Knowledge Is Power

Photography

Sebastião Salgado has always been one of my favorite photographers. Which is why I was surprised I didn't know about his latest nature photography project, "designed to reconnect us to how the world was before humanity altered it almost beyond recognition." So far during his Genesis Project he's ben to Galapagos, Virunga, home to the world's only mountain gorillas, and the seas of Patagonia, to photograph right whales.

Mayapple

People occasionally ask what is in my header photo.This time it's a Mayapple, photographed in the Deer Run Forest Preserve in Palatine. The flowers are hidden under their umbrella-like leaves. These things are everywhere in local woods, usually grouping together in Mayapple communities. They're toxic, except for the berries. It has some medicinal uses, but "the compounds in it are much too toxic to attempt self-medication with this plant. The FDA rates the use of this plant as "unsafe.""

Book meme

I usually hate these "stick" things. They usually feel like a combination of chain letters and 5th grade homework. But since I haven't posted for awhile I thought I'd do this one, even though nobody sent it to me, and because I wanted to mention a few books.

1. You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451. Which book do you want to be?

Bill Bryson's Short History of Nearly Everything. If I memorized that, I'd seem really, really smart.

2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Pippi Longstocking.

3. The last book you bought was...?

The Zen of CSS Design. Dave Shea and Moly E. Holzschlag. But I admit I didn't buy it, it's just the last book I got. Truely, the perfect book for my level, full of exactly the kind of knowledge I need to do my job. Not just CSS, but design theory and inspiration. No dumbed-down basic fluff, but no pages and pages of way-over-my-head code either. Downright pretty too.

The last book I actually bought is the next question.

4. The last book you read was...?

End of the Earth, Travels in Antartica, Peter Matthiessen. Only Mattheissen can convince you that you want to go to a frozen wasteland on a Russian ice breaker, more than anywhere else on earth.

5. What are you currently reading?

I currently have about 5-6 books I pick up once in awhile, but these are the ones I pick up and take on the train ride to work (one at a time).

CSS Zen Garden, see above.

Culinary Artistry Andrew Dornenburg, Karen Page. When I'm done with this one, I'll give it a proper review on the Food Blog, but I've got to recommend it as an anti-cookbook. Sure there are recipes in it, but it's about learning how to cook artistically, not how to cook this recipe or that style of cuisine. It's about creating, not copying. Lots of lists of ingredients, flavors, food pairings and menus that serve as composing and inspirational guides. Tons of interviews with Chefs that pick their brains for their experience and advice.

Baudolino, Umberto Eco. Perhaps I should bring this book to the desert island in the next question, because it may be the only way I'll finish it. Eco's books are dense and filled with rich histories and complexities. But this one, and his last one, Island of the Day Before, while both fascinating, wear out my attention span very quickly. I'm not sure whether it's him or me. His next book has pictures. Maybe that will help.

6. Five books you would take to a desert island...

Primitive Wilderness Living & Survival Skills: Naked into the Wilderness
by John McPherson

Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Seashells (assuming I'm on a North American island) I'm sure there's a big illustrated encyclopedic textbook on this subject for any other area.

Far Tortuga, Peter Mattheissen. Perfect desert island book. It's about the sea, it's Peter Mattheissen, it's been compared to Conrad, Hemingway and Meville, and I haven't read it yet. There's another Matthiessen non-fiction book called "Wind Birds, about seabirds that would be perfect too.

Ulysses, James Joyce. Years of no distractions would be perfect for this book. Also I've read that this book contains more individual words than almost any other book. That would keep me versed in the language in case I ever got of the island and had to have a conversation.

Someone should write a guidebook on how to survive on a desert island, with chapters on seagull and mollusk cuisine, sand/palm tree architecture, primitive raft construction, and ocean meteorology and navigation. If nothing else, the author would get a lot of links from this stupid question.

7. Who are you passing this stick on to and why?
Nobody. Cause, I hate chain letter type memes.