A Wicked Bostonian Weekend

This roughly translates to "The whole world is a Mercier world," aka my new life motto.

This post is basically an excuse to link to a bunch of things that I love. Hopefully you'll find something to love in here too!

Saturday was our first CSA pick-up from Stillman's Farm. We got rainbow chard, beets, greens, arugula, and the best strawberries I have ever tasted. They were the platonic ideal of juicy berry goodness. Baby Razor ate a dozen.When we did our first CSA 4 years ago, I could barely cook mac & cheese. That first year, the only thing I knew how to do was to sauté every veggie in butter with either garlic or brown sugar. It wasn't until last year, when I was also on a gluten-free cooking crash course, that I finally really started incorporating our CSA box into planned meals. It took more than a decade of adulthood, but I finally learned to cook.

And let me tell you, if I can do it? Anyone can. I know fuck all about vegetables. But between very patient friends and the amazing powers of the internet, I've gone from, "Roast beets. Eat beets." to "Make beet risotto." Believe me, no one is more surprised than I am.

After the farmer's market, we headed to Mr. Razor's Father's Day present: a Formaggio Kitchen shopping spree. Except my husband isn't really a "spree" sort of guy, so it was more of a "moderate concession to indulgence." So I'm going to order him this to supplement the two little hunks of cheese and tiny bit of salami he allowed himself.

I, meanwhile, could have bought the whole store. The place might as well be called Everything Daisy Loves! It's full of cheese, meat, chocolate, fancy honey, wine, spices, local veggies, beer, fresh bread, and all sorts of other yummy things that you don't need to live, but which certainly make life much more enjoyable.

I settled on garlic scapes for garlic scape pesto (I like that recipe because it uses pistachios, which I usually have around the house anyway, but you can find one with basically any nut available. Seriously, it's idiot-proof and DELICIOUS.) and beer. I'd been wanting to try the Porter Square Porter since I heard about it because I used to live in Porter Square and adding Taza Chocolate cocoa nibs to the brew sounded brilliant. It is, in fact, really freaking tasty. Here, read what the beer snobs have to say about it.

See? Idiot-proof.

On Sunday Mr. Razor and I were like, "Happy Father's Day, Razor Family! Have a toddler." Yup, we dropped the kid off with her grandparents and uncle and went to the Sowa Open Market and Vintage Market. Our first stop was Zooguu and its adorable stuffed animals. I bought a Wonder Woman print, because she is my spirit animal (duh).

At the vintage market, I bought a 1950s ad for Mercier Champagne because, again: duh. The nice British lady who sold it to me said, "Oh, it's quite a posh champagne," which made me smile. I also got to meet Keyse of Crocodile Tears, who was lovely. I always feel like a gigantic weirdo being like, "Hello! I'm from the internet!" but I really enjoy her blog, so I had to say hi.

Then we went home and our whirling dervish of a toddler kept me so busy that it took me until Thursday to finish a post about the weekend. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go make a garlic scape pesto & grilled cheese sandwich.

Veneer!

It should probably come as no surprise that Mr. Razor and I are huge Antiques Roadshow fans. So when they started advertising that they'd be visiting Boston, there was much nerdy flailing in our living room. I signed us up for the ticket lottery, and we improbably won two tickets for the June 9th taping.

After joking that we should head to Goodwill and buy the ugliest painting we could find, we decided to bring gold bracelets that came over from Syria with Mr. Razor's relatives, an old copy of Anne of Green Gables that belonged to my mother, and a brass lamp we'd found at the thrift store. I really wanted to bring the antique chamber pot my mother uses to store napkins in her kitchen, but she vetoed that one.

The day is split into five entrance times, each two hours apart. We had the first entrance at 9 a.m. I figured we'd be the youngest people there (we're in our thirties, in case my obsession with comic book characters and dumb internet shit has misled you) by at least a decade, but there were a good number of under-40s there.

Which brings me to a point that I had not considered until I got there: every single person at an Antiques Roadshow event is a massive, massive Antiques Roadshow nerd. No one wakes up and goes, "Oh, huh, that could be fun. Let me go look in the attic for something old." We applied for the ticket lottery four months before the event and spent a month of Sunday dinners with our families debating what to bring. All 6,000 people in the convention center had chosen the antiques most likely to get them either on TV or close to their favorite appraisers.

(We wanted to get on TV. We did not, but the piece that I thought could do it still has a very interesting story that I want to tell at a later date.)

So the first thing that happened was we got in line. At the front of the line, a general appraiser looked at our stuff and gave us cards naming the appraisal section they fell under. We had Books, Jewelry, and Metal Work. It's not an exact science, though. While we were getting our cards, two appraisers at another table were trying to decide if a handmade Freemasons's apron should be Textiles or Folk Art.

Then we went into a huge room that was mostly empty, but in the center had a roughly circular  setup of tall blue screens. Above the screens were large stage lights. The lines for each section were behind the screens. When you got to the front, a volunteer checked and stamped your section card and either held you in place or directed you to another, shorter line inside the set.

Our first two lines moved really quickly, so I didn't get to see much of what was going on around us, but the book line was like molasses and we saw all kinds of cool behind the scenes stuff. From what I could tell, if an appraiser thinks you have something TV-worthy, he or she pulls aside a producer and shows it to them (we saw the music guy do this with a viola). If they deem it worthy, the person goes back outside of the screen and is interviewed by the crew, who take notes. We also saw a couple of the appraisers come out to look more closely at the pieces and talk to the owners. I imagine that's the research