Archive for November, 2010

I read Nabokov’s fourth novel this past weekend (and quite quickly—it’s a novella) and the connective tissue bonding his Russian works is starting to become manifest. In Mary we were introduced to the Russian emigré crowd; in King, Queen, Knave: grotesque love and the faulty sense of self-worth; in The Luzhin Defense the obsessive swapping of reality with dream-state. The Eye pulls in pieces of all these themes and toys around with a few more, not the least of which is the nature of our existence and a personality as refractive of the perceptions of those around it.

That is, can we ever know ourselves—can we ever exist?—as, really, all we are all, as Luzhin contemplates in The Defense: “…as in two mirrors reflecting a candle…only a vista of converging lights…” Luzhin here, too, realizes to some degree that we may all just be the incomplete sum of all of our own reflections off of others’ beliefs of us.

I’m totally blown away by this photograph that David took through his 6-inch 8-inch Newtonian telescope the other night during an icy, full November moon. The air was quite clear and the shutter speed fast (1/180), well-exposed such that I was able to pull out lovely detail during post-processing. Well done, Mr. Pencil!

Unlovable, flabby Luzhin has lost his mind, unfortunately right in the middle of a paramount chess match against another reigning international champion. Leaving the game at a cliffhanger, the forename-less Russian prodigy waddles off into the Berlin night, where he will ultimately collapse on a curb in an emotional fugue and, for some time, cease to exist.

Nabokov’s third novel, a Russian-German mash of European humanity between the wars, is a heavy tale of fate and obsession. Here Nabokov sheds most of the charming, naive elements of his earlier books, instead giving glimpses of the headstrong and flawlessly self-confident literary powerhouse that he would continue to display for the next half century.

Jupiter has been taunting, bright in middle of the southern sky for—what? months now?—from our latitude. Only the moon and Venus can hold a candle to its magnitude, and Venus is off being coy somewhere below the horizon. So there is a bold Jovian dot up there, and we’ve been pointing David’s telescope at it. And trying to attach cameras to it. With mixed success.

In honor of our feeble attempts, here is Jupiter week! Each day a little snippet of astronomical wonder about the biggest planet we’ve got.

It behooves one to have some food constructs up one’s sleeve that one can pull out at will and riff on: recipes that allow for variations on a theme, often more of a narrative than a list of ingredients and instructions for their combination. Such is the case for what I’ll here call sour cabbage soup.

What I’m going to tell you about here was at one time based on a variant of Schchi, a Russian cabbage soup that, in Cyrillic, only has two letters (yep, there’s a single letter for “shch”). Most Americans likely think that Russian classic soup starts and ends at borscht, but I say, Not so! Not so!

Stockpot image from www.cooksandkitchens.co.uk

Jupiter has been taunting, bright in middle of the southern sky for—what? months now?—from our latitude. Only the moon and Venus can hold a candle to its magnitude, and Venus is off being coy somewhere below the horizon. So there is a bold Jovian dot up there, and we’ve been pointing David’s telescope at it. And trying to attach cameras to it. With mixed success.

In honor of our feeble attempts, here is Jupiter week! Each day a little snippet of astronomical wonder about the biggest planet we’ve got.

Every two weeks, my lovely assistant David has to inject me with a medicine, Humira (Adalimumab), using a “pen” (euphemistic) thoroughly engineered for consumer use. It’s a grey and plum cylinder about six inches long and a half an inch in diameter; it feels chunky and comfortable to hold, kind of like on of those felt-tipped markers for toddlers.

But it’s not a toy. It hurts, and can really hurt at times. Here’s some things we’ve learned to make the experience a more pleasant one.

Jupiter has been taunting, bright in middle of the southern sky for—what? months now?—from our latitude. Only the moon and Venus can hold a candle to its magnitude, and Venus is off being coy somewhere below the horizon. So there is a bold Jovian dot up there, and we’ve been pointing David’s telescope at it. And trying to attach cameras to it. With mixed success.

In honor of our feeble attempts, here is Jupiter week! Each day a little snippet of astronomical wonder about the biggest planet we’ve got.

Jupiter has been taunting, bright in middle of the southern sky for—what? months now?—from our latitude. Only the moon and Venus can hold a candle to its magnitude, and Venus is off being coy somewhere below the horizon. So there is a bold Jovian dot up there, and we’ve been pointing David’s telescope at it. And trying to attach cameras to it. With mixed success.

In honor of our feeble attempts, here is Jupiter week! Each day a little snippet of astronomical wonder about the biggest planet we’ve got.

Jupiter has been taunting, bright in middle of the southern sky for—what? months now?—from our latitude. Only the moon and Venus can hold a candle to its magnitude, and Venus is off being coy somewhere below the horizon. So there is a bold Jovian dot up there, and we’ve been pointing David’s telescope at it. And trying to attach cameras to it. With mixed success.

In honor of our feeble attempts, here is Jupiter week! Each day a little snippet of astronomical wonder about the biggest planet we’ve got.