Tuesday, April 27, 2021

Post-Pandemic Detox: Healthy Diet

I've been diagnosed with elevated cholesterol and I'm determined to lower it without medication - it should be no problem as I am active and I don't have a family history of HC. My plan, sharing if others are interested in research on this, as it can be confusing.

Follow a balanced, bright, and colorful, minimal meat, low fat/low sugar diet, stay regularly active (also diversify your activities) and maintain a healthy weight.
  Avoid supplements unless absolutely necessary because of a diagnosed deficiency. A good, whole food, daily multivitamin is enough.  Build up to 25 - 30 grams of fiber a day (drink lots of water because of the high fiber).

Don’t be obsessive when you are out with others or in a restaurant. Moderation in moderation. If you are following this regularly at home and when you eat out by yourself, you can have the flexibility to indulge in a decadent treat.  I like the policy of being gracious about the foods people provide to me (I’m not a vegan) and I consider it a generous gift if someone has prepared something for me (a dinner or cocktail or whatever).

Good:

Fish – those that are high in omega 3-fatty acids like salmon, tuna, mackerel, herring, sardines and trout. The American Health Association suggests two servings of fish a week. Again, choose a healthy method of cooking.  Scallops are good, avoid shrimp. Shellfish as an occasional treat, do not bath it in butter. Do not bread or fry your fish. 

Nuts and Seeds – almonds and walnuts are high in mono-unsaturated fats, or healthy fats, but ¼ cup of nuts is 200 calories. Nuts are another good source of monounsaturated fats. Eating 1 oz of any kind of nuts daily for one month may lower LDL Cholesterol by 8 to 20 percent. Snack on an ounce a day — the equivalent of 23 almonds, 35 peanuts, 14 English walnut halves, 49 pistachios, or 2 tablespoons of peanut butter. Or add chopped nuts to salads, pasta, or yogurt. Nuts do have a lot of calories, so don’t eat them by the fistful. Be aware of salted or flavored packaging. Chia and hemp seeds!
Oats and Barley – high in soluble fiber, which acts like a digestive sponge to soak up cholesterol so you excrete it rather than carry it in your blood. Don’t use oatmeal packets, though, since they contain higher amounts of sugar. Use old-fashioned, quick-cooking or steel-cut oats instead. Oat bran on yogurt. Barley in soups, salads, etc….. 
Buckwheat, Farro, Quinoa, Bulgur Wheat
Berries
– all berries, like blueberries and strawberries, are high in antioxidants that help decrease blood pressure. We’re going for color. How colorful is your diet?
Beans, Peas (moderation), kidney beans, Lentils, garbanzo, chickpeas, endame and Peanuts– they’re high in fiber, a good protein alternative without unhealthy fat.
Make rice and beans or bean-based soups. Toss beans, lentils, or peas into salads, or swap them in for meat in pasta dishes. The TLC diet recommends three to five half-cup servings daily of vegetables, dry beans, or legumes. Check canned beans to make sure they don’t have added sugar or pork.
Tomatoes – they are very high in potassium and antioxidants “and we’re thinking color again.” Drink low-sodium tomato juice, add tomatoes to salads and sandwiches, and use no-salt-added tomato sauce on pasta and to top side dishes of veggies.Cooking or eating tomatoes with a little oil helps your body absorb more lycopene.
Avocados – these add great heart-healthy fats to a diet but watch the guacamole ingredients. A superb accompaniment for a wide range of dishes and great as a quick snack with other veggies, or on toast (whole grain).

Extra-virgin olive oil – substitute EVOO for butter, since olive oil is the “Mediterranean butter.” This oil contains the healthier mono-unsaturated fat. It has a distinct flavor, though, so it might not be right for all your cooking. It’s best in salads, and for dipping breads and veggies. Polyunsaturated fats, found primarily in corn, safflower, sesame, soybean, and sunflower oil, may slash LDL cholesterol. Monounsaturated fats, found mainly in olive, avocado, and canola oil, not only lower LDL, but may also raise HDL. Moderation 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon. You can use olive oil as a substitute for butter when basting meats. Walnut and flaxseed oils are also great alternatives.

Allium Vegetables – Garlic and onions are said to reduce inflammation in the body. Garlic lowers cholesterol and can reduce blood pressure. Also chives and leeks.

