December 4, 2002

• Counting Down the Days

  
  

  Well folks, we're in the final stretch.  Just a few more days and I'll be back in Indiana.  I hope you still have me on your SIR list.  I'm afraid to peek and see how many people have dropped me in the past month.  I'd like to be all high minded and write here merely for the love of writing and the joy of journaling, but I don't.  I write here because I know that there are wonderful people who read here.

  
  

  There is a winter storm happening in Northern Arkansas tonight.  (At least I think that's what they said on the weather channel - it's hard to know over the squeals and laughter of little boys who a reduced to playing indoors and have nothing better to do than out volumize the television.)  I've also heard of snow and ice in Southern Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee.  In other words there is NO route from here to home that isn't treacherous at the moment.  So I'm hanging out, hoping for a freak warming spell that will send temps into the 50's and 60's when they are only predicted to hit 30. 

  
  

  I read a good book the other day.  It wasn't my usual faire and some of you may have already read it years back because it first came out in hardback about 6 years ago.  Neil Stephenson's Diamond Age was a rare treat.  He begins with life in the late 21st century and his fascination with nanotechnology inspires creative applications of future possibilities.  But, inspite of the technical bent and the obscure terminology he employs the book takes as its subject an old and enduring question.  (Right up my alley.  )  It opens with a meeting between two unlikely gentlemen, an obscenely wealthy older man and a programming genius.  They each have a child in their lives for whom they have great hopes of future glory.  They conspire to create a book.  Using nanotechnology the book will interact with the child and create a story as it goes.  interwoven in the tale will be lessons in reading, writing, self-defense, logic, and ultimately the book will lead it's owner into a life of subversive noncompliance with the societal pressure to follow the path of least resistance. 

  
  

  Through a series of convolutions, three copies of the book are produced.  The first destined for the granddaughter of the wealthy industrialist.  The second surreptitiously produced for the daughter of the programmer is stolen by a street gang who mug him.  A final third copy produced to replace the stolen version and given to the daughter of the programmer.

  
  

  The story follows the little girl who winds up with the stolen copy.  From original curcumstances of abuse and neglect she gradually rises through the various levels of a future society in which a persons membership in an organization based on ethnicity overcomes national and geographical demarcations.  Through her trials and tribulations questions about the nature of education and society are constantly raised explored.

  
  

  Some of the obscure language is so obscure that it would be off-putting to a reader who couldn't bring herself to either look 'em up or skip over the terms.  I alternated between the two.  On one page I had to look up three words in three consecutive sentences.  They turned out to be real words, but it distracted from the story and eventually I stopped looking them up.  Technology buffs will love the discussion of gadgetry and process.  Philosophers will be enthralled by the way contemporary educational ideals are worked out in the story.  I was reminded both of Mark Twain's Huck Finn and Rouseau's Emile, but only in a superficial way as Mr. Stephenson ultimately argues for an educational philosophy that is almost diametrically opposed to Rouseau and Twain's depiction of the innate goodness of man as a starting point.

  
  

  A book that works on multiple levels never fails to please me and Diamond Age is no exception to this rule. 

  
  

  Recipe of the day -
  Southern Cornbread Dressing

  
  

  Start with a large dishpan.  Crumble cornbread and leftover bicuits - approximately enough to fill two gallon buckets.  Add cooked, diced chicken (3 lbs), two diced onions, and three diced celery sticks, four cans cream of mushroom soup, one gallon of chicken broth and six eggs.  Pour into two large roasting pans and bake at 375 until firm and lightly browned on top.

  
  

  Yes, my Mom made this much dressing last week.  Yes, I'm STILL eating dressing.  It's not tasting as good these days as it did last Thursday, but I have been sneakily putting huge helpings on the kids plates and then scraping them into the garbage after dinner so I'm pretty sure the last of the dressing will be gone after tomorrow.  I can highly recommend Momma's recipe, but I'll be honest when I make it, I cut it down to about 1/5 of the ingedient list - enough to make a 9x12 pan of dressing is plenty for my family. 

  • 8:38 pm
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