Italy is changing — have spotted another Italian having an after 6 cappuccino #Italy #News

— News from Italy (@newsfromitaly) February 9, 2012

This is what happens when you turn your government over to a gaudy prima donna whose contempt for civility is only surpassed by his own self-interest — the whole goddamn system falls apart.

DINGO BABIES!

by Regina Small

To start: let’s not get it twisted, I love fantasy author and Time book critic Lev Grossman. Love. (When “we” (I) write on the Internet, cool detachment and a superior attitude are practically policy, but let’s not do that today. Okay?) Grossman is a smart man who consistently says smart things. Overwhelmed by the glut of flatly declarative “this sucks I hated it” reviews that populate Amazon and Goodreads, he argued yesterday for a clearer, better articulated standard of determining literary merit. This is definitely not a terrible idea. And Grossman is also diplomatic about how your love of terrible books is real and valid and you’re entitled to it. So what is the problem? Well, this is part of it:

I only bring it up now because I actually think that before the Internet it used to be easier to operate as if all this weren’t the case. It was easier to pretend that literary judgments were stable and universal. Before the Internet opinions about books were a relatively scarce commodity in our culture, and they came from a relatively small group of sources. We didn’t have access to hot and cold running book reviews twenty-four seven, and therefore we weren’t exposed to millions and millions of passionately held, diametrically opposed opinions about books. The wild diversity of readerly responses was not all up in your grill all the time. You went to school, and somebody told you that The Great Gatsby was a masterpiece, and if you didn’t like it, well, something was wrong with you, not it.

First, I would argue that if you are a high school student who is reading The Great Gatsby (who else is reading The Great Gatsby?) there is, in an academic environment, plenty of side-eye given if you say “this is boring.” There is no lack of negative reinforcement — in academia, in literary circles and on the Internet — when you hate on a classic piece of literature, especially if it’s just because you lack the intellectual fortitude to spend the limited time you have on this earth reading something that bores you. How pedestrian.

But even though Grossman concedes that the pre-Amazon days were oppressive, there is still, even in his measured critique of our book-reviewing problems, the quiet implication that we don’t (or shouldn’t) merely say “I didn’t like this book and here’s why…” or “this book is an artistic triumph and here’s why…” but that those reviews should function as a (sometimes preemptive) response to other contradictory reviews. It’s unclear as to whether Grossman is saying “What is a good book even?” or whether he’s just calling for specificity in Telling You About Your Wrongness. Would you value and a appreciate a one-star Amazon review of your favorite novel that went into depth about poor plotting, characterization and overreliance on cheap narrative gimmicks, like how all the characters we’re following are connected in multiple ways totally unknown to them? (I don’t need this last plot device to die in a fire, but maybe one of you could approach it as it slumbers and gently smother it? Unless that narrative trick strikes a chord with you. Then don’t.) Maybe? But probably not? Art touches both hearts and minds, sometimes in ways that are ultimately unknowable. I am sometimes emotionally undone by an insightful sentence in a mediocre novel. That very personal, idiosyncratic experience might generate enough goodwill to make me want to defend that book as worthy. It happens.

It is impossible for criticism of a particular work to exist in a vacuum, to exist apart from your opinions and my opinions. A book is released and we — you, me, Lev Grossman, whoever reads it — enter into a dialogue. In my humble estimation, the most productive criticism, whether it comes from James Wood or SkarsgardLuvr53, is illuminating without being didactic. It’s a talking-with, not a talking-to. Does the existence of this dialogue lead us back to a deep existential fear that MY idea of blue is different from YOUR idea of blue and oh god nothing is really real, is it? etc.? AND HOW! Grossman sort of touches on that here:

It’s liberating in some ways, but it’s also a difficult thing to admit. The idea of some kind of objectively constant, universal literary value is seductive. It feels real. It feels like a stone cold fact that In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust, is better than A Shore Thing, by Snooki. And it may be; Snooki definitely has more one-star reviews on Amazon. But if literary value is real, no one seems to be able to locate it or define it very well. We’re increasingly adrift in a grey void of aesthetic relativism.

I think Grossman’s fear (not to overstate it) of “aesthetic relativism” is more accurately an articulation of an overwhelming need for confirmation that our thoughts are reflective of a world that actually exists. The intersection of literature and philosophy: so tricky! A philosophy professor I respected and admired once told me that “most literature contains bad philosophy.” (I did not retort “most philosophy contains bad philosophy,” mostly because it took me years to come up with that zinger. Worth it!) I still don’t know that I agree with him, but I’m not entirely sure that we can solve the problem of solipsism through literary criticism. I say that totally unsassily. I don’t disapprove of Grossman’s suggestion that we should talk more about WHY we like or dislike a certain book, but any specific standards we (literary critics? Amazon reviewers? all people who read?) develop definitely could easily be manipulated to justify Why I Love This Book and You Should, Too. So maybe rather than fear the grey void of aesthetic relativism, we should just jump into it? Steer into the skid! Embrace the chaos of democratic expression! The worst that can happen is that you feel a little unsteady, your ideas are challenged (“Is A Shore Thing really the ‘bangin’est book fir real’? Is this tenth most-helpful Amazon review right? Could I have gotten it wrong?”) and either you change your mind or you don’t. But you get to keep talking and so does everyone else — and if there is any way to transcend the crippling fear that you are but a tiny, isolated transient bit of consciousness, the first step might be the weird decision to accept that…you are a tiny, isolated transient bit of consciousness, who needs to hear the plaintive one-star cries of all those people who might be/definitely are/definitely aren’t wrong.

