It’s Furious Balancing

If only I had been able to start writing!  But, however I set about it (all too similarly, alas to the resolve to give up alcohol, to go to bed early, to keep fit), whether it was in a spurt of activity, with method, with pleasure, in depriving myself of a walk, or postponing and reserving it as a reward, taking advantage of an hour of feeling well, making use of the inaction forced on me by a day’s illness, the inevitable result of my efforts was a blank page, untouched by writing, as predestined as the forced card that you inevitably wind up drawing in certain tricks, however thoroughly you have first shuffled the pack.

Marcel Proust – The Guermantes Way

And that’s what I have to say about New Year’s Resolutions.

Actually, I need to re-read Proust.  Yes, you read that correctly — RE-read.  I had my first trip through  À la recherche du temps perdu in 1994-1995.  I’ve picked it up, on and off and on again, for years.  I’m thinking it’s time again.

Before I went to Paris, I picked up, once again, À la recherche du temps perdu.  I love reading Proust.  It’s not for everyone, but I enjoy the slower pace and intricacies of psychological detail.

When browsing a stationery store in the 6th arrondissement, I found a note card, Questionnaire de Marcel Proust.  It posed about two dozen questions — in French — and I thought it was poking fun at Proust’s detailed observations of peoples’ characters.  A little research on the Innernets proved otherwise.

So, without further ado, here are my answers:

Le principal trait de mon caractère (the main feature of my character). I’m trying to come up with one word that encompasses reserved, quiet, and observant. Introverted is too frequently misunderstood, primarily by people who aren’t introverts.

Le qualité que je désire chez un homme (the quality I want in a man). Wit. He also has to be able to do his own laundry.

Le qualité que je préfère chez une femme (the quality I like in a woman). Discretion.

Ce que j’apprécie le plus chez mes amis (what I appreciate most among my friends). They get my jokes – or they pretend to.

Mon principal défaut (my main defect). In my opinion – stubbornness; in others’ – selfishness.

Mon occupation préfèree (my favorite pursuit). Despite the closet full of yarn, I still can honestly say “reading.”

Mon rêve de bonheur (my idea of happiness). A book, several cats, a cup of something hot, and a long stretch of uninterrupted time. Bonus points if it’s winter and there’s a fireplace involved.

Quel serait mon plus grand malheur (what would be my greatest misfortune). To be trapped by children and be unable to spend any time, energy, or money on myself for decades.

Ce que je voudrais être (who I would want to be – if not myself). Michelle Obama.  She’s one class act and has a handsome, brilliant husband who is crazy in love with her.

Le pays où je désirerais vivre (the country where I’d live). I’d split my time between France (an apartment in Paris)  and the United States (my home in Ann Arbor).

Le couleur que je préfère (the color I prefer). Cobalt blue.

La fleur que j’aime (the flower I love). Violets.

L’oiseau que je préfère (the bird that I prefer). Ravens.

Mes auteurs favoris en prose (my favorite prose authors). Other than Proust, Jorge Luis Borges and Ian McEwan.

Mes poètes préférés (my favorite poets). T.S. Eliot and Anne Sexton.

Mes héros favoris dans la fiction (my favorite heroes in fiction). Stephen Maturin (from Patrick O’Brian’s books); Neville Longbottom (from the Harry Potter books); and Randolph Carter (H.P. Lovecraft’s Dream saga).

Mes héroïnes favorites dans la fiction (my favorite heroines in fiction). Elizabeth Bennett (Pride and Prejudice) and Harriet the Spy.

Mes compositeurs préférés (my favorite composers). I’m assuming this means “classical music,” so my answers are Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky.

Mes peintres favoris (my favorite painters). Monet and Vermeer.

Mes héros dan la vie réelle (my heroes in real life). Barack Obama, Winston Churchill, and Apsley Cherry-Garrard.

Mes héroïnes dans l’histoire (my heroines in history). Queen Victoria.

Mes noms favoris (my favorite names). Genevieve, Scooter, and Cecil.

Ce que je déteste par-dessus tout (what I hate the most). Prejudice and intolerance.  I really hate homophobes and racists of all stripes.

Caractères que je méprise le plus (characters that I despise most). Dick Cheney. The man is the incarnation of True Evil. Deceitful, self-serving, fear-mongering. He has set the standard for vile, cowardly behavior and has not one atom of integrity in his entire body.

Le fait militaire que j’estime le plus (the military event I esteem the most). This is the oddest question I’ve ever seen in a meme.  My answer — the invasion of Normandy; June 6, 1944.

Le réforme que j’admire le plus (the reform that I admire most). This is the second oddest question I’ve ever seen in a meme.  Off the top of my head, I’d have to say the 19th amendment to the United States Constitution.

