Junk information

There's a lot that's been written lately about how much information is available to us through the internet and out in the world. It seems as though people are overstimulated and yet somehow uninspired, almost stifled by the options available. Calvin's dad once had a fit about the wide variety of peanut butters available in the grocery store. It's kind of like that. 

So there are tweets and Facebook posts at the bottom of it, meaningless snippets, but capable of sucking away half a person's day. One level up are blogs, newspaper articles (online or not) and magazines. While these are slightly more in depth discussions or examinations of a topic, a couple of pages are most often not sufficient for true thoroughness. A really well written article can, however, inspire further investigation on the part of a reader by prodding their curiosity and providing a vivid window into the subject.

Here are some bits and pieces of associated information that I've pulled together here. My favourite is a quotation from a professor Aitken, who I referenced in my thesis on childhood memory a few years ago. Aitken suggests that the best way to understand or memorize something is to love and care about it first and seek meaning in it, giving yourself context and motivation for information retention, as well as a more complex understanding of the subject through muti-layered assimilation. 

"The thing to do is to learn by heart, not because one has to, but because one loves the thing and is interested in it." -Professor Alexander Craig Aitken (Ian M.L. Hunter, “An Exceptional Memory,” In Memory Observed: Remembering in Natural Contexts, ed. Ulric Neisser (New York: Worth Publishers, 2000), 515.) 

And on the subject of tidbits versus comprehensive:

Many of us worry about a decline in deep, reflective, cover-to-cover reading. We deplore the shift to blogs, snippets, and tweets. In the case of research, we might concede that word searches have advantages, but we refuse to believe that they can lead to the kind of understanding that comes with the continuous study of an entire book. Is it true, however, that deep reading has declined, or even that it always prevailed? Studies by Kevin Sharpe, Lisa Jardine, and Anthony Grafton have proven that humanists in the 16th and 17th centuries often read discontinuously, searching for passages that could be used in the cut and thrust of rhetorical battles at court, or for nuggets of wisdom that could be copied into commonplace books and consulted out of context. - Robert Darnton, "Five myths about the 'Information Age" The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 17, 2011.

Lastly, some associated bits on multitasking, technology and focus from NYTimes and elsewhere can be found starting with this here blog post.


Photo from Capitol Hill Books, winter 2011. Not junk information?

Quotations, photos and ponderings, all. at. once.

    "You can live a lifetime and, at the end of it, know more about other people than you know about yourself. You learn to watch other people, but you never watch yourself because you strive against loneliness. If you read a book, or shuffle a deck of cards, or care for a dog, you are avoiding yourself. The abhorrence of loneliness is as natural as wanting to live at all. If it were otherwise, men would never have bothered to make an alphabet, nor to have fashioned words out of what were only animal sounds, nor to have crossed continents — each man to see what the other looked like. 

     Being alone in an aeroplane for even so short a time as a night and a day, irrevocably alone, with nothing to observe but your instruments and you own hands in semi-darkness, nothing to contemplate but the size of your small courage, nothing to wonder about but the beliefs, the faces and the hopes rooted in your mind — such an experience can be as startling as the first awareness of a stranger walking by your side at night. You are the stranger."

  Beryl Markham, West with the Night.

I already posted a passage from West with the Night, but since that was specifically relevant to the airplane post, here's a little more about the book itself: Generally, West with the Night is a ruminative, verbose, sweeping memoir that covers three notably distinct parts of Markham's life. After writing herself into the narrative, she takes the reader through her childhood, hunting lion with African locals, to leaving home and training race-horses, and finally to her career as a freelance pilot. 

So much of the book draws its strength from descriptions of people and places that the silence felt in the above passage is as startling to the reader as it is to Markham. The change from lengthy, illustrative passages about the African landscape and the characters who occupy it to the breathless and fleeting few paragraphs articulating her personal experience of flight parallels her assertion about loneliness. Most everything we do in our day-to-day lives is engineered to keep us from noticing that we are really very alone in the world, thus we keep self-awareness to a minimum in the interest of maintaining sanity. Even when physically alone, humans go to great lengths to avoid confronting themselves, whether by immersion in external stimuli, abuse of a substance, or simply by locking away their thoughts in a mental prison and living in denial of themselves. 

In conclusion, but not really to conclude this ongoing train of thought, West with the Night was an inspiring memoir not just in terms of tangible accomplishments and admirable writing, but in the additions Markham's personal philosophy made to my own modus operandi. Someday, I hope to meet myself.

Photo is of the Potomac River near Theodore Roosevelt Island, April 15, 2011.

Into forever

There are two categories within the spectrum of the noises of man: primary and secondary. The primary are mostly found during the day, when the sun is out, and children are running and yelling, couples are talking idly over lunch, businessmen are debating over cell phones and conference tables.

The secondary are found at night, in the darkness and calm of the empty air. These are the sounds of what man has made, the hum of cars on the highway, the clatter of a train over the tracks, the hum of the metro cars, lit from within, boxes of light passing through the wastes of the night, the purr of jet engines idling on the runway, the roar of planes braking as they touch their tiny wheels to the ground (their true purpose is obvious in the disproportionality of these wheels).

