recording & cleanliness

So we’re into February, my worst month of the year, and my sleep is completely funky. Tammy is in town, I’m to see her Thursday. I had a shower and feel like a hoomin again but man did I mention my sleep is screwed up.

I’ve started making these Breakfast Cookies, original recipe here

But I made modifications, regarding salt, substitutions, and cooking time, so here’s the scoop. They are vegan and gluten free and I’ve made them twice and they are REALLY GOOD.

INGREDIENTS
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup oat flour
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds
1/4 cup sliced almonds
1/4 cup dried cranberries
2 tbsp hemp seeds (omit and sub pumpkin seeds or almonds)
2 tbsp chia seeds (omit and sub pumpkin seeds or almonds)
2 tbsp flaxseed meal (ground flaxseed)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt (see note in 3.)

1/2 cup nut butter (almond, peanut, cashew, sunflower)
1/3 cup maple syrup
3 tbsp melted coconut oil*
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Combine rolled oats, oat flour, pumpkin seeds, sliced almonds, dried cranberries, hemp seeds, chia seeds, flaxseed meal, ground cinnamon, baking powder, and salt (see note) in a large bowl. Mix together.
3. In a separate bowl, add nut butter, maple syrup, melted coconut oil, and vanilla extract. Mix together until evenly combined.
NOTE: if the nut butter is salted you can omit salt from the dry ingredients
4. Pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Mix together.
5. Scoop cookie dough into 10 – 12 balls and place on the baking sheet. Press each ball into flat cookies.
6. Bake for 15 minutes and turn the oven off so the cookies continue to crisp up without burning. Alternately bake 14-20 minutes until golden and crisp around the edges and cool.

 

*seriously, melt it, it makes a difference

Leah Feldman AND Nestor Makhno

warning this gets weird

Here’s a bio: Leah Feldman who worked with Nestor Makhno. He stole my rellie’s watch, he won’t get his own page even if I read that dreffle book. (History of the Makhnovist movement.) (ALSO THIS ***IS*** HIS OWN PAGE, THIS POST IS ALMOST A THOUSAND WORDS LONG AND I HARDLY MENTION LEAH FELDMAN, WHO WAS A MENSCH.)

I almost want to translate it (History of the Makhnovist movement) into internet-friendly contemporary English ’cause the translation verbs the galactic noun into a state of noun. Why am I compelled to pay attention to him? is it because he was one of John’s special favourites?

check out the turgid first three paragraphs, administered first aid by yours truly in italics.

As the reader approaches this book (When you first pick up this book you’ll want to know, is this serious shit, or serious horseshit?) he will first of all want to know what kind of work this is: is it a serious and conscientious analysis, or a fantastic and irresponsible fabrication? Can the reader have confidence in the author, (Is the author tripping balls, or are the dates, facts and maps straight?) at least with respect to the events, the facts and the materials? Is the author sufficiently impartial, (Is he telling the truth with some understanding of his own biases) or does he distort the truth in order to justify his own ideas (and piss on his opponents?) – I went a bit off the rails there but I hope you can see why I’d want to rewrite the book in a light hearted and humorous vein.

These are not irrelevant questions. (This subject is important enough in terms of anarchist and world history that you should care if the author got it right. which is not a direct translation and couldn’t possibly be, this is a gloss.)

It is important to examine the documents on the Makhnovist movement with great discretion. (Good luck with that they’re all in Russian and Ukrainian and did anyone ever tell you that translations are political? yes they are.) The reader will understand this if he considers some of the characteristics of the movement. (THE READER IS A FUCKING GIRL and I’ll understand more if you blow less.)

a hunnert pages of this…. I have to finish Moloch and UPSUN’s HOTM before I even touch that as a side project, that seriously would be something I’d do in jail.

So I continued anyway…..

On the one hand, the Makhnovshchina (Mack NOV shin a)  [Makhnovist Movement.]  – an event of extraordinary breadth, grandeur and importance, which unfolded with exceptional force and played a colossal and extremely complicated role in the destiny of the revolution, undergoing a titanic struggle against all types of reaction, more than once saving the revolution from disaster, extremely rich in vivid and colourful episodes – has attracted widespread interest not only in Russia but also abroad.

EXCUSE ME while I enjoy someone who can put titanic and colossal in the same paragraph without even a hint of jocularity!