Dairy – it’s great for calcium but choose low- or no-fat options.
Eggs: Just beware the sides, especially bacon and saturated fat laden omelettes.
Most of the cholesterol in the body is made by the liver, not delivered through diet. And while diet does matter, research has found that cholesterol levels have more to do with the fat you eat, namely saturated and trans fats, than cholesterol.  And eggs contain healthy nutrients, including vitamins A and D, as well as protein. Long-term population studies show that eating an egg a day hasn't been linked to higher rates of heart attack or stroke. 
Dark Leafy Greens – traditional lettuce, kale, chard, arugula, and spinach varieties, and the ends of beets, collard & mustard greens and similar veggies
Mushrooms – all kinds

Endame and Soy – endame as a side, snack or on salads. Soy as a meat substitute (get good products – soy has a lot of problems related to mass production).  Jackfruit is another good meat substitute, I like the chorizo style.
Drip Filtered Coffee (filters remove the cholesterol raising elements of coffee)
Fruit: Apples, Oranges, Bananas, Red Grapes, Pears, Oranges, Grapefruit, Pomegranate, Lemons, Limes, raisins, cucumbers (Juices – 100% fruit, no sugar added)
Veggies: Broccoli, Brussel Sprouts, Sweat Potatoes, Asparagus, Cauliflower, Bok Choy, Cabbage, Carrots, beets, parsnips, potatoes, and yams
(Veggie drinks – must be low sodium)
Canola Oil
Alcohol in moderation (no more than two normal drinks for an adult male – red wine or clear alcohol without sugar mixers preferrable… calorie laden craft beers, very much in moderation. I love specialty beers, just keep in mind, roughly, lager 135 calories, regular IPA 200ish (going upward for double), regular stout 250ish, barrel aged stout app 350 calories.
Exercise – at least five times a week. Mix it up, make it fun, or at least interesting :)
Local, pasture raised, grass fed meats and eggs
Turkey is the lowest cholesterol of the bird meats (followed by chicken – both without skin)
Hot Sauces and peppers (these are life savers – I use them liberally and as alternatives for saturated fat laden condiments)
Teas: Green Tea (1 -2 cups a day); I love the feel of Ginger/turmeric/galangal teas – choose your favorites, learn what they can do for you
Dark Chocolate (moderation) and Cacao (smoothies or hot chocolate)
Thai food (one of my favorites) is spicy and delicious, but it can raise your cholesterol if you don't choose carefully. The secret ingredient? Coconut milk. It makes curries smooth, and it's high in saturated fat. Scan the menu instead for stir fries or noodle dishes, and ask to have your dinner steamed or made with vegetable oil. Choose chicken or soy, rather than beef, throw in some extra veggies, and enjoy your takeout guilt-free.
Probiotics besides yogurt: Kimchi, kombucha, kefir, miso, sauerkraut (check for sugars and sodium). There is good evidence that certain probiotics, particularly Lactobacilli, can help reduce cholesterol. They do this by preventing cholesterol from being made and absorbed, as well as by helping break it down


Bad:
Prime cuts of beef (including organ meats – definitely not a problem for me)
Processed Meats: Bacon (noooooooo!), sausage, cold cuts, etc)
Ice Cream and Gelatto
Whole & 2% Milk and cheese
(if you need cheese, get hard cheese… the slower grating process resists binge eating like takes place with the softer cheeses. Mozarella, feta, and cottage cheese are also good alternatives - in moderation)
Sour Cream (you can substitute non-fat yogurt in recipes)
French Press Coffee
Smoking tobacco (not a problem for me, but just fyi) 
Excessive alcohol
Butter, Margarine and Ghee
Coconut milk and coconut oil (Coconut oil is extremely high in saturated fat — about 50 percent more than butter, even.)

Most granola (Eat granola that is sweetened only with dried fruit, honey or maple syrup, and that has at least 20 percent of the recommended daily value for fiber. )
Shrimp (high in cholesterol)
Flour tortillas (there are high fiber tortillas that could work, almond tortillas are great (I get mine at costco), and corn tortillas if they are not made with lard)
Pasta (refined wheat/etc types). When you do indulge, think marinara or marsala, not meatballs, and linguine with clams, not lasagna.
Energy Bars (almost all of them – check saturated fats and palm oils)
Duck and Goose
Starchy Veggies: Some vegetables are better than others when you're watching your triglycerides. Limit how much you eat of those that are starchy, like corn and peas. That way, your body won't turn the extra starch into triglycerides.