One can feel part of the world when invisible and flying through the darkness, outside the machines and jets and buildings, the well-lit havens of humanity, isolated from the boundless darkness. The warm spring air is heady, and no matter how deeply each breath is drawn the lungs hunger for more.

The bicycle wheels turn frenetically under me as I soar over roads and paths, through the darkness, dodging cars and dips in the road, the gentle whir of gears the only indication of human presence. My muscles know no bounds in this darkness and in this air, thick with dreams from the somnolent crowds of the Earth, if I close my eyes and lift my arms, I might just become one with the clouds, the few pinpricks of light and the three-quarter moon casting shadows between streetlights. My soul grows in this night, spreading a disproportionate wingspan, fueled by all that I have yet to know, and growing beyond reasonable measure.

EDIT 4/16: I'm leaving this post up as an example of the writing process, but it needs some serious editing and revising before I'd be anything like happy with it. As it stands, it's simply representative of some thoughts from the other night, quickly scribbled and thrown to the masses (who have, thank goodness, largely ignored me). Also, those light blips across the airport sky in the photo are a plane taking off, not a random aberration. 

Photo post: What happens when I get bored on Sunday afternoon

• I weed. I weed books, I weed clothes, I weed my life. The result is usually a bag of little-used odds and ends that winds up in my parents' house until I see fit to sort through it all (sorry about that). More to the point, weeding also results in realising that 75% of my jackets are corduroy.

• I clean and dust maniacally, including inside things, which leads back to #1, there. This week my small collection of [also little-used] makeup fell victim to my boredom. And then so did my face. Disclaimer: the most makeup I ever wear is mascara, and I have no clue what I'm doing otherwise. 

• I ponder crafty things. Aside from the long list of half-finished projects and box o' mending I've been avoiding (despite having hauled my sewing machine over here) I recently acquired some little green wool balls. There was a big tub of multi-coloured wool balls at Eastern Market a while back when I went with Wortklauberlein, and I fished out some in my favourite colour. Anyone have ideas as to what I should do with them? I was thinking poms for something scarf-like. There are 10.

...I flew a plane?

Looks like I neglected to post anything for an entire month despite the pile of saved drafts I have going here. eh heh.

A few years back I made a quick list of Life Goals for myself. Being in college at the time, they were pretty basic things: live in one place for more than four months (e.g. not a dorm), learn basic car maintenance, learn to fly an airplane.

Last Friday I made a step the right direction and took the pilot's seat in a Cessna 172 for a 30 minute flight over Gaithersburg, MD. Ok, I didn't entirely fly the plane, but it was pretty gosh darn exciting (and a little terrifying) to be steering a dinky aircraft at 2500 feet. The best part was takeoff. My co-pilot/instructor handled the throttle and details, while I pulled back on the yoke and actually got the plane off the ground. Causing yourself to suddenly become airborne is distinctly thrilling.

Anyway, as exciting as that was, the experience made it very clear how much there is to learn (and how much it would cost to learn it). As accompaniment to this adventure I've also been reading Beryl Markham's memoir, West with the Night. While it is ostensibly and primarily a book about flight, Markham also covers encounters with lions, racing horses and much else about living in Africa in the early 20th century:

Tom taught me in a D.H. Gipsy Moth, at first, and her propeller beat the sunrise silence of the Athi Plains to shreds and scraps. We swung over the hills and over the town and back again, and I saw how a man can be master of a craft, and how a craft can be master of an element. I saw the alchemy of perspective reduce my world, and all my other life, to grains in a cup. I learned to watch, to put my trust in other hands than mine. And I learned to wander. I learned what every dreaming child needs to know — that no horizon is so far that you cannot get above it or beyond it. These I learned at once. But most things came harder.

For a couple more photos, visit my picasa collection.

Baking is exhausting

Well. I'd been meaning to make a chocolate cake of some variety for a couple weeks, and today I finally got around to it. This recipe came out of the copy of Martha Stewart's Entertaining (also see this old blog post), which I received in the mail Friday (thanks to that B&N Groupon the other day). I'm saving the actual reading of Entertaining for a time when I can sit and peruse leisurely, but I nabbed this cake recipe for now.

Chocolate almond cake comes from one of the wedding menus (for ~50 guests, as opposed to the 100 and 200 guest menus. Dear God.) at the back of the book. The original recipe actually involves making the full size, multi layer, stacked wedding style cake, and uses both this recipe and an orange almond cake alternately for the layers (with copious amounts of decorative frosting, of course). I just halved the recipe and made a basic two layer cake, instead. Some of the chocolate I'd been intending to use disappeared, and I ran out of eggs, so the chocolate glaze (which I nabbed from my Williams Sonoma book.. and quartered!) is a bit sparse. 