Is this blurry image, which almost certainly shows a bear loping through a river while carrying a fish, proof that the woolly mammoth still exists? Sure, why the hell not.

IMHOOF: I came to Queenstown on a snowboarding trip. I’d been living in Hawaii, surfing.
HAY: This guy from Hawaii came by and started chatting with us. He said, “I’d like to go down the river on my body board.” We said, “We do that all the time.”
IMHOOF: The rafting guides suggested the Kawarau River. I found that body boards work well. I called it river surfing, since we could surf waves.
HAY: It’s called riverboarding. I did it well before he did.
IMHOOF: The whole “who was first” argument? Some guy in Africa 100,000 years ago was probably struggling for his life in a flood and he grabbed a tree branch, and he floated down the river and he survived, and maybe he thought, “Wow, that was fun.” So, I mean, who was first? You had that guy in Africa, whoever he was, 100,000 years ago.

— Giving credit where credit’s due, in the oral history of extreme sports!

“The Occupy movement was smart in not formulating an explicit program, as I’ve said in other interviews. Once you issue a list of demands in the dominant media-political discourse you then get pigeonholed as an interest group. Then it becomes a question of ‘what do the Occupy people want?’ And ‘will they be satisfied by x?’ You saw that even in the media headlines of the Obama birther movement — which was insane — but after the White House released Obama’s long form birth certificate, which in evidentiary ways should close all arguments, the media came back and said, ‘Will this satisfy the birthers?’ That’s not the question. Who the fuck cares? These people are crazy. But that is how everything is kept boxed in, in the way our media culture describes our politics.”

by Jennifer Jerutis

As we settle into the long, cold, dark days that come with the final slog through winter, we — your pals from The Awl and The Hairpin — will be bringing you some of our favorite casserole recipes (and crockery recommendations).

I’m from Minnesota — the land of Paul Bunyan, Babe the Blue Ox, the Coen brothers, Bob Dylan, a gas station designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, the US Hockey Hall of Fame, a boatload of lakes and Prince. This is a place where dinner is often called ‘supper’ and the casserole is known as a ‘hotdish.’

Many a hotdish has been served at my family table many times, with many recipes calling for the omnipresent cream-of-something soup. But hotdish is not just for dinner — er, supper. It can also occupy an esteemed place at the breakfast table. Am I about to wax poetic about an egg casserole? You betcha!

Quiches. Stratas. Frittatas. Tortilla españolas. Like the dumpling, the egg casserole has been re-invented many different ways. This Midwestern version is hearty, delicious and super-comforting. It also meets the requirements for a successful breakfast hotdish, Minnesota style. It can be assembled the night before meaning no preparation the day of and, of course, it cooks in one pan. You don’t need to serve anything with it. Bread? In the casserole, Meat? In the casserole. Fruit? Okay, pour some OJ. The only “chopping” involved is cutting up the white bread. Not an onion nor clove of garlic involved. All flavoring comes from the “spicy” Jimmy Dean sausage and dried mustard. Throw in eggs, milk and cheddar cheese. There you go.

I was a picky eater as a kid, but I still have fond memories of this dish — my mom would serve it Thanksgiving and Christmas mornings or any time extended family came to visit for the weekend. My dad, however, was never a fan, as he became the family gourmet when I was a teenager and cooked like a person who never had to wash a dish (that’s what his children were for, after all).

I’ve since moved away from Minnesota, and lived in San Francisco and New York, where I’ve been exposed to many wonderful and diverse foods, yet I still love this egg casserole. Here’s how you make it .

Breakfast Hotdish

1 ½ lbs bulk pork sausage
9 eggs slightly beaten
3 cups milk
1 ½ tsp. dry mustard
1 tsp. salt
3 slices bread cut into ¼-inch cubes
1 ½ cups grated cheddar cheese

Brown and crumble sausage and drain well. Mix eggs, milk and seasoning. Stir in bread, sausage and cheese. Pour into a 13×9 inch pan. Refrigerate covered overnight. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for one hour. Insert knife in center to test for doneness.

You can mix it up. I’ve had egg hotdish with Bac-Os (a little chewy), and when my grandmother passed away, family friends brought over their version of egg hotdish, which included a topping of crushed potato chips. Because nothing says sorry for your loss like greasy, processed junk food served at breakfast. Who says Midwesterners can’t express their feelings?

Previously: Chicken Mushroom Casserole For The Lazy Snob

Jennifer Jerutis is a Midwesterner who traded her Velveeta for burrata.

“Any artist with a surplus of material would be advised to save it for the deluxe reissue or website giveaways. But, though it began as a quirk of formatting and became an often cynical marketing ploy, for more than 40 years the B-side could also be a way of thinking about music: a parallel universe of creativity.” (The Pet Shop Boys B-side included in this article is totally new to me, and actually really good, make sure to give it a listen.)

Gerhard Richter, who it says here is our greatest living artist, turns 80 today. Here are some thoughts on his recent retrospective at the Tate Modern and here’s a fascinating article on the early works that he destroyed.

“In this remote corner of Cuba that is better known as a lab for Pentagon justice and interrogation, the U.S. Navy has been quietly engaging in more low-profile offshore experimentation — seeking environmentally friendly alternatives to reduce its whopping $100,000-a-day fossil fuel dependence.”
 — I hope they’re making all the unconstitutionally detained prisoners make their own natural soaps!