Adapted from: Mayo Clinic, Web MD, Healthline, Everday Health, Harvard University

Monday, April 26, 2021

Dialogic Cinephilia - April 26, 2021

 Bethea, Dani. "Amazon’s Them (2021): Fighting The Cult of ‘whiteness.’" Medium (April 2, 2021)

---. "When Adulation Sours: Contextualizing Amazon’s Them." Medium (March 24, 2021)

Cleaver, Sarah Kathryn and Mary Wild. "Fashion Films Episode 8: Shadow Selves & Artifice." Projections (June 5, 2019) ["For our final episode in the Fashion Films series, Mary and Sarah discuss the controversial documentary The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye (2016) and Olivier Assayas’s Personal Shopper (2016) starring Kristen Stewart. We’re wrapping up our exploration of fashion and film with a look at Jung’s theory of the shadow, public personas, fakes, counterfeits, truth and lies. And a bit of astrology too."]

Dorian, M.J. "Salvador Dali (Saint of Delusion)." Creative Codex (July 3, 2019) ["Salvador Dali is one of the most successful artists of all time. Join us as we find the origin of his unmistakable style, discover the secret to his creative process, and unravel the lies of the enigmatic: Dali."]

Hanhardt, Christina. "On Gay Neighborhoods and Violence." Who Makes Cents? (January 7, 2015) ["Christina Hanhardt discusses her book Safe Space: Gay Neighborhood History and the Politics of Violence. Today we’ll focus on how the history of quality of life policing connects to the history of gay neighborhood politics. By looking at the gay neighborhoods in San Francisco and New York City, Christina Hanhardt will also shed light on what focusing on real estate, housing, violence, and the politics of place have to do with the history of capitalism."]

Koski, Genvieve, et al. "Which Side Are You On? Pt. 1 - Harlan County, USA." The Next Picture Show #190 (August 17, 2019) ["The new Netflix documentary AMERICAN FACTORY is funnier than Barbara Kopple’s 1976 Oscar-winning documentary HARLAN COUNTY USA, and not nearly as fraught with violence, but it pivots on many of the same core tensions between workers and corporate bosses. In this half of our pairing of labor struggles past and present, we look back at HARLAN COUNTY to see how the time Kopple’s team spent embedded in Harlan County shaped the film, as well as the 1973 miners strike it depicts; how the film’s style reflects Kopple’s involvement with the Maysles brothers and direct cinema; and which of Harlan County’s colorful residents leave the biggest mark on the film."]

---. "Which Side Are You On? Pt. 2 - American Factory." The Next Picture Show #191 (September 3, 2019) ["A few decades and a whole industry removed from Barbara Kopple’s HARLAN COUNTY, USA, Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert’s AMERICAN FACTORY is an entertaining yet dispiriting illustration of how much working conditions, labor relations, and blue-collar work have changed — and, in some ways, haven’t. After wrestling with AMERICAN FACTORY’s sometimes-funny, sometimes-demoralizing portrayal of the current state of American industry, unions, and national identity, we dive what unites and separates these films’ approach to depicting the struggles and setbacks of the working American."]

Needham, Andrew. "On Electricity and the Southwest." Who Makes Cents? (November 3, 2014) ["
Andrew Needham discusses his new book, Power Lines: Phoenix and the Making of the Modern Southwest. Power Lines shows that we can't think of the modern southwest without the energy that makes such places possible. Through this, he knits together a metropolitan geography that connects Phoenix with the places where it got its electricity--most prominently, coal from the Navajo Nation."]

Shane, Charlotte. "Stupid Human Tricks: Why animals may be smarter than we think." Bookforum (May 2021) [On the book How to Be Animal: A New History of What It Means to Be Human by Melanie Challenger.]

Shermer, Ellie. "On Local Elites Creating a 'Good Business Climate.'" Who Makes Cents? (December 5, 2014) ["Ellie Shermer discusses her book Sunbelt Capitalism: Phoenix and the Transformation of American Politics. On this episode, we speak to Ellie Shermer about how local elites in Phoenix crafted a “business climate” that made Pheonix hospitable to industry and shaped both the modern sunbelt and contemporary politics."]




Friday, April 23, 2021

Dialogic Cinephilia - April 23, 2021

Cleaver, Sarah Kathryn and Mary Wild. "Fashion Films Episode 5: Fashion & Fetish." Projections (April 3, 2019) ["Sarah and Mary discuss fetishism, fashion and wigs in Ken Russell’s Crimes of Passion (1984) and David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986)."]

