One of the things we do in the Women’s Glee Club is “Secret Glee Love” — akin to Secret Santa, but nondenominational and with a $5 limit. At the risk of finding out that she reads my blog (and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t), I have our president, Jaye (pronounced like the letter).
In keeping with the budget, I decided to make her a mix CD and make it themed to her name — songs that start with J(aye). This was surprisingly difficult — lots of songs start with “I” (the Magnetic Fields have an entire album of them), but not nearly as many start with the 9th letter of the alphabet. Initially, I tried to be really ambitious and come up with songs whose artists names also start with J, but after struggling to find the few I did find, I gave up on that. Once I opened my options up a little more, things started to come together and I was quite pleased with the results — provided she likes classic rock as much as I do. I haven’t had any blogging inspiration for awhile and Anand posts these things, so I am being a copycat posting the results of my evening’s compiling. (And now onto that other compiling job I have waiting for me… actually, it’s in perl, which isn’t compiled. So that pun fails.)
J(aye) Songs:

1. Just Like Starting Over — John Lennon
2. Jungle Love — Steve Miller Band
3. Jumpin’ Jack Flash — Rolling Stones
4. Johnny B. Goode — Chuck Berry
5. Joy to the World — Three Dog Night
6. Jane — Barenaked Ladies
7. Jesse’s Girl — Rick Springfield
8. Julia — The Beatles
9. Jackal — Ronny Jordan
10. Jealousy — Natalie Merchant
11. Janie’s Got a Gun — Aerosmith
12. Jet — Paul McCartney and Wings
13. Jailhouse Rock — Elvis Presley
14. Jokerman — Bob Dylan
15. Jack and Diane — John Mellencamp
16. Just Like Heaven — The Cure

Housemate: I know it’s late, but does anyone mind if I practice my cello for about an hour?
Me: Do you know the Bach Cello Suite No. 1?
Housemate: Yeah…
Me: You can only practice if you play that first.
Housemate: I can do that.
*strains of one of my favorite musical compositions come into the living room*
(Also, never got around to explaining how I listened to game 4 of the ALCS, in which the Tigers finished their sweep of the A’s, via a transistor radio in the middle of a corn maze. But that’s what I did.)

The next time I go months without washing my car and it is covered in a thin film of grim and filth, I’m just going to tell people that I’m preparing it to be a work of art. Check out the gallery — it’s really amazing.

The phrase “house of porn and pancakes” does not exist on Google. Hopefully by tomorrow or so this will change.
And Jenn’s bachelorette party is going well. What we have learned so far:
1. She’s marrying Arnold Schwarzenegger.
2. She will live in a house with a yard in New Jersey.
3. She will drive a garbage truck.
4. She will be a pole dancer.
5. Her honeymoon will be in Appalachia.
6. She will have no children, but two cats.
(Did you ever play MASH as a child?)

placentophagy, n. — the act of mammals eating the placenta of their young after childbirth
What might inspire such a word of the day, you ask? A combination of the latest news from Wellesley College, and an e-mail conversation with one Mr. Ryan Williams, who assures me that he would never dump his wife’s placenta in the nearest pond — he’s planning on cooking it up for dinner. (Long ago I promised him that if he was around when I gave birth, he could have the placenta for just this very purpose.)
While it might not look appetizing, according to the wikipedia article it’s quite natural amongst most mammals. In addition, there’s a possibility that it may prevent post-partum depression and reduce post-labor pains — not to mention that it apparently tastes like veal. Sounds like a good deal to me!

placentophagy, n. — the act of mammals eating the placenta of their young after childbirth
What might inspire such a word of the day, you ask? A combination of the latest news from Wellesley College, and an e-mail conversation with one Mr. Ryan Williams, who assures me that he would never dump his wife’s placenta in the nearest pond — he’s planning on cooking it up for dinner. (Long ago I promised him that if he was around when I gave birth, he could have the placenta for just this very purpose.)
While it might not look appetizing, according to the wikipedia article it’s quite natural amongst most mammals. In addition, there’s a possibility that it may prevent post-partum depression and reduce post-labor pains — not to mention that it apparently tastes like veal. Sounds like a good deal to me!

