Magic Jewball

I urge you, no I demand that you watch this video. Especially if you’re feeling down. If you’re at work and sound isn’t available, you MUST do it later. It’s never too late to feel good! But this isn’t just to make you smile, I have a point here. This video is like the Internet. I’ll wait till you watch it to explain. Better yet, click on the video and go to the original page to see it bigger and slightly less wonky. Then come right back.

Happy? Of course you are! OK. So you see, the first guy is like, I don’t know, Steve Jobs. Or Bill Gates. Or Woz. Or anyone who discovered things really early. And then, slowly people begin to notice. And give weird looks. Some walk away but some are fascinated and watch, even though they’re not sure what’s going on. Then, others join in. Then, others who were watching on the periphery join in. Then you join in. Somewhere along the way, before you even know it, it’s a phenomenon.

Because when everyone’s sharing with each other (and this never works when you’re alone), it’s just fun and happy times! This is why forums and blogs and Facebook are so addictive. You share with others, they share with you. Sometimes, you charge people money and this is called eBay. But this is all to say, I broke down and joined Twitter. I couldn’t help it, the dance in the center of the train station was too much for me and I was drawn into the vortex.

So far, I haven’t said much, I’m just listening and reading and processing. And I’ll do that for a while, especially because I have another two days of holiday beginning tonight. But if you’d like to follow, because hell, maybe things will get good, I’m at:

http://twitter.com/magicjewball

And if you have Twitter suggestions, feel free to leave links to them in the comments. I want to follow lots of people! For one thing, I’m bad at dance steps and this way, I’ll learn and maybe not step on my own feet. Because I seriously have no idea what I’m doing. But I’ve heard that when you know the notes to sing, you can sing most anything.

Oh hell yes I have this earworm.
Michael Jackson – Rockin’ Robin

This is another of those mid-90′s things that isn’t available anywhere but eBay and I’m not selling mine. But seeing Uncle Billy in a comment (and he’s been mentioned in two posts, just namelessly) reminds me of this song, a song that never got the respect it deserved. See, it was supposed to be the new “Loser” a la Beck, and personally, I think it was poppier and catchier, yet it went nowhere just a year or two later. Which is a shame, really, because it still stands up all these years in the future. Like “Loser,” this song is self-deprecating and nihilistic with lots of nonsense lyrics, combining power pop and hip-hop.

Even though I haven’t listened to this album in about fifteen years, lines from the songs still float through my head sometimes, that’s how sticky they are. I sometimes forget they’re even from this CD, except I listened to it today and, well, now I remember where those lines originated. It’s a lot like all the Beatlesque power pop I love so much like Jellyfish and Matthew Sweet and Crowded House. I have no idea why I let it sit so long. Now that I have it on my iPod where it belongs, I can tell you that it still makes me want to sing out loud. I may even have done so, but, as you recall, I hate my neighbors, so it’s OK.

Enjoy via this dated YouTube video and feel free to write to SonyBMG about getting this on iTunes and other download services.

I almost called this post, “Here comes the sun…. not.” Luckily, sometimes when you think the sun isn’t going to come out, it does. Today’s a special day in Judaism and it only happens once every 28 years. So this is my first time. Oh ahahahahahaha. Right. But no, I really don’t remember this last time. It’s called Birkat Hachama (Blessing of the Sun) and supposedly, the sun is in the exact same position it was in when the world was created. I’m no astronomer but hey, why not? You have from sunrise until noon to say the special blessing but you have to be able to see the sun. And if you’re in the Northeast, you know that hasn’t been very common lately. Actually, I happened to be awake at 6:33am when sunrise happened and I needed coffee (I’m all prepped to go away for the first days of Passover so I didn’t make any) so I ran out to look. No sun! I got my coffee. No sun! I went to work an hour later. No sun! Sensing a pattern here? At 10:30, it started to snow. Ye gods. Er, God.

But at 10:55, right before my 11am meeting, I saw this from my office window:

Actual shot from my office, you can tell they’re not awesome at cleaning the windows.

Jackpot! I ran outside without my coat but there were too many tall buildings. This will shock you, I’m sure, knowing that I am in New York City. But I went to the corner and there it was! I said my blessing which basically goes, “Blessed art thou, Lord our God, king of the universe, who makes the works of creation.”

Now here’s the thing. I don’t really believe God made the world in seven days like in the Bible. But I do believe He made the world and I do believe the world is a great place most of the time and I’m glad it exists. I also like the sun a lot. And for one moment every 28 years, I’m happy to stop and acknowledge that. Also, to say it out loud on the corner, looking crazy (yeah, yeah, I’m not the only one). Then, I went to my meeting and walked into a wall because I had been staring at the sun for 30 seconds, which doesn’t seem like a lot unless you’re looking directly at the sun.