---. "Fashion Films Episode 6: Shopping for Meaning." Projections (April 19, 2019) ["This week Mary and Sarah delve further into fashion and fetish with two films about shopping and its connection to control; Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) and Pretty Woman (1990) directed by Gary Marshall."]

Cleaver, Sarah Kathryn, Cathy Lomax and Mary Wild. "Fashion Films Episode 7: Make-up & Magic with Cathy Lomax." Projections (May 1, 2019) ["Sarah and Mary welcome special guest artist, gallerist, PHD scholar and former make-up artist Cathy Lomax to talk about make-up, style and surface in Anna Biller’s extraordinary 2016 film The Love Witch. The three discuss their favourite make-up moments in film, styles of female power and Lomax’s film diaries. "]

Connolly, N.D.B. "Race and Real Estate in Miami." Who Makes Cents #5 (September 5, 2014) ["N.D.B. Connolly discusses how examining the ownership of real estate in Miami changes our perspective on the history of capitalism and African American history in the twentieth century. Ever wondered how real estate factors into American history? Curious about the impact of landlord-tenant struggles on the history of race in America? Listen to find out. N.D.B. Connolly is Assistant Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of A World More Concrete: Real Estate and the Remaking of Jim Crow South Florida."]

Dorian, M.J. "Frida Kahlo (Pain Becomes Art)." Creative Codex #3 (February 25, 2019) ["Is creativity linked with emotion? Can life's tragedies and heartbreaks be resolved through creating art? In this episode we try to answer those questions with the help of one of the most iconic artists of all time: Frida Kahlo."]

---. "Nikola Tesla & the Paradox of Genius." Creative Codex #5 (May 9, 2019) ["Nikola Tesla's unique genius is the stuff of fantasy; he electrified the world, feuded with Thomas Edison, invented a death ray, and caused an earthquake in Manhattan. In this episode we try to untangle the paradox of Nikola Tesla's life: how can a man of unrivaled genius change the world but die a hermit with no money to his name?"]

Ford, Phil and J.F. Martel. "On Hyperstition." Weird Studies #36 (December 19, 2018) ["Hyperstition is a key concept in the philosophy of Nick Land. It refers to fictions which, given enough time and libidinal investment, become realities. JF and Phil explore the notion using one of those optometric apparatuses with multiple lenses -- deleuzian, magical, mythological, political, ethical, etc. The goal isn't to understand how fictions participate in reality (that'll have to wait for another episode), but to ponder what this implies for a sapient species. The conversation weaves together such varied topics as Twin Peaks: The Return, Internet meme magic (Trump as tulpa!), Deleuze and Guattari's metaphysics, occult experiments in spirit creation, the Brothers Grimm, and the phantasmic overtones of The Communist Manifesto. In the end we can only say, "What a load of bullsh*t!""]

Girish, Devika, et al. "Trans Cinema Roundtable." The Film Comment Podcast (April 20, 2021) ["“A film that centers on a transgender person or storyline enters the culture like any other movie. The difference lies in the discourse around it.” So writes Caden Mark Gardner in a recent essay in the Criterion Collection’s online publication, the Current. “Trans people in movies are written and talked about as if they were abstract concepts, anomalies. For years, it’s been clear that very little attention is being paid (by filmmakers, critics, or marketers) to the ways in which a trans audience might see and react to these attempts at putting their lives in front of the camera, and the cisgender majority continues to control the conversation.” On this week’s episode, Film Comment editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute brought together a roundtable of writers and artists who are reframing this conversation: critics Caden and Willow Maclay, and filmmakers Isabel Sandoval and Jessica Dunn Rovinelli. We asked the panel to respond to a number of excellent questions submitted by the Film Comment community, including: How does one define trans cinema? Are visibility and representation important, or should questions of labor be foregrounded? And which classic movies do our panelists consider to be “covertly” trans? The rich and wide-ranging conversation touched upon a number of movies—see below for links!"]

 Song, Min Hyoung. "No Witness: Warrior and the Histories of Anti-Asian Violence." Los Angeles Review of Books (March 22, 2021)

Zoellner, Tom. "The Rwanda Myth." Los Angeles Review of Books (April 3, 2021) [On Michela Wrong's book Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad."]


Friday, April 16, 2021

Dialogic Cinephilia - April 16, 2021

Adejuyigbe, Demi. "Nobody." Letterboxd (April 2, 2021) [Coins the genre classification "impotence thriller."]


Cleaver, Sarah Kathryn and Mary Wild. "Fashion Films Episode 4: Corruption & Consumption." Projections (March 6, 2019) ["Mary and Sarah discuss the darkness and destruction of American Vogue documentary The September Issue (2009) and Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon (2016)."]