“Fishginaed” – v. to replace an image on your server that is currently being used as a random stranger’s signature in an online forum with a picture of the fishgina
Origins and usage: errhode, November 2005
johnston, March 2006:

Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 15:33:13 -0500
From: Scott Johnston
To: errhode
Subject: Our dear friend Gina
Rhode,
You’ll be pleased to hear that I recently fishgina’ed some woman who
was using my photos with her forum postings:
http://www.bg-lesbian.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=850
But looking at the URL, I’m starting to wonder if the switcheroo will get
the intended reaction…
Scott

While cleaning his room, jrandall went on a tangent about historians and asked for people to finish the joke “An historian walked into a bar…” I made five attempts. Four were terrible. One was sort of funny, if you’re into historian jokes:

An historian walked into a bar and the bartender offered him a beer. The historian looked puzzled. “You’re allowed to serve alcohol in this establishment? What about the 18th amendment?”
The bartender said, “Are you crazy? That was repealed in 1933!”
“According to some,” said the historian, “but I don’t subscribe to revisionist theories.”

Maybe I’ll submit it to Prairie Home Companion…

Since everyone else seems to be doing it, I thought I’d post the recipe for one of my latest concoctions… one that doesn’t require throwing something in the microwave. A few weeks ago I noticed that my local grocery store, Kroger’s, sells cannoli shells. I kept it in the back of my mind and finally decided to do something with them when Martine came to visit this weekend. The recipe for the filling comes from the back of the cannoli shell box, but we modified it slightly (our additions in bold):
15 oz. whole milk ricotta cheese
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
1/8 tsp cinnamon (half as much as the box called for)
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp almond extract
Mini-chocolate chips
6 cannoli shells
In a large mixing bowl, combine ricotta and sugar until well blended. Add cinnamon, nutmeg, and almond extract. Mix well. Fill the cannoli shells using a ziploc bag with the corner clipped off. (Pastry bag? We don’t need no stinking pastry bag!) Top the ends with chocolate chips. Serve and enjoy.
The filling isn’t nearly as thick as Mike’s Pastries/Modern/Bova’s, but given that the North End is 760 miles away (according to Google maps), this will more than do in a pinch. Plus, I got three cannolis out of the deal. (Well, I did have to share with Martine and Alyson… couldn’t have all six.)
Oh, and if people are curious about the results of the real purpose of Martine’s visit, I now I own a pretty royal blue dress.

My roommate, Alyson, is an ethnomusicology PhD student here at Michigan. As a result, I get exposed to things I normally wouldn’t. Tonight, for example, she brought home a video on a 20th century American composer named Henry Partch. I looked for a good online biography of Partch or description of his music to link to, but other than a few references to his wind chimes, I didn’t find much. Perhaps it’s because his particular compositions never caught on with the mainstream public.
As most people with an elementary knowledge of musical theory know, the Western scale breaks the octave into twelfths (C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B). But this was not enough for Henry Partch. He didn’t like the idea of conforming to these rigid standards and preferred to split the octave 43 ways instead of 12. Given that he started his work in the 1920s, well before synthesizers or other digital forms of music that could easily do this for him, this meant that he had to build his own instruments — mostly elaborate windchimes.
And he didn’t necessarily stop there. The video we just watched included clips of Partch in his garage, making his “music” by pinging glass bottles. His big observation was that you could get different notes out of different brands, ranging from Old Heaven Hill Sourmash on the low end to Bristol Cream Cherry on the high end. Not to knock his art, but it sounded like a bunch of out of tune banging around to me. Even my roommate commented that “he looks like a bad impression of what I imagined him to be.” But maybe we’re still too conformist and unlightened to appreciate Henry Partch… a man whose time has still not come.