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Tasting Notes
Over Valentine’s Day weekend, to vary the admittedly delicious but oft-repeated wine and chocolate theme, I was invited to put together a writers’ event for Winter’s Hill Vineyard. We settled on the theme, “Word and Wine Tasting,” and set out–tongue firmly in cheek–to prepare tasting notes that might pair our readings with suitable wines. We…
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Argentina Reading Challenge–Book List
As promised last week, my list of picks for Ficciones, the 2011 Argentina Reading Challenge. The challenge starts next week, but you can join at any time. I’m teaching all Argentine plays this quarter, and re-reads count, but it seems like cheating to just upload my syllabus. So these are my choices so far, in…
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Ficciones– 2011 Argentina Reading Challenge
This isn’t really a post, more an announcement. Join me in accepting the 2011 Argentina reading challenge, Ficciones. I haven’t chosen my books yet, but there’s plenty to choose from! I’ll add the list here once I make up my mind, and invite others to join in.
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On the pleasures of teaching an old favorite
Next fall, I’ll be teaching a course on Argentine theater in Rosario, Argentina. This winter, I’m teaching Argentine theater at the U. of Oregon. Some of the plays we’re studying are plays I’ve worked on for a long time. Others I’ve begun studying more recently, as part of my ongoing work on theater and immigration.…
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Are there unintended consequences to imaginary travel?
Immersed in an imaginary Galápagos–translating Beyond the Islands–I have been travelling, mentally, for years. I hope people will read the translation and “travel” as well. And yet, a fragile ecosystem like that of the Galápagos Islands can only support so many visitors. Am I part of the problem? How many people might finish the book…
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Evolving Fictions (Galápagos novels)
The Galápagos Islands are both familiar and exotic, a commonplace of short-hand evolutionary theory (“everyone knows” Charles Darwin used his observations there to develop his theory of natural selection) that despite the boom in tourism over the last three decades, relatively few people will ever visit. Sixteenth-century sailors called the islands “enchanted” because they seemed…
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To the island beyond and back–restoration and introduction
In college, needing to fulfill the natural science requirements that came with my social science major (and taking full advantage of Michigan State’s generous honors options to sign up for classes well out of my league) I took a class on plant biogeography in which we spent quite a lot of time on islands. Besides…
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Words and Music
On my last long flight, I sat next to a Russian couple. I know exactly enough Russian to be pretty certain that’s what they were speaking; not enough to pick out any words. Because of that, their conversation was only sound to me–even musical–and pleasant to listen to as I drifted off to sleep. I…
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On reading Julia Child (preparation is no free lunch)
I have just finished reading Julia Child’s My Life in France. It is full of wonderful-sounding food–so much so that, while it’s a level of cooking detail I have seldom even approached (“nothing is too much trouble” is a repeated phrase in the memoir), I find myself wanting my very own copy of Mastering the…
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Interpretive pleasures of travel
I didn’t drop off the face of the earth. I went to New Zealand. Wellington is about as rainy as Oregon (more so, some days) but the sun peeked out and I didn’t catch the fabled wind. The Pohutukawa trees were in bloom, many of them. I left the hotel window cracked (the room was…