Dorian, M.J. "Leonardo Da Vinci's Secret." Creative Codex (September 3, 2018 ["What made Leonardo da Vinci so consistently inspired? What was his secret?"]

George, Peter Kim. "Minari Isn’t Really About the American Dream. It’s About US Empire." Hyperallergic (February 11, 2021) ["In Lee Isaac Chung’s drama, immigration should be considered through the lens of displacement and diaspora, with its characters exhibiting resilience rather than assimilation."]

Lee, Kevin B. "Kevin B. Lee’s New Video Essay Explores Mourning with Minari." Hyperallergic (April 14, 2021) ["In a Hyperallergic exclusive, Lee muses on the aftermath of the Atlanta spa shootings and how the media imagines Asian Americans."]




Mobarak, Jared. "Violation Tells a Story with Cross-Cutting Precision." The Film Stage (September 13, 2020)

Selod, Saher. "Forever Suspect: Racialized Surveillance of Muslim Americans in the War on Terror (Rutgers University Press, 2018)." New Books in Sociology (March 29, 2021) ["How does a specific American religious identity acquire racial meaning? What happens when we move beyond phenotypes and include clothing, names, and behaviors to the characteristics that inform ethnoracial categorization? Forever Suspect, Racialized Surveillance of Muslim Americans in the War on Terror (Rutgers University Press, 2018) provides a nuanced portrayal of the experiences of South Asian and Arab Muslims in post 9/11 America and the role of racialized state and private citizen surveillance in shaping Muslim lived experiences. Saher Selod, an Associate Professor of Sociology at Simmons University, shares with us her story of growing up in Kansas and Texas and how writing this book helped her reclaim her own racialized experiences as the children of Pakistani immigrants to the US. Saher first began this project as a doctoral student at the University of Texas at Austin. As she returned to the dissertation to craft it into a book, she realized that beyond just race, racism and racialization, surveillance was a key recurring theme for the interview respondents. In today’s conversation, we explore the nuances of gender, race and surveillance, what it means to “Fly while Muslim”, and the harmful consequences of institutional surveillance laws like “Countering Violent Extremism” (CVE) that came about during the Obama Administration. We also touch on limitations of the book, including the exclusion of Black Muslims from this specific project. Saher’s openness with which she shares how her thinking has evolved over the years since this project first began leads us to discuss the ways in which non-Black Muslim immigrants and American born Muslims enact and maintain white supremacist structures. Forever Suspect provides an important and eye opening lens for us to consider how racialized surveillance, in all dimensions and forms, the War on Terror and U.S. Empire building continues to impact Muslim communities in the U.S."] 

Waring, Marilyn. "Who's Counting: Sex, Lies, and Global Economics, Part 1." TUC Radio (March 9, 2021) ["Marilyn Waring’s work and intriguing life is described in a documentary film by Terre Nash. I’m bringing back the soundtrack of this film to support a debate on the unquestioned need for economic growth at all cost and on what course to take after the end of the Covid Epidemic. At age 22 (in 1974) Marilyn Waring became the youngest member of the New Zealand Parliament. She chaired the prestigious Public Expenditures Committee and became familiar with the Gross Domestic Product system and decided to disclose its pathologies in a film, her teachings at AUT University in Auckland and really her life as a feminist economist. The film, “Who’s Counting” traces her quest to explore how the fate of women and of the earth are irrevocably tied up with the deadly pursuit of economic growth. Marilyn Waring was shocked and dismayed when she learned that all countries that are members of the UN are forced to keep their books and design their budgets under the system of National Income Accounting. This GDP system counts only cash transactions in the market and recognizes no value other than money. This means there is no value to peace and to the preservation of the environment."]

---. "Who's Counting: Sex, Lies and Global Economics, Part 2." TUC Radio (March 16, 2021) ["This segment opens with war. Under the GDP accounting system war is the biggest growth industry of all. A segment recorded in the Philippines shows that the labor of women feeding their children with subsistence agriculture is of no value, while sexual slavery that brings tourists to the country is counted as valuable in the GDP. Waring ends by proposing a time based accounting system and recommends that women take over the political process by demanding gender parity."]


