Week 35-22 - Curiosities

Art of the Week:
Rick Barton's Sketchbooks - https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/22/arts/design/rick-barton-drawings-morgan-library.html - illustrating that the most simple is the most beautiful - pen and ink observations on paper.
"a workaday recluse who sought self-knowledge by way of a monastic and unquestioned creative ethic. A nobody who, through a rare curatorial eureka moment, has become an instantaneous, mesmeric somebody."

Word of the Week:

Philoneism
an excessive love of novelty. Also called neophilism.

Music of the week:
One of my most beloved bands taped the recording of their last album Quesaco? before Belle du Berry passed away in August 2020. She was an effervescent performer who I never missed if they performed anywhere nearby.

Paris Combo - Axe Imaginaire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hMyOmsTfGY

Recipe of the Week:
Ground Turkey Strogonoff

Ingredients

• 2 T butter
• 1/2 cup chopped onion (I use white)
• Shitake or other mushrooms, ~1/2 pound, substitute favorite mushroom
• 2 T oil
• 1 lb. ground turkey
• At least 3 minced garlic cloves
• smoked paprika to taste
• smoked salt to taste
• ground fresh pepper to taste
• 1 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
• Worcestershire sauce to taste
• 1/2 cup full-fat greek yoghurt
• powdered mustard to taste
• smoked salt to taste
• 2 Tbsp. finely chopped parsley (optional)
• 12 oz. gluten free dry egg noodles, cooked per box instructions
  Instructions

1. In a skillet, melt butter. When hot, add onions and mushrooms. Cook until browned. Remove to a bowl.
2. While the mushrooms are cooking, add chicken broth to a measuring cup and gradually whisk in the flour until smooth. Set aside.
3. Increase the heat and add olive oil. Add ground turkey. Season with garlic, paprika, salt and pepper, and cook until crumbled and browned.
4. Add prepared chicken broth to the pan. Allow it to quickly simmer. Stir in mushrooms and Worcestershire sauce. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Reduce heat to a medium and simmer, uncovered, until thickened.
5. Immediately remove the pan off heat and stir in sour cream, powdered mustard, and parsley. Season to taste before serving over cooked egg noodles.

Tool of the Week:

Uni Posca paint marker
These Japanese made paint pens are simply the best. They are extremely well behaved paint markers that work well on any kind of paper without bleeding. They come in a variety of tip sizes, I prefer the medium or fine. Currently using them with great success in a Stillman and Birn Nova Series - Black.

Science of the Week:

Reintroducing bison increases diversity of grasslands and drought resilience.
https://phys.org/news/2022-08-reintroducing-bison-grasslands-diversity-drought.html

We are just starting to learn about what our NM land used to look like - it was grassland. First came the people, then they introduced sheep, then cattle, and now it is mostly sagebrush. There are native grasses that peek through especially turning high rain seasons. Now we are trying to figure out ways to restore the land so the native grasses can take over again.

Thinking about:
Dystopia. It's interesting that the definition of dystopia is "1. An imaginary place or state in which the condition of life is extremely bad, as from deprivation, oppression, or terror." I feel like the current times are a dystopia - and it is definitely not an imaginary place or state. We are very much in a state of rampant fear and distress. The inmates are running the asylum. Do you agree or disagree? It's interesting that dystopia increases exponentially around 1984 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984.

I am very much feeling Musubu Hagi's dreamy watercolors inspired by glass works. For more of their work:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hagimusubu13/
Article: https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/musubu-hagi-project-illustration-050922

Finally! Some Lynda Barry Love!
A Genius Cartoonist Believes Child’s Play Is Anything But Frivolous
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/09/05/magazine/lynda-barry-interview.html

Fantastic interview with the indefatigable Lynda Barry about fun, play, and creativity...
"There’s total amnesia of the experience of deep play. When you’re an adult watching a kid playing with a little toy, you just think that kid’s doing that and there’s nothing else to it. But from the kid’s perspective that toy is playing with them. It’s interactive. There’s amnesia about the deepness of that interchange and amnesia about how when you’re making a story or making a painting it’s that same sort of interchange, and having that is what you’re born to do."

Go follow Lynda on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thenearsightedmonkey/