did raise this on Twitter, it is worth noting). This author highlighted its central role in Native American/First Nations organizing and I think that is something to keep in mind when talking about why "just stop using it" is a pretty shitty response.
Diapers are expensive, our welfare system fucks the poor, and at the end of this excellent longread you can donate to some diaper banks.
I've seen about half the shows covered in this article on the male glance and every single one of them is a fucking treasure. I do think that the author slightly downplays the fact that it's hard to tell if Lena Dunham intentionally made the characters in Girls are kind of awful because she, herself, is publicly pretty awful in the same ways, but also that's mostly something that became clear after the show ended, so. Regardless, the larger point is COMPLETELY true, and I think it pairs really well with Helen Rosner's observations that women are assumed to stumble into shit rather than intentionally doing it in a way that's interesting, given that Rosner is writing about food writing (specifically the truly, weirdly vicious response to her piece on drying a chicken carcass with a hair dryer) and not film.
Shit to eat
Dump four cups of water and two bullion cubes (or four cups of actual broth, if you have it) into a dutch oven or a sauce pan or whatever large cooking vessel you have.
Put it over medium-high, and add some thyme (dried or fresh, you decide!, three cloves garlic (I use pre-minced, because I'm lazy; you could also toss it in there smashed), 4 dry bay leaves, 1/2 teaspoon tarragon, and half a teaspoon coarse sea salt.
Bring it to a boil, and add a cup of lentils. (I used Goya's generic green kind.) Leave it on for 25 minutes or so.
Bring back to a boil, lower the heat so that the mixture is simmering, and crack a lid on it.
In a food processor (YES) or by hand (sure), chop up a red onion.
In a food processor (YES) or with a box grater (ugh), grate a carrot and two radishes.
Using a food processor (woo) or a knife (ugh), dice a tomato (or just take half a cup or drained pre-diced tomatoes from a can if you are me and lazy).
When time is up on the lentils, make sure they're soft, and if they are, drain them. Fish out the bay leaves (and the garlic cloves and fresh herbs, if you used any/didn't mince things).
Toss everything into a big bowl, and mix the lentils in with the vegetables.
In a small bowl, mix 3 Tbsp olive oil and 1 Tbsp of balsamic, or—if you're me—just pour out 4 Tbsp of the balsamic vinitgrette dressing you already have burning a hole in your fridge. Add in a Tbsp of dijon mustard, a Tbsp fresh lemon juice, and a clove of minced garlic (#preminced). Stir everything up, and mix it in with the lentils.
This will make about a week's worth of lunches, if you're me. Eat it cold or warm, put it on fancy lettuce or don't. It's great. Recommend.
(Adapted from Veganomicon's Lentil Salad Everyone Wants)
Shit to watch
Dessa looks super different with long hair! Watch this Tiny Desk Concert, and realize that Dessa has somehow written about every single circumstance under which you are ever going to get dumped, dump someone, or run into an ex. It is truly magical.
Shit to buy
I love the idea of convertible clothing despite owning none of it. Check out this double-sided, reversible travel dress!
I bought a bunch of rug pads last week and it has made a huge difference in how far my robot vacuum is able to shove my rugs, which is a small but definite improvement in my quality of life.
I donated blood at a blood drive put on by one of my favorite podcast hosts this weekend, which was super fun, and a woman there was wearing a great shirt, and I asked her what it was, and it was this one from Madewell, so I've now ordered three.