 

The story of the Macknovshchina is so powerful, colourful and historically important that interest in the story is not confined to Russia. Fascists and reactionaries hate its truths, deride its outlandish tales of luck, betrayal, revolutionary fervour and derring-do, and cast doubt on its morality, as well as that of Makhnov himself, in an effort to dislodge him and it from the collective memory. That’s mostly because he kept the fucking revolution alive along with his anarchist principles and when he diverged organizationally from the soviets, they didn’t want to be beholden or get into it ideologically so he had to go — and to the horror of those who loved him he ended up drinking himself to death in exile. But we’re not going to talk about that part of his life in this book, that’s for the Netflix series. NOW THEN, IS THAT NOT BETTER AND MORE USEFUL THAN THE TWO PARAGRAPHS I COMBINED INTO ONE ??? (ie the foregoing paragraph and this next one, which is clunkier than a 30 year old Corolla.)

The Makhnovshchina has given rise to the most diverse feelings in reactionary as well as revolutionary circles: from feelings of fierce hatred and hostility, of astonishment, distrust and suspicion, all the way to profound sympathy and admiration. The monopolization of the revolution by the Communist Party and the “Soviet” power forced the Makhnovshchina, after long hesitation, to embark on a struggle – as bitter as its struggle against the reaction – during which it inflicted on the Party and the central power a series of palpable physical and moral blows. And finally, the personality of Makhno himself – as complex, vivid and powerful as the movement itself – has attracted general attention, arousing simple curiosity or surprise among some, witless indignation or thoughtless fright among others, implacable hatred among still others, and among some, selfless devotion.

 

 

anyway you can understand why the project has some appeal, it’s essentially a complete gloss / rewrite, but it could really be fun. It’s also fanfic in a really hilarious way. Oh, oh, oh I just had a story idea.

I posted this in early January, and on the 18th I woke up from a sound sleep with THIS in my head

TTTO Battle Hymn of the Republic

Nestor Makhno stole my great great uncle’s watch
Nestor Makhno stole my great great uncle’s watch
Nestor Makhno stole my great great uncle’s watch
He sold it to buy beer (or guns, that works too)

 

When someone’s pet dies

They will not go quietly,
the pets who’ve shared our lives.
In subtle ways they let us know
their spirit still survives.
Old habits still can make us
think we hear them at the door
Or step back when we drop
a tasty morsel on the floor
Our feet still go around the place
the food dish used to be,
and, sometimes, coming home at night,
we miss them terribly.
And although time may bring new friends
and a new food dish to fill,
That one place in our hearts
belongs to them….
and always will.

This was on a Hallmark card Lois sent us after Bounce died. It’s still the best poem on the subject I’ve seen, apart from the dead kittens poem from Lindsay M that I dasn’t reproduce here.

There’s a gazebo out back of the fOlks’ place where Bounce, and other pets besides, are memorialized. She’s buried out back, but she has company now.

a spare – I don’t want much

Wrote this just now.

I want you to love me
I want you to care
I want you not to complain
when I prance around in my underwear
want you to forgive me
more thoroughly than Christ
and if you always do the trash
oh man, that would be nice

Now I have to leap up and take flower rolls out of the oven before they burn.

RIP recording artist Sophie

And they died
climbing up to see the moon
in Athens
and their life
was a goodies reel of cool
the patterns

they are not
for everyone to see
and our lives,
the red carpet,
will never see their light again
pop that bubble in the rain
and dance while you can
remember their joy
remember their name
:Sophie:

They made very entertaining bubble gum dance pop.

letters and cards

Architectural detail from the Museum of Nature (Victoria Memorial Museum building) in Ottawa – one of the most memorable buildings of my childhood.

Another Grogu sketch for Tom, and I’ve responded to Mary, and …. I still haven’t got them into the mail. You know the pesky, ‘you have to get dressed before you go to the mailbox’ requirement.

It’s a Harryhausen kind of a day. Have fun with this goodhearted countdown of the top ten Harryhausen stop motion monsters.

My site died for a couple of minutes yesterday. My apologies to whichever of the half dozen or so human beings comes here on a regular basis if that was when you were here.

Nevertheless I made great progress on the song project yesterday. THERE’S JUST SO MUCH OF IT and I’m stuck with it until I run out of songs.

it was actually THREE loads of laundry yesterday. At the last possible minute before bed I remembered and swapped the last load into the dryer, preventing BLEAUGH moldy clothes.

Tabbouleh and tea for breakfast. SPAGHETTI AND HOMEMADE MEATBALLS FOR LUNCH.

M Gouldhawke

Read, imbibe, and he’s got a smoking hot POEM about Settler Saturday as well. I acknowledge it, I do.

But if I wrote on my blog every thought I have about Indigenous life, peoples, lands and communities I’d never shut up, and it would STILL be one ww’s uninformed saviourite opinion so I’ll stand behind M´étis writers like him. Also, he lives in MST country. kind of a neighbour….