Anyway, the recipe specifies that you shouldn't overcook the cake, because it should be extra moist in the middle. I may have overcooked a little bit, but it's so hard to tell how done the cake is before it cools... Still, it's quite tasty. The meringue gets folded in last and provides that nice fluffiness. I just stuffed some blackberry preserves that happened to be in the fridge between the layers, but I'd rather have used raspberry, and had a fluffier frosting on top. My resident critic tells me he doesn't like buttercream frosting, but I've never tried it at home. It's likely to be a lot better than the grocery store stuff, in any case.

Meanwhile, you may notice that my accompanying photos are a little nicer than usual. I've been getting back into my photography habit lately, and have been working with a DSLR for the last month. The internal debate over what camera I actually want and whether I can justify buying it has gotten quite raucous, but someday soon...

After reading Photocritic's post about prime lenses I was eager to try one... and then I realised how silly that was. Of course, all cameras used to have "prime lenses." This zoom stuff is really quite recent (a prime is simply a lens that has a fixed focal length, eg, no zoom). So, these photos are indeedy sharper than the average bear, and more excitingly, were shot at f1.4 in my dark little kitchen at night. So HA.


And you may also notice the watermark on these images. I've actually gone and sprung for Adobe Lightroom, which has made my life a good deal easier with its editing, cataloging, web design, export... everything. I have a little project in the works...


Annnd recipe:

Book Snark: Earth Abides

Perhaps, he felt in his mind, that was the difference! That was the difference between woman and man. She felt only in terms of the immediate, and was more interested in being able to spot her child's birthday than in all the future of civilization. Again, he felt superior. 

Earth Abides, by George R. Stewart (1949).

In fact, in reading this book about the fall of civilization, I am possessed by a great urge to preserve and protect the history of the world for posterity, just in case something should happen. If humanity vanishes for whatever reason, and/or if electricity eventually fails, what will be left? ebooks? I certainly think not. While electronic formats may be "the future," may be convenient, may be efficient, they will not last beyond the next wave of advancements. Neither will mp3 files, dvds, or all the information on the internet. In this fantastic future world, when perhaps everyone will be gone, those who are left, or those who make a galactic archaeological dig of the planet Earth may find files that are in no way compatible with their technology, or they might find vast libraries of knowledge on paper, which have only to be translated.

Earth Abides was a fantastic book, but in the end very frustrating. It became evident that it was not just the aforementioned woman who was uninterested in preserving civilization, but all of the "stolid" people who happened to survive the plague. Apparently it was beyond their capabilities or caring to teach their children how to read or write so much as basic numbers, much less entire books. Strange that in a novel about a post-apocalyptic world that was what I found most unbelievable.

The future may be defined by forward movement, but that movement should not assume complete abandonment of the past.

What's in a name

When I started this blog I intended it to be an information gathering device, posting bunches of links, reviews, instructions and so on. This sort of happened for a few posts (I'm still most proud of my Smithsonian Craft Fair post), but then I meandered off into journaling territory, posting more photos, recipes, poems, thoughts and whatever else happened to cross my path. In the end, the content has actually lived up to the name I chose in the first place: Renascence Girl.

I've gotten a few questions about why I "spelled renaissance wrong," so I'll explain my logic (something I probably should've done initially).

1. "Renaissancegirl" was taken.
2. Spelled "renaissance" the word tends to make people think of the period in history, or silly festivals where people dress up and make largely inaccurate attempts to reenact that period.
3. I used this alternate spelling because it sounds better in my head. Literally, re-nascence, re-birth, a new beginning, or beginning again. This can mean a new start, or starting something over again, redoing something from the past in a new way.
4. It does also imply the idea of the renaissance man, a person who is a jack of many trades, perhaps not at expert at all of them, but a dabbler. Since I can't make my mind about anything much, Renascence girl seemed like an accurately descriptive choice. You, who have nobly waded through all this, therefore get posts about a wide variety of topics, all tied together simply because of moi. Hoo-rah.

Photo of your semi-faithful blogger courtesy of your .. you get it. From Chincoteague Is., Sept. 2010.

Year's End, Year's Beginning

Here's a bit of a meme I just scribbled down for the heck of it. Answer in the comments, repost, or just think about it. I'm not sure what mine are yet, maybe a later edit will have to happen.

2010

Worst movie that was wonderful because of it:

Best day-trip:

Most enjoyable book:

Thought-provoking work of art:

Scariest change in your life:

New or revisited hobby:

Distance traveled in 2010:

2011

Your expectations for 2011 are looking like:

Most anticipated event in the next year:

Thing you'd like to create:

Making all the fuss worth it [impetus]:

Forthcoming unforeseen development [plot twist]:

Photo by me, August 2010 on the Tidal Basin, DC.

Obligatory, but festive!

As it turns out, borrowing someone's computer can be very frustrating when it's significantly different from your own. Apologies for poor formatting etc in this post, but wanted to get it up in time to say Merry Christmas!... in a somewhat timely fashion.

Eenywho, just some photos of the cookie-making marathon last weekend. I'm fairly pleased with the results: iced sugar cookes, braunekuchen (molasses/spice cookies), truffles, banana-chocolate-chip-mini-muffins (of hyphenage +1) and raspberry oatmeal ribbon bars.