Wednesday, April 14, 2021

Lady Bird (USA: Greta Gerwig, 2017)





Lady Bird (USA: Greta Gerwig, 2017: 93 mins)

Cassidy, Brendan and J.D. Duran. "CocoLady Bird, Top 3 Movies About Tradition." InSession Film #249 (November 2017)

Gerwig, Greta. "Lady Bird." The Close-Up (November 1, 2017) ["One of the audience favorites at this year’s New York Film Festival was Greta Gerwig’s solo directorial debut, Lady Bird, starring Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, and Tracy Letts, which begins its official theatrical run this weekend. During the festival, Gerwig joined film critic Thelma Adams for one of our NYFF Live talks. She discussed her approach to working with actors, her love of Chantal Akerman, how she knew she belonged behind the camera, and more."]

Gerwig, Greta and Luca Guadagnino. "Oscar Contenders at NYFF." The Close-Up (January 25, 2018) ["...we’re looking back to the New York premieres of two films in the running: Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird and Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me by Your Name. Both films premiered here in the 55th New York Film Festival last October, and the directors answered questions from critics and members of the press before their public screenings. Greta Gerwig joined NYFF Director Kent Jones, and Luca Guadagnino joined the Film Society’s Director of Programming Dennis Lim."]

Gerwig, Greta, et al. "63 Minute Directors Roundtable Talk." The Hollywood Reporter (Posted on Playlist: January 22, 2018) ["Angelina Jolie (“First They Killed My Father”), Patty Jenkins (“Wonder Woman”), Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird”), Joe Wright (“Darkest Hour”), Guillermo del Toro (“The Shape of Water”), and Denis Villeneuve (“Blade Runner 2049”)."]

Hornaday, Ann. "Lady Bird makes the case for reframing female stories as epics on a par with ‘male’ genres." The Washington Post (November 9, 2017)

Kempenaar, Adam and Josh Larsen. "Lady Bird / Justice League / Top 5 Female Directed Debuts." Filmspotting #657 (November 17, 2017)

Koski, Genevieve, Tasha Robinson and Scott Tobias. "Lady Bird / Ghost World (2001) - Part 1." The Next Picture Show #102 (November 14, 2017) ["Greta Gerwig’s fantastic directorial debut LADY BIRD is set in 2002, when its protagonist might have recognized a contemporary kindred spirit in Enid, the protagonist of Terry Zwigoff’s 2001 coming-of-age comedy GHOST WORLD: Both characters are creatively minded outcasts who are leaving high school and facing uncertainty about their futures. In this half of our pairing of the two films, we focus on the prickly and not-quite-lovable iconoclasts who populate GHOST WORLD, discussing its garish version of the turn of the millennium, how it translates Danial Clowes’ comic of the same name for movie screens, and whether it contains the best existential fart joke ever committed to film."]

---. "Lady Bird / Ghost World (2001) - Part 2." The Next Picture Show #103 (November 16, 2017) ["We return to the dawn of the millennium to discuss Greta Gerwig’s new solo directorial debut LADY BIRD, and how it echoes the sardonic coming-of-age comedy that characterizes Terry Zwigoff’s GHOST WORLD. After parsing our individual reactions to and readings of LADY BIRD, we look at how the two films compare in terms of their view of nostalgia and mainstream culture, as well as the respective family dynamics that affect each protagonist’s view of the world."]

Kuersten, Erich. "Best of 2017: The Phoenix Scorches the Snake (Year of the Woman)." Acidemic (December 27, 2017)

O'Falt, Chris. "The Best Cast Films of 2017, According to Top Casting Directors." IndieWire (December 4, 2017) ["15 casting directors explain the brilliance behind their peers’ work in “Lady Bird,” “Get Out,” “The Post,” "The Shape of Water," and more."]











The Gush: Saoirse Ronan from Fandor on Vimeo.



Tuesday, April 13, 2021

Marilyn Waring: Global Economics (Ongoing Archive)

  Waring, Marilyn. "Who's Counting: Sex, Lies, and Global Economics, Part 1." TUC Radio (March 9, 2021) ["Marilyn Waring’s work and intriguing life is described in a documentary film by Terre Nash. I’m bringing back the soundtrack of this film to support a debate on the unquestioned need for economic growth at all cost and on what course to take after the end of the Covid Epidemic. At age 22 (in 1974) Marilyn Waring became the youngest member of the New Zealand Parliament. She chaired the prestigious Public Expenditures Committee and became familiar with the Gross Domestic Product system and decided to disclose its pathologies in a film, her teachings at AUT University in Auckland and really her life as a feminist economist. The film, “Who’s Counting” traces her quest to explore how the fate of women and of the earth are irrevocably tied up with the deadly pursuit of economic growth. Marilyn Waring was shocked and dismayed when she learned that all countries that are members of the UN are forced to keep their books and design their budgets under the system of National Income Accounting. This GDP system counts only cash transactions in the market and recognizes no value other than money. This means there is no value to peace and to the preservation of the environment."]