Le don de la nature que je voudrais avoir (the natural talent I would like to have). I would love to be able to dance well or do gymnastics.  Actually, I would give my eye teeth to have any kinesthetic sense whatsoever.

Comment j’aimerais mourir (how I wish to die). I intend to live forever. So far, so good.

État présent de mon esprit (my present state of mind). Stretched thin.  I’ve been working on this questionnaire for far too long.

Fautes qui m’inspirent le plus d’indulgence (the fault I find easiest to tolerate). Narcissism.  It keeps the focus off of me and it can be endlessly entertaining if you’re in the right frame of mind.

Ma devise (my motto). Can you solo it? and if not that, then Hell is other people.

Let it not be said that I am not amenable to changing my opinions — specifically my opinion concerning the Harry Potter Phenomenon. Considering that I am a devoted follower of H.P. Lovecraft, who is frequently described as a minor hack writer, I should not be casting any stones in regards to what I deem “literature” and what I deem “tripe.”

LOLCat courtesy of ICanHasCheezburger.com

At lunch today, I learned that the Exceedingly Intelligent Wife of an Exceedingly Intelligent Local Attorney in her eagerness to read the final Harry Potter book actually shut herself in their bathroom. I admire that in a Reader. It reminds me of My Younger Self on several levels. A few encouraging bits in the media about Rowling’s deft tying up of loose ends in the series also piqued my interest.

So I ordered Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone from amazon.com. I got the mass-market paperback edition, with the rationale that I wouldn’t be spending too much money (and since I wasn’t spending too much money I could therefore justify the purchase of something a smidge more erudite — the annotated version of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land — and something “just for fun” — Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s Knitting Rules!).

I’m also looking for Something Else to Read because I’ve reached that part in The Fugitive when I want to slap Marcel into the middle of next week. “Albertine left you, eh? Perhaps it’s really not due to her lesbian proclivities and wild, abandoned desires but actually may have something to do with the fact that you’re an overprotective, overly jealous, clueless git?”

So, while I have this sinking feeling that I may be sucked into Pott-headness in much the same way people talk about being drawn into a stumbled-upon, coincidental televangelist broadcast and “finding Jesus,” I’m giving myself a few pats on the head about my trying to remain open-minded.

This whole enterprise may be a dismal failure. Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone may suffer a fate similar to The Blithedale Romance, or, Heaven forfend, I might actually enjoy reading it.

One of my favorite things about blogging is discovering how total strangers get directed to It’s Furious Balancing. It’s one thing to tell my co-workers and friends, “Oh, go check out the picture I posted of Thomas/my latest knitting project/a gaming screenshot,” or hand them one of my Moo Cards with my URL on it, and another thing entirely to have unexpected (and certainly not unwelcome) guests.

I check the “referrals” section on sitemeter just about every day. A lot of people get here via Google searches on “denamarin,” or “Vanguard continental faction quest,” or “cable knitting.” Pretty standard stuff. Today, however, I discover that someone found me by a Google search on “lolcat proust.”

My curiosity was piqued, to say the least. Do people make LOLCats that allude to Proust?

A mouse click or two later, I find this:

The link to the photographer’s page is here.

She sent for one of those squat, plump little cakes called “petites madeleines,” which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell. — Marcel Proust, Combray, Swann’s Way, In Search of Lost Time (vol. 1)

I feel myself slipping back into the need to re-read Proust. Time Regained arrived in yesterday’s mail (thank you amazon.com.uk!); but I’m due for a blog post, so it’s time for the madeleine recipe.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 3 large eggs, at room temperature
• 2/3 cup granulated white sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Utensils, pans, etc. :

• Madeleine pan
• KitchenAid-type stand mixer (preferred) or hand-held mixer
• Wire whisk
• Large rubber spatula

First, melt the butter and allow it to cool while you make the batter.

In the bowl of your electric mixer, beat the eggs and sugar at medium-high speed until the mixture has tripled in volume and forms a thick ribbon when the beaters are lifted (about 5 minutes). Add the vanilla extract and beat to combine.

The beginning of the egg beating (click for photo)

The end of the egg beating (clicky, clicky)

Sift a small amount of flour over the egg mixture and, using a large rubber spatula, fold the flour mixture into the beaten eggs to lighten it. Sift the rest of the flour over the egg mixture and fold in, being sure not to over-mix or the batter will deflate.

Whisk a small amount of the egg mixture into the melted butter to lighten it. Then fold in the cooled, melted butter in three additions. Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or several hours, until slightly firm.

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Generously butter two 12-mold madeleine pans. Dust the molds with flour and tap out the excess.

