Mmmm, cookies...

Ginger molasses cookies. Fuck yeah.

2 1/4 cups flour
2 or so tsp ginger
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cloves
1 pinch of salt
1 1/2 sticks of butter (yeah, that's a lot, shut up and do it.)
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 Tbsp water
1/4 molasses (I like the super dark molasses but any kind will do)
more sugar for dipping

1. Eventually you will need to preheat the oven to 350 but you don't acutally have to do that first thing. It's gonna be at least 45 min before you can stick these mounds of yummy fun (not a euphamisim) in the oven.

2. Mix dry stuff. Flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and salt and leave it someplace on the counter that you won't knock it over. (true story)

3. Cream sugar and butter. (ie mix the two together until it's a creamy mixture. If you have a mixer, use it.) Then toss in the egg, then water and molasses. Once that's all mixed, then slowly add the dry stuff.

4. Importante senors y senoritas! Let it set in the fridge for at least 25-30 minutes so that when you do the next thing, the dough isn't stuck to every part of you it touches. You have been warned.

5. Take a chunk, roll in your hand to make a ball, squish to a flat-ish shape. (I like to clap my hands together then simulate the cookie dough squish death.) Then take the happy ginger discus and toss it in a bowl with sugar in it. Coat well. Arrange on cookie sheet.

6. Toss into oven. 8-10 minutes. They will be a bit gooey so let them cool for a bit and they'll firm up.

7. Shovel into mouth.

Or if you live in my house, hide them from a certain someone who is addicted and eats them all before I can shovel them into my mouth. You know who you are.

Happy Hanukkah or whatever is coming up next month! Who cares?! Cookies!

What's passing for romance

The Graduate is not romantic.

It makes me a little crazy that people think it is. People like the American Film Institute. Sorry Dustin Hoffman but you are a stalker and a bit of a bastard. Ok, maybe not Dustin but his character was. Well, maybe Dustin Hoffman is a bastard but I don’t really think so.  This is not a good example on how to win a girl.  Sure, the movie is at it's base about feelings of being lost, loneliness and perhaps, misguided love but so is Fatal Attraction. Both great movies but great romances? Nope.

The Way We Were? I think not. Ill fitted couple who fight constantly because they are obviously not right for one another. He wants the opposite kind of girl that she is and she insufferable, seemingly wanting nothing but to argue. I'm obviously not a fan of this one so I should just shut my hole.

My Fair Lady? Lovely story with fun music (if you’re into that kind of thing) but romantic? Rex Harrison’s character treats her like dirt on his feet, calls her names, dismisses her as if she were a dog. Sure he might come to his senses in the end but if I were Eliza I would run for the hills.

From Here to Eternity? (The one where the couple rolls around in the sand as the waves crash onto them) Burt Lancaster is quiet, brooding and a bit surly. Deborah Kerr is married and bored. She cheats a lot but ‘really loves’ him, unlike all the others. But her husband is leaving and where he goes, she must follow and they are never to meet again. What?

I’m not even going to touch Pretty Woman. Ug.

I’m not saying that none of these are romantic at all, I’m just saying that they are not good examples of a healthy relationships/romances. I know I've touched on this before but while picking up some library books I overheard some girls chatting about some new chic flick that came out and it ruffled my feathers that such shlock could be considered romance.

Ok you picky bitch, you’re saying, give me a good example! I’ll let “Girls with Slingshots” answer that one. Click it, you know you want to...

When I think of one, I’ll let you know.

Buster Keaton - One hot piece of ass

His name was Buster and he was amazing.

Actually, his name was Joseph. And statistically, 85% of you have no idea who he is. (I'm totally making that up, but you get the idea.) I think more people are familiar with Charlie Chaplin and many people compare the two but they are very different performers. Both important film pioneers, actors, directors but Keaton is sorely under appreciated.

He was born into show business, actually traveling with Houdini during the vaudeville years. When he was a small child, the family shtick was tossing little Buster into the scenery, offstage and even into the audience. The kid was indestructible. They had a decent run of things until Joe Keaton, his father, managed to break up the troupe (ie the family) with his horrible drinking.

He easily transitioned into film, he started pairing with Fatty Arbuckle (more on him some other post) in two reel shorts and began to branch off on his own. He did his own stunts, even breaking his neck once when a water tank full of water dumped onto him. He didn't realize it until later. The man was indestructible.

Unfortunately, like many silent film stars, this does not end well. Bankruptcy, divorce and, shudder, Beach Blanket Bingo. No joke. The studios screwed him over and over again and continuously was overlooked by those who should have been giving him wheel barrels full of money to make movies. He did continue to work but always below what he thought he should be doing. In Limelight, one of Chaplin's last films, he woefully looks at Chaplin and says "I never thought we'd come to this." That pretty much sums it up. Buster Keaton died of lung cancer in 1965. He wasn't totally indestructible afterall.

So why tell you this sad story? You have to know this man, if not for his amazing skills as a director, actor, stuntman, or the films he has left behind, then for the fact that he was one hell of a physical specimen. This was brought to my attention by Bangable Dudes in History, which I totally recommend you all check out. (there are bangable dames too, fellas.) Historical hotness is the best kind of hotness.

So get your ass on netflix and watch 7 chances or The Navigator on instant and enjoy his comic genius and adorableness.

Check out more info on this incredible performer and dead sexy man here:

http://findadeath.com/Deceased/k/Buster%20Keaton/buster_keaton.htm
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/2002/great-directors/keaton/
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1004.html

Let's get drunk and craft, bitches!

You're not supposed to drink alone.

You're also not supposed to get naked and cook bacon either but that never stopped me. The grease burns are worth it.

The Mad Scientist was away for the week at a conference so I found myself alone, bored and stuck with prime time gems like CSI: Sheboygan and My Dad's A Stupid S*#! or whatever. What's a girl to do?

Well, she slaps in Tangled, drinks an entire bottle of wine while singing along to the movie and crafts Star Wars characters out of perler beads.

Best night ever.

Futurism, objectivity, and the scorn for women.

In 1909, Founder of the Futurism art movement summed up the objectives as "We will glorify war - the world's only hygiene - militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom-bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for and scorn for women."

Not a good way to win this girl over.

I do so enjoy the art that this movement but it was, obviously, a movement full of men. (not totally; Natalia Goncharova was a prominent painter on the scene at the time.) It sounds good in the beginning. An art movement that embraces technology that was gaining speed at the turn of the century. Not just technology but change, media, and how it shapes our little lives.

But as it became engrossed in politics, and some of the artists embracing fascism and war (not too surprising since the movement started in Italy 1909), my feelings start to turn a little sour. I love the sense that I get from some the works, invoking the sensations of the world’s first big cosmopolitan cities. Beautiful light, color and always interesting movement. And because of Futurism movement, Art Deco was born, for which I will forever be grateful.

So the real question is, can you still love the art when the original intention of the art (or the artist) is something you are fundamentally against?

Can you like a painting by a serial killer? Or a member of the KKK? Hitler was a painter…

Can you look objectively?