---. "Who's Counting: Sex, Lies and Global Economics, Part 2." TUC Radio (March 16, 2021) ["This segment opens with war. Under the GDP accounting system war is the biggest growth industry of all. A segment recorded in the Philippines shows that the labor of women feeding their children with subsistence agriculture is of no value, while sexual slavery that brings tourists to the country is counted as valuable in the GDP. Waring ends by proposing a time based accounting system and recommends that women take over the political process by demanding gender parity."]

Waring, Marilyn. "Who's Counting: Sex, Lies and Global Economics." NFB (1995) [documentary available online]

Waring, Marilyn and Elaine Bernard. "Delusions of Modern Economics & The Free Market (Women's Day Edition)." Unwelcome Guests (March 10, 2000)

Sunday, April 11, 2021

Dialogic Cinephilia - April 11, 2021

Cleaver, Sarah Kathryn and Mary Wild. "Fashion Films Episode 1: Control & Creation." Projections (January 23, 2019) ["Sarah and Mary begin their analysis of films about fashion with George Cukor’s My Fair Lady (1964) and Michaelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up (1966)."]

---. "Fashion Films Episode 2: Desiring Desire." Projections (February 6, 2019) ["Sarah and Mary revisit Bruce Weber’s strange essay film Chop Suey (2001) and Tom Ford’s sublime A Single Man (2009) and their exploration of desire in fashion."]

Cleaver, Sarah Kathryn, et al. "Cam featuring Daniel Goldhaber & Isa Mazzei." Projections (November 21, 2018) 

Ford, Phil and J.F. Martel. "Whirl Without End: On M.C. Richards' Centering." Weird Studies #35 (December 5, 2018) ["The first step in any pottery project is to center the clay on the potter's wheel. In her landmark essay Centering: In Pottery, Poetry and the Person (1964), the American poet M. C. Richards turns this simple action into a metaphor for all creative acts, including the act of living your life. The result is a penetrating and poetic reflection on the artistic process that values change, unknowing, and radical becoming, making Richards' text a guide to creativity that leaves other examples of that evergreen genre in the dust. Phil and JF get their hands dirty trying to understanding what centering is, and what it entails for a life of creation and becoming. The discussion brings in a number of other thinkers and artists including Friedrich Nietzsche, Norman O. Brown, Carl Jung, Antonin Artaud, and Flannery O'Connor."]

McDormand, Frances. "Nomadland." Kitchen Sisters #159 (February 9, 2021) ["Sometimes you read a book and it alters the course of your life. That’s what happened to Frances McDormand. Twice. First it was Olive Kitteridge, the HBO series she produced and starred in based on the book by Elizabeth Stroud. This time it's Nomadland. Academy Award winning Frances McDormand talks about the making of Nomadland which is coming to Hulu and select theaters and drive-ins starting February 19, 2021. Directed by Chloe Zhao, based on the nonfiction book Nomadland: Surviving in the Twenty First Century by Jessica Bruder, Nomadland is the first film to ever premiere at the Venice, Toronto and Telluride Film Festivals all on the same night — where it took home all the top prizes. The story is a tale of our times centering on the very “now” many Americans find themselves in. People uprooted from their old jobs and old neighborhoods, places they've called home for decades, now living in DIY customized vans, migrating for work with the seasons. Christmas near the Amazon Fulfillment Center in Virginia, the sugar beet harvest in North Dakota, cleaning latrines and being campground hosts in National Parks. They were already on the road by the thousands before the pandemic uprooted even more. Frances McDormand plays Fern, a woman in her sixties who, after losing everything in the Great Recession, sets out on a journey through the Midwest living as a van-dwelling itinerant worker — a modern day nomad. Frances talks about her experiences making the film in the van-dwelling community with clips from director Chloe Zhao, author Jessica Bruder, van-dwelling guru Bob Wells, and clips from the film. “…Zhao’s fable speaks to us, in 2020, as John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath did to audiences eighty years ago.” Anthony Lane, The New Yorker"]

Pelroth, Nicole. "On the Cyberweapons Race." The Lawfare Podcast (March 19, 2021) ["Jack Goldsmith spoke with New York Times cybersecurity reporter Nicole Perlroth about her new book, This is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race. They discussed the dark world of markets for zero-day vulnerabilities that are so vital in offensive cyber operations, the history of the markets, how they work, who the players are and why the United States doesn't control as much as it used to. They also discussed broader issues of U.S. cybersecurity policy, including the recent SolarWinds hack."]

