tired light

eatin fine at Veggie Street Day in Stuttgart

eatin fine at Veggie Street Day in Stuttgart

streams and snails: a rainy day in the Swiss woods

‘twas a good day to be vegan in heidelberg.

‘twas a good day to be vegan in heidelberg.

How oddly this light suffuses the covered arcades which abound in Paris… A glaucous gleam, seemingly filtered through deep water, with the special quality of pale brilliance of a leg suddenly revealed under a lifted skirt. The great American passion for city planning, imported into Paris… will soon spell the doom of these human aquariums. Louis Aragon, Le Paysan de Paris, 1926, translated by Simon Watson Taylor

my afternoon traversing some of the surviving passages of Paris — the same ones the surrealists like Aragon and Breton wrote about enthusiastically some 90 years ago.

Brighton, UK’s Prinzhorn Dance School came through town last weekend with sour, angular grooves. Some friendly touches balanced the caustic tone of the music. Most memorably, towards the end of the set, the guitarist broke out a bottle of champagne to share with the small audience. More of this sort, please!

Brighton, UK’s Prinzhorn Dance School came through town last weekend with sour, angular grooves. Some friendly touches balanced the caustic tone of the music. Most memorably, towards the end of the set, the guitarist broke out a bottle of champagne to share with the small audience. More of this sort, please!

All the worlds in my window

Although no match for the legendary six-planet grouping that happened 30 years ago, a few months before I was born (illustrated here by Doug Myers, from Fred Schaaf’s The Starry Room), this has been a special month for planet-gazing. Two weeks ago, the two brightest points of light in the entire sky, Venus and Jupiter, converged to within 3 degrees. And tonight, to cap off the gleaming twilight pageant, Venus reaches its peak height of the season next to a crescent Moon. More details here: http://earthsky.org/tonight/moon-and-venus-closest-in-west-after-sunset-march-26-2012

Nutty Tempeh Stir Fry

I took the concept from Vegan Stoner’s Lucky Lettuce Wraps recipe, scaled the portions up and added/switched a few things (lettuce doesn’t do it for me). It helps to steam the tempeh before you fry it, so that it really soaks up the flavors in the pan. Was also my first time using sesame oil, and found that pouring some on at the end really nails the greasy, smoky essence of Thai take-out ;) So here were all my ingredients:

  • 1 lb/0.5 kg tempeh cut into bite-size chunks
  • big bunch of kale
  • 1 cup coarsely chopped cashews
  • 0.5 lb/0.2 kg rice noodles
  • sunflower oil for frying
  • 6 garlic cloves, minced
  • 3 leeks or scallions, finely chopped
  • 50-100 mL soy sauce
  • sesame oil for flavor (the dark stuff, not the yellow kind for cooking)
  • hot chili sauce

Highdelberg: an exquisite and apropos record shop find. Sunny prog rock from 1975 with two players of Guru Guru fame

spotted a bunch of animal tracks in the snow around the institute this morning. Racoons, foxes, deer, rabbits? Someone must know…

UPDATE: top left and bottom right look like deer tracks, and the ones on the top right are from rabbits. Bottom left remains unidentified.