Theory of the DailyThe domestic and the everyday in literature, history, philosophy, and science.When stuff collides. . .- April 27, 2005 From the Christian Science Monitor, two pieces on integrating approaches to stuff: When consumption runs amok: Welcome to the front lines of Venezuela's new class war. For the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, record oil prices have fed a major surge in consumer spending - and with it, mounds of trash. The trash, in turn, attracts scavengers, some of the estimated 60 percent of Venezuelans mired in poverty. With Caracas's notoriously irregular sanitation services, the capital's littered...http://web.utk.edu/~hwallac2/weblog/2005/04/christian_scien.html More on Food Writing- April 25, 2005 As I mentioned in this entry, I've been doing some thinking about what separates the great from the simply enjoyable food writers. One characteristic I've noted is that some of the best recognize that food isn't always pretty. Food is more than mere pleasure; it's connected to violence, pathos, bathos, and even (perhaps especially) death. One of my favorite pieces by M.F.K. Fisher appears in her Alphabet for Gourmets, in which she is treated to a wretched plastic meal by a man painstakingly,...http://web.utk.edu/~hwallac2/weblog/2005/04/more_on_food_wr.html News of the Daily- April 23, 2005 Via Lifehacker, Jeffery Steingarten tells us to clean our plates:People should be ashamed of the irrational food phobias that keep them from sharing food with each other. Instead, they have become proud and arrogant and aggressively misinformed. But not me. When I donned the heavy mantle of food critic, I sketched out a six-step program to rid myself of all puissant and crippling likes and dislikes. . . . and although you probably already knew life was hard for working mothers, this article...http://web.utk.edu/~hwallac2/weblog/2005/04/news_of_the_dai.html (Untitled)- April 16, 2005 I think I've finally fixed my Movable Type problems. What I've been working on in the meantime: Lessons Learned from John Thorne When I first picked up John Thorne's Outlaw Cook, I wasn't as impressed as I had hoped. It wasn't that the writing wasn't good, or inspirational, or smart--but throughout it all I thought I detected I kind of reverse snobbery, a sort of reveling in having different exclusive standards from everyone else (Steve Jenkins, the "Cheese Maverick" of The Cheese Primer fame.http://web.utk.edu/~hwallac2/weblog/2005/04/i_think_ive_fin.html |