Richardson, Chris. "Reimagining Livelihoods." This is Not a Pipe (December 26, 2019) ["Ethan Miller discusses his book Reimagining Livelihoods: Life Beyond Economy, Society, and Environment with Chris Richardson. Miller is an activist-scholar committed to co-creating resilient and liberatory forms of collective livelihood. He is an interdisciplinary lecturer teaching in politics, anthropology, and environmental studies at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, a board member of the Community Economies Institute, and has worked for the past twenty years with an array of grassroots organizing and popular education projects. Ethan lives at the Wild Mountain Cooperative (formerly JED Collective), a collective subsistence homestead, and works as an organizer for Land in Common community land trust, focused on land justice and cooperative forms of land tenure. His research and teaching focuses on solidarity economics and postcapitalist livelihood, intersections of economy and ecology and, most recently, land justice. His first book, Reimagining Livelihoods: Life Beyond Economy, Society, and Environment was released in March 2019 by the University of Minnesota Press."]

Schapiro, Mark. "Seeds of Resistance: The Fight to Save Our Food Supply." Townsend Center for the Humanities (October 23, 2019) ["The fate of the food supply has slipped into a handful of the world’s largest companies, with more than half of commercial seed varieties owned by three agri-chemical companies. In Seeds of Resistance (Skyhorse, 2018), Mark Schapiro (School of Journalism, UC Berkeley) examines what this corporate stranglehold is doing to our daily diet, from the explosion of genetically modified foods to the rapid disappearance of plant varieties to the elimination of independent farmers who have long been the bedrock of our food supply."]

West, Stephen. "The Frankfurt School - Walter Benjamin, Part 1." Philosophize This! (March 19, 2021) [With a focus on "The Task of the Translator."]






Thursday, April 1, 2021

Espinacas con Garbanzos w/ and without Chorizo

 When making for vegan/vegetarians substitute Vegetable Broth for Chicken Broth and leave out chorizo.

Use a high quality, fruity, spicy olive oil (if possible).

Sherry vinegar can substitute for the red wine vinegar.

1 loaf of crusty bread or some dipping sopping edible device
2 15 oz cans chickpeas (1 can drained, one undrained)
1 1/2 cups of chicken broth
6 tablespoons of olive oil
6 garlic cloves, finely minced
1 tablespoon smoked paprika (picante preferred, but dulce for those that can't stand heat)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon table salt (I just ground some himalayan salt to taste)
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon 
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
1 small pinch saffron (I had some on hand, but it is expensive - it can survive without)
2 plum tomatoes (recipe called for them to be grated and skin discarded, I finely diced them and kept the skins on)
4 teaspoons red wine or sherry vinegar (plus some to taste afterward)
10 ozs frozen chopped spinach (use this kind, fresh spinach won't work as well.  Thaw the spinach. press between paper towels, try to get rid of most of the moisture)
Small bit of chorizo (tastes vary, I used Marksbury Farms that I was happy to find in Krogers - original recipe doesn't call for this, so it isn't necessary)

1) Dice and then food processor enough bread to fill 3/4 cups.
Combine chickpeas and broth in large saucepan and bring to boil over high heat.
Adjust to simmer, and cook until liquid is just below the top of the chickpeas.

2) While doing 1 above, heat 1/4 cup of oil in a small skillet until oil is just shimmering. Add bread crumbs, stirring frequently until it starts turning a golden brown. Add garlic, paprika, cumin, salt, cinammon, cayenne, and saffron and cook until fragrant (30 - 60 seconds). Stir in tomatoes and vinegar; remove from heat.

3) Stir bread mixture and spinach into chickpeas. Continue to simmer, stirring occasionally, until it is thick and stew-like, 5-10 minutes. Take off heat. Cook desired amount of chorizo in the small skillet and combine into main mixture. Still, off heat, stir in remaining two tablespoons of oil. Cover let stand for 5 minutes. If you so desire season with more salt or vinegar.

Serve in bowls and with remaining crusty breads. 

You could sprinkle some parmesan or romano cheese (I did not do this), or a bit of hot sauce (I used La Meridiana Papaya Habanero)