By the way, only twice in the history of time has Birkat Hachama fallen on the eve of Passover, which it happens to be. So I won’t be blogging or commenting for a few days, but since I only post once every 28 years, you probably won’t even notice.

Man, did I have a lot of songs I wanted to use to title this post. The one I chose, obviously was:
Manfred Mann’s Earth Band – Blinded by the Light

But I also liked:
U2 – Staring At The Sun

OK, you know what? People on movie sets who tell you to move along because there’s nothing to see here are LIARS. L.I.A.R.S. I will now no longer believe them, even when I am prone to move along anyway. That’s what happened last week when I popped into Whole Foods to buy a Perfect Orange for the Failcake. I wanted something lovely and organic because the peel was going in too and I was willing to pay good money, which as you know, you’re totally going to when you go to Whole Foods.

But outside the Time Warner Center where the WF is housed, there was a giant crowd, even though it was like 9pm (I work and shop late) and huge lights, one of them in the shape of a tootsie roll, I kid you not, that was being raised and lowered from some sort of tractor-ish truck. If you have worked till 8:30 and are then going grocery shopping before going home to bake a cake, the last thing you want is to be caught in a crowd of tourists gawking at a movie set where apparently nothing is happening.

So I went down and got my orange and a few other things and came back up to leave and go home. As I was walking out, I did stop to look and try to see if at least there was someone famous so I could say I had seen someone famous. As if on cue, someone from behind the cordoned off area, many rows of crowd in front of me said authoritatively, “nothing to see here! No one famous!” Well that was a relief. Phew! Nothing to miss, and I went on home and made my cake. And then another cake the next day, but you knew that.

Then, the next day, I happened to be reading Gawker when I saw this picture and I knew knew knew that this was the set in front of the Time Warner Center, lit by a giant tubular light. Nobody famous! Why, this was the exactly the same famous person I blogged about in my first “I passed a movie set” post! Hugh Grant! That was from Music & Lyrics and actually, my block was cut out of that one, alas. This one is called Did You Hear About the Morgans? and has Sarah Jessica Parker (also pictured on Gawker) but I doubt I’ll be seeing it. They lied to me, sheesh.

***SPOILER ALERT***
By the way, I finally saw the Sex & the City movie and was relieved they rectified that whole “Samantha ends up with a man just like everybody else, completely going against her whole personality” plotline. Phew. But Stanford and Anthony was just not believable. Sorry!

Rollins Band – Liar

I alluded the other day to my Failcake and so I thought I’d follow up on that. I didn’t do that right away because you know how much I love a happy ending so I had to wait till there was one. And there was! Good cake is always a happy outcome.

I had a task, and that was to make an olive oil cake, something I had heard of but imagined tasted like a bottle of olive oil, not something I enjoy in my desserts. But the theme was Mediterranean and since I don’t do baklava (well, I eat it, I just don’t make it), this seemed the best alternative. Particularly when I Googled and found a recipe from the Food Network, specifically from someone who is supposed to be an expert in Mediterranean food. I don’t know from such things, I only watch Ace of Cakes (one day, I will work at that place), but it had great reviews so I went for it. Actually, the idea first popped into my head from an article and recipe in the Times a couple of weeks ago which involved blood oranges and looked great. But it looked like a pound cake, not a fancee cake you serve people you want to impress (anyone other than myself is someone I want to impress) plus, it involved hacking an orange into pieces, not something I had the patience for.

But yeah, this did not turn out well. I should have known any cake calling for a cup and a half of something you usually put on salad or cook fish in was not something that was going to have a good result. This cake ended up having the texture of an Alaskan oil spill (you know how your fingers feel after eating pizza? yeah.) although I will admit it tasted pretty good. You may wonder how I knew it tasted and felt thus when in theory, I should not have been able to cut into it until serving it. But this is how. You see, this thing WOULD NOT be extricated from the pan. I made it in a non-stick bundt, something I use all the time with no trouble, but this was the cake that would not be released. I slid a knife around, then a sharper knife, then a frosting knife, then a spatula and nothing. I pounded on the back of the pan. Stuck. This was at 1am, so it’s lucky I hate my neighbors.

In the end, as you can imagine, it finally came out with half the cake still stuck to the pan. This is what I call Failcake. It looks something like this:

Ouch. I know.

The next day, I was all set to say, “Fuck the Mediterranean” and make the cake I do best, double-banana, but luckily, Alfa passed along yet another citrus olive oil recipe, this one from Cooking Light, which had tangerine instead of orange (whatever) and more importantly, 1/3 the oil (I guess that’s why they call it light). This one needed a little help releasing but did fine and although it didn’t have any olive oil taste (people just had to believe me on that one), it did taste moist and tangeriney and delicious. Oh, and it looked great, judge for yourself:

Yeah, now that’s what I call cake.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with the Exxon Valdez Uglycake.

Recipes
Good cake

Failcake

NY Times Cake

Title based on:
Donna Summer – MacArthur Park