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I’ve realised how few of my other cake projects are on here, so I’m adding the Hitchcakes: Two Hitchcock themed cakes. ‘The Lady Vanishes’ was a blackberry and raspberry lime drizzle cake. Jess and I created it in honor of the keynote speaker at the Graduate conference I was part of organising. The second is a ‘The Birds’ cake for my friend Catherine’s birthday. I almost went insane while making this cake. Tying kebab sticks together with dental floss is not my favourite activity. (The cake underneath is classic sticky ginger. Both the recipes can be found in the BBC goodfood cakes and bakes, a most reliable book!)
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People usually give up stuff for Lent, right? Like cigarettes, alcohol, or being bitchy etc. Well, I don’t smoke, and I can’t afford to become an alcoholic, and I.. well let’s say nothing about the last one. I don’t actually have any serious expensive health damaging vices, apart from a mother who bakes too much cake. Therefore for Lent I have devised a series of challenges to improve myself:
By the end of Lent I will have:
- Finish Midnight’s Children which I have been reading FOREVER.
- Read all 37 plays officially recognized as having been written by Shakespeare.
- Written and redrafted four short stories/short radio plays/short plays. (These can be rubbish.)
- Made one dress. (This cannot be rubbish.)
- Seen at least two pieces of Theatre per week. (This week will be Centralia at the Wardrobe Theatre and The Table at the Tobacco Factory Theatre.)
- Read seven non-Shakespeare plays.
- Watched all of the films that I have borrowed off friends and need to give back, i.e. Dark Days, Audition, Bad Lieutenant, that Nanni Moretti film Kwojo lent me and so on.
- Made seven of the best veggie burgers in the world from the book on said topic. Which means finding some ridiculous ingredients. Get over it!
Signed,
Steph
On a less pious note things I am looking forward to in March are…
…A Blitz Party!
…making a cake for The Alternative Miss Bristol (look on facebook for it), I will be creating a drag queen Isembard Kingdom Brunel, complete with candyfloss sideburns.
Finally I want to share with you the last cake I created:
The American Beauty inspired George Monbiot cake:
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I just watched the film ‘Julie and Julia’. I think it was supposed to inspire me. Instead it made me want to drown myself in chocolate sauce. Not metaphorically. Rather I fancied the sugary death supplied by that particular foodstuff, as it seemed appropriate at the time.
Julie and Julia, judging by the cheerful front cover art and ‘hot pink’ DVD case promised a ‘FEELGOOD’ experience. Instead I was struck by the constant carnality of those involved. They were always fucking or eating. Underpinning this montage of fucking and eating (in the pretense of finding one’s self) was the terrible postmodern fear that nothing new can ever be achieved. Harold Bloom is stood behind the camera laughing manically, if you listen hard you’ll hear it hidden in the sound of Julie and Julia’s frantic whisking.
Instead of resolution and some kind of ‘MY MOTHER FINALLY APPROVES OF ME’ ending, we are told that Julia (The woman who wrote the book which inspired the blog, or is the other way around?) ‘hates’ the blog based on her book. They dismiss her as an old woman who probably doesn’t understand new-fangled technology. Julie and her husband decide it’s better never to meet the woman who brought Julie through the crisis of turning thirty. Julia (JULIE?) will always be in her head as a perfect motherly being.
Moral of the story ‘STUFF IS BETTER IN YOUR HEAD SO DON’T ATTEMPT TO WIN APPROVAL, CAUSE INEVITABLY YOU’LL NEVER BE GOOD OR ORIGINAL. JUST GO EAT BUTTER AND HAVE SOME SEX. YES?’
Perhaps actually quite a unusual moral for Hollywood RomComoftheSelf. (<—Look at that Harold Bloom, I just created a new genre to describe narcissistic films like Julie and Julia)
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As mentioned in an earlier post I am now in Cornwall doing some research for my dissertation and volunteering again with Kneehigh Theatre Company. Last night I saw most of The Wild Bride, their new show which is playing for the next week and half at the Asylum in Cornwall and will be touring the UK afterwards. It was an absolutely beautiful and incredible show, and I’d totally recommend it.
In other news:
A friend of mine has started a website which encourages illustrators to submit pictures to accompany the text of Borges’ The Book of Imaginary Beings, which offers illustrators the chance to exhibit their work and help charities in Oxford.
http://borgesproject.moonfruit.com/#
Finally, a clip from Tales of Hoffman (Powell and Pressburger, 1951)
Oooh isn’t it odd?
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Research has begun on a devised show called ‘Jokes About Ovaries’, and to celebrate the attitude within the show we have begun a blog in order to share our research with the world.
http://jokesaboutovaries.wordpress.com/
Please check back for updates on how the show is going, and interesting facts about ovaries. And jokes. Jokes. About. Ovaries. We will find some. I promise. Here is a video of Garfunkel and Oates to celebrate:
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Due to my current location in York I haven’t been able to get down to see the new Kneehigh shows, however I’m planning a two week ‘research’ trip to Cornwall, during which I will be volunteering again. The shows are looking brilliant, and every time I run into a review or a video link I feel terribly sad I’m sat in library and not in a giant tent.
The Wild Bride
Midnight’s Pumpkin
Midnight’s Pumpkin in The Asylum
The Asylum in the Mist
The shows are getting great reviews from the press, and they’ve got the tent up near Truro in Cornwall. I’m a little bit overexcited.
