Braddy Reads East of Eden

Man, is Steinbeck depressing or what?

I've been doing less reading than usual. Between singing rehearsals all throughout the last quarter of 2013 and house... stuff... I've not really had the time. But now it's a new year, and a new month, and a new selection from my book club. So it's time, I guess, to take that reading rainbow for a ride.

This is actual the second time my book club has chosen to read a Steinbeck novel. It's not terrible hard to see why: Steinbeck is a stupendous writer, even if all he seems to write about is misery and discomfort. I've never walked away from a Steinbeck novel feeling anything other than enlightened, although perhaps a bit dirty, as well.

East of Eden is almost definitely my new favorite Steinbeck novel. It contains one of the most interesting meditations on morality I've ever read. Admittedly it took a long time for me to really get into the novel - it felt like the first several hundred pages were all set up , and it takes a LOT of patience to get the payoff.

I really hate long novels.

Ultimately, though, East of Eden has given me a lot to think about. Like the stories from the Bible on which the novel is loosely based, East of Eden affirms that men and women all,have the capacity for good and evil, and their reasons for cleaving to one or the other can vary. Sometimes, vice can lend one strength, while virtue can lead them down treacherous, sinful roads. Yeah, I'll be thinking on that one for a while.

By the way, I read the Penguin edition of the novel, and the back of the book kinda made me laugh:

Set in the rich farmland of California's Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families-the Trasks and the Hamiltons-whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.

That, by the way, is literally the entire plot of the book. Spoilers, indeed.

Catching Up with the Classics: A Night at the Opera

Hey, it's been a loooong time since I've done one of these.

Although I have to say this is probably cheating a little.  I love me some Marx Brothers entertainment.  Which is kinda funny, since I really don't like many slapstick, goofy comedies.

The Marxes, though - they own their particular style of comedy in a way no other comedian does.  Nobody does snark like Groucho, and Harpo's peculiar prop-centric slapstick is surpassed only by cartoons, where they can actually blow themselves up with Acme-brand dynamite.

Chico, though... I've never really been a big fan of Chico's faux-Italian shenanigans.  I wonder if it felt different back in the time period, but today it feels a little... culterally-insensitive.

That said, the famous "contract scene" towards the beginning of A Night at the Opera had me laughing.  Groucho and Chico have a great chemistry when they banter, and they carry a lot of comedy that I don't think would otherwise come out.  Chico's accent actually does detract some from the scene, though.

But, then again, Chico is one of the most entertaining pianists I've ever seen.  The obligatory musical interlude feels out of place as always, but I never complain.  Chico's a delight to watch, and Harpo on the harp always manages to bring a tear to my eye.

Yeah, I, um, cry at Marx Brothers movies.  Is that weird.

Whatever.  They're great.

The Sweet Shop

Sometimes the simple dates are the best...

Cooking with Braddy: Pot Roast

Man, I just don't have the budget to splurge on fancy meals anymore. A big chunk of meat is usually well out of my price-range. However, I got a sizable Christmas bonus, a Saturday free of obligations, and my very own copy of the Good Eats cookbook.

Therefore: pot roast.

I suck at groceries. Often, I have trouble finding ingredients called for in recipes just because I don't know where to look in the supermarket. Alton Brown's recipe called for "tomato juice," but I went with a predominately tomato vegetable blend instead. It had a good flavor, and I don't think it hurt anything.

Also, I dropped the bottle of red wine vinegar and busted the cap.

I REALLY hate the little plastic caps that come on these things. They seem to fall to pieces at the slightest bit of pressure, even when the glass bottle stays intact. I think we'd better start calling weakling boxers "Plastic Jaw" instead, cuz that stuff is WEAK.

The meat didn't turn out quite like I'd hoped. It was pretty tough, even after 3 hours of cooking. But it had quite a good flavor, and it gave me leftovers for a few days.

Man, does anything ever taste quite as good as leftover pot roast? I think not.

My 2013 Highlights (According to Facebook)

Above:  The only new picture of me Facebook got last year.

Facebook gave me a handy list of the biggest events that happened to me in 2013... according to my status updates. They managed to catch my house in there, which was awfully cognizant of them.

Other gems from the year include:

• Stephen Bradford is baking bread and watching Gilmore Girls. So at some point he turned into a housewife.
• That moment when you borrow a friend's glasses and your vision improves.
• The day I stopped being a child was the day I realized that Sunny D is not very good.
• What I would say to my children in 25 words or less: "What the...? Where did you come from? WHO's your mother?"
• Fruit Stripes Gum! I have some now - not because of the delicious fruity flavor, but simply to marvel that it still exists!
• Green smoothie for breakfast, salad for lunch... I've been good today. Fruity Pebbles for dinner.
• I find myself feeling oddly wistful tonight. And you know what sparked it? Video. Game. Music.
  
  Only thing worse than being a nerd is being a sappy, emotional nerd.
• Father's Day doesn't mean much when you're single... but even I had to laugh when a bunch of twenty-something women got up to sing "I'm So Glad When Daddy Comes Home" in church.
• The box of brownie mix says, "Stir 50 strokes with a spoon." Well, I used a WHISK, and I don't even COUNT my strokes. So, what are you going to do about that, brownie mix?
• I've got a hot date tonight with TWO GIRLS at once!
  
  Barnes and Noble ARE both women, right?

Heck, that last one could probably hold true for any given weekend in 2014.

The Back of a Head

This is, like, literally the only way I fall in love anymore.

So I'm experimenting a lot more with the Procreate app on the iPad, since I have a suspicion that pens and paper aren't really going to be in the budget for me anymore.  It's still not my favorite way of drawing, but I like it well enough, so I'll stick with it for the mo'.

Cecil and the Silver Tower

Forget about the tower.  I just really wanted to draw age spots.

I need to work on my "places."  Settings are really the most difficult things for me to manage, in writing as well as in drawing.