Drop a generous tablespoonful of the batter into the center of each prepared mold, leaving the batter mounded in the center (This will result in the classic “humped” appearance of the madeleines).

Bake the madeleines for 11 to 13 minutes, until the edges are golden brown and the centers spring back when lightly touched. Do not overbake or they will be dry.

Remove the pans from the oven and rap each pan sharply against a tabletop to release the madeleienes. Say in your best John Cleese voice, “Release the madeleines!” Transfer, smooth side down, to wire racks to cool.

Madeleines are best served the same day, but can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for several days.

I’ve been meaning to come over here and do my continuation post on the madeleines, but I’ve just not gotten around to it. All my pictures are on my hard drive at home, and I’m not at home at the moment.

Anyway. Memories. I read somewhere — I am always reading little tidbits of information and never remembering the source — that taste and/or smell is the sense most likely to evoke the strongest, most vivid recollections. Hence, Proust and his madeleines; the crumbs and the lime blossom tisane call forth the house in Combray where his family spent the Easter holidays, where the young Marcel could not sleep without his mother’s goodnight kiss.

My own experience with sense and memory is much more prosaic.

It was “smell” and not “taste” that made me (literally) stop in my tracks as I was walking in Ann Arbor one summer day. It was ungodly hot, the humidity was hovering around 137%, and I was walking home to my (non-air-conditioned) apartment after work. As I came out our back door, I was nearly knocked sideways by the strong breeze blowing through the alley behind the building. This is the alley we share with a few other downtown businesses, most notably a cafe. The garbage cans in the alley had been simmering all day, so this breeze was thick enough to stir with a spoon, let me tell you. There were some lingering fumes from a recent delivery truck.

Heat. The sharp smell of rotting food and diesel fuel.

I was brought up short. This was the scent of…

(pause for dramatic effect) …

Nairobi.

I spent six months studying abroad my junior year at the University of Nairobi (literature, religion and sociology, primarily). This was back in the day when Nairobi was fairly stable. No riots and exploding embassies and such.

Kenya is, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful places on earth, and here my most vivid memories of it were elicited by the smell of garbage.

I told you this was prosaic.

Speaking of prosaic, I’ve discovered that I can blame Mickey Mouse (in addition to Sonny Bono) with my inability to get the last two volumes of the new Viking/Penguin Proust translations in the United States until 2018. In order to prevent such a classic film as “Steamboat Willie” entering the Public Domain — quelle horreur! — Mr. Bono authored the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998. You can read more about this travesty here and here.

Mr. Bono’s smacking headlong into a tree seems like justice to me. Unfortunately, the Mickey Mouse Protection Act became law 10 months later, Sonny or no Sonny, and Steamboat Willie can rest easy (rest easily, whatever).

I, on the other hand, need to fork out nearly 14 British pounds sterling (I wish I could insert the funky symbol for such) for Time Regained.

It’s not even the hardcover.

Nothing revives the past so completely as a smell that was once associated with it. – Vladimir Nabokov

It started with a post today on Feministe — a blog I read fairly frequently (if not everyday). It was Mikey’s post on madeleines. Starbucks’ madeleines in cello-wrap, or shrink-wrap, or whatever one calls it, complete with pictures and a link to a very interesting Slate article on Proust’s Belle Epoque madeleines and one man’s attempt to reverse-engineer the recipe based upon hints in the famous madeleine-tea-Aunt Leonie’s lime blossom tisane-Combray passage in the first volume of In Search of Lost Time.

This lead to some comments about the awfulness of Starbucks’ pastries, and the awfulness of their coffee, and their mega-chain evilness (but still how it was oddly comforting to find this mega-chain when out of one’s element). Even though I could have put in some digs about how I believe Starbucks is the Wal-Mart of coffee houses, my first thought was that I should go home and bake some madeleines. My second thought was I should then blog about it. One of the commentors mentioned that she had seen the madeleine-tea-memory reference many, many times, but only knew of one instance where madeleine was a recurring blog tag to mean “memories.”

I strongly feel that madeleines require greater blog presence — of any sort.

I actually own a madeleine pan. I bought it for myself after I first began reading Proust. I’ve made them only once before, but tonight I’ll give it another go.

I’ll take pictures, don’t fret.

Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey. -Marcel Proust

I’ve been dealing with chronic pain from endometriosis for 15+ years. A little more than that, maybe. I can’t say that my pain is my constant companion. It comes and goes. Today is one of those “comes” days. I carry tension in my jaw, clench my hands so tightly my fingernails leave dents in my palms. No great insights today, folks; just thought I would share my favorite Proust quote. Even in agony I can be pretentious. It’s a gift.