There are also a selection of Anna Murphy’s stories appearing on Youtube to beautifully edited footage of Cornwall. Here’s the newest:
That’s right, it may be late (in both the time of night and for new years) but I’ve got my resolution. Perhaps not drinking rum ever again would have been a good one, or last years one could have been carried over (to eat more slowly), but this year is going to be different.
I am giving up the exclamation mark.
That’s right kids. It’s going. The punctuation mark that I use above all others. You see, somewhere in my youth when I had a livejournal account I decided that exclamation marks made text sound lively and enthusiastic. However, the other day I found this old online diary, and upon reading it began to hate my younger self. The tone was dreadful…. here is an extract:
I want an a* in english!!!!! I need one!!!! Why am i so englishly challenged?!!!! My teacher is really getting me down, I have a the urge to blame it all on her.. but its probably me. NEVERMIND! Oh ooh oooh!!! I might be going to see the dead Kennedys, no idea who they are BUT WHO CARES! I am going with maryam and Russell told me that he would be there and he was going. Hes so lovely! He used to so so soooo quiet never saying more than a couple of words, but now he chats to me endlessly! tis great! Well until he quits skating.
That was from 2004, I was sixteen. I was extremely annoying. And who the hell was Russell? Apart from confusion about who all these different men were that I used to have a crush on, as well as the awful grammar and spelling, the ‘fangirl’ style use of exclamation marks is possibly the most horrific feature of this diary entry. Thus, in the days that followed, a heightened awareness of this symbol occurred, and I realised maybe I hadn’t changed that much..? Maybe I was still that awful sixteen year old girl that had few friends and spent much of her time online chatting on forums? Maybe I was a loser…?
Before I could have some kind of life crisis, I placated myself that somethings had changed. I had been in a successful relationship, I did have many friends now, and the amount of time I spent talking on forums to people about Lord of the Rings had reduced to zero. However, that pesky exclamation mark had gone viral: it was in my texts, my emails, it even sounded like I was silently punctuating them on the end of my speech. It had got to the point where full-stops sounded so lifeless and dull that I felt obliged to exclaim everything. Like a seaman slips into cursing, I had slipped into the land of the exclamation mark. The written equivalent of shouting in someone’s face.
But it’s ok. I’ve changed. They’re gone as you may have noticed. This is going to be hard year, but I’m hoping I can manage to survive the exclamatory drought (Otherwise I might have to sign right back up to that LOTR forum and start *droooling* over Awlandough Bwoom).
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Guten Morgan.
Just to let you know I’m still alive. I’ve been in a bit of an odd place, fortunately I got sick of it. Things have been in flux lately, and I’ve been pretty against any kind of flux. There’s been a lot of weeping, but I am and always will be a weeper. My mother often told me so: ‘Stephanie, stop weeping! It doesn’t help.’ Therefore I’ve turned off the Bizali ‘Dance Yourself Alone’ album that makes me cry, taken a break from listening to Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, finished the Wire and started watching True Blood and lots of new films. I’m also doing a placement with Kneehigh Theatre company. The last two days I’ve spent mostly in my car putting up posters round Cornwall. Newquay, Redruth, Truro, Camborne, Falmouth, St. Austell. All have been postered the hell out of. Here is the nicest one:
I’ve actually really enjoyed exploring these places and talking to cafe, pub, church, restaurant and shop owners. Generally everyone’s been really lovely and happy to accomodate a poster. Thank god I’m not postering for something that people don’t like. Like piano untuning, badger saving, the banning of eggs from society.
I no longer have a university library account. I feel a bit lost. Times are hard. But it’s ok. I’m utilising the internet in all it’s legal glory. Here are two recomendations:
The White Ribbon. See it. It’s intense, long and great. However in my mind it’s become a black and white german version of Midsomer Murders, minus DCI Barnaby.
Dan in Real Life. An unusual take on a classic broken family storyline: it manages to combine elements you’re familiar with in a new way with engaging characters to create moving film about a stubborn widower falling in love. Much better than ‘The Family Stone’ or any of that genre that I’ve come across.
In other news… I may fly to exotic New York in September for a week, but while I’m out there I will probably see a British show. It wasn’t planned. I just happen to be out there at the same time as the show is. In case you are also flying to New York in September, October, November, December time here is a link: http://www.roundabouttheatre.org/54/ It’s for Kneehigh’s production Brief Encounter. I’ve only heard good things, but I’ll fill you in on my (vague, overly biased) opinion in September.
I went to the theatre by myself this evening. It was a Cornish show which a fellow intern at Kneehigh is working on. It is called ‘Deception’ and it’s touring round Cornwall, well worth a watch.
I will do some creative writing soon. I’ve done some but it’d be this:
Geddit?
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I got a first class honours from my degree this week. It’s taking a while to sink in because I was not expecting it at all, but it was a wonderful surprise. These past few weeks have been absolutely exhausting so I’m looking forward to having some time off next weekend.
Today I officially chose an offer for my MA next year. York! I’m doing an English MA there next year, which looks really exciting and fun. Pretty scared by it but fingers crossed everyone will be nice! I got a great grade on my Cancer book for children which I posted up here, and I’ll be pursuing that in the near future.
I’ll be doing volunteering with Kneehigh for 5 weeks July/August on their Asylum project, and some archiving experience in the Cornish Theatre archive simultaneously. Then in September I’m planning a trip to New York, which I will be flat broke for! Hopefully I can time it so I can see some good gigs. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Looking forward to seeing Inception….
