Lack of Fire

Last night, I went to see Julia & Julia while Lance watched District 9. As good as District 9 may be, I am actually not too big a fan of alien movies. And I wasn't really in the mood for an action movie with aliens, so I gathered a couple of ladies, and we went to Julie & Julia instead.

The film was just what I was looking for, though the Julia Child (played dazzlingly by Meryl Streep) far outshone the bits about Julie Powell. Powell's book was far more amusing than her portrayal in the film, perhaps because the Julie in the film was almost too sticky-sweet and doe-eyed for all her claims to bitchiness and perhaps because the Julie in the book swore frequently while drinking gimlets and destroying her kitchen.

All the viewing of cooking got me in the mood to cook, so I decided to make this pie for potluck tomorrow. Go on, click the link. I'll wait.

That's right: a peanut butter, chocolate, banana cream pie. Yum. I expect folks will enjoy it, at least if Lance doesn't try to eat it all with a spoon while simulaneously brandishing that spoon as a weapon to keep others away. I haven't topped it yet, but I'll try to post a photo of how mine turns out.

Anyway, this pie requires a minimal amount of stove and oven use: I did need to bake the pie crust and make the pudding. Our stove, however, has been causing me grief since we moved in, and I haven't even cooked very much.

The pilot lights WON'T STAY LIT.

This lack of fire when I turn the gas to "on" is both disturbing and stressful--and it has led to a few minor meltdowns vaguely reminiscent of Powell's. At first it was because I didn't know how to light the pilots, and now that I do, it is because I want FIRE when I turn the knob to ON. Is that so much to ask, stove? Is it?

Needless to say, I managed to get everything lit (the pilots went out immediately after I lit them the first time). They go out if I use the oven; they go out if I look at them funny; and they go out whenever I want to cook. I've decided that the stove despises me.

Lance plans to e-mail our landlady and spook her with the fact that the stove is GAS and OHMYGOD the pilots won't stay LIT, which means that GAS will be POURING into our house if she doesn't replace the stove IMMEDIATELY. But of course, it'll be way less dramatic and much more subtle. In fact, he'll probably word it such that the terror will come from her own fear of gas and not anything that Lance tells her. He's crafty like that.

Until then, I get to anticipate lighting the damn thing whenever I want to cook, which will be a lot because I need to pickle (or otherwise process) things:

Who Was That Masked Ad?

Newspapers have a great and interesting history. They are cheap and easy to publish and disseminate, so political movements have used them to spread their ideas. Both conservatives and liberals, people with good ideas and crazy make use of the glory of newsprint to get people fired up for change.

But today--in my mailbox I get something that is called "Citizen News Weekly". Sounds like a potential fun, liberal newspaper, right? Ohhh no, it's not. It's a piece of crap Hynudai advertisement that is pretending to be a newspaper. I was neither entertained, convinced of a political ideology, nor amused by this ploy.

I hate advertising sometimes. It takes perfectly legitimate forms of expression (and the conventions associated with those forms) and twists them to catch a potential consumer's attention. I don't like being tricked, or having my own understanding of my culture and society used against me.

What I really hate is how it seems that our energies and impulses toward activism and world change are being absorbed and thwarted by consumerism. We no longer have the same vigor for activism because we're selling our ideas for security, for nice things, for having what we want. And I implicate myself in this--it's easy to go to the Gap and buy a nice pair of jeans without thinking of how little workers in China are getting paid to provide me these comfortable pair of jeans.

I didn't exactly mean to go on an anti-consumerism rant, but it's difficult when you love forms of expression for their rich history, just to see them co-opted by advertising. And I realize that papers are full of advertisements, but this one purposefully set out to trick me into thinking it was an independent paper of the same ilk as our Free Weekly, which is dedicated to the community. It hoped to use my knowledge of that form to convince me I need a new piece of crap car (because that's what Hyundais are). And it kills trees just to tell me something I have no interest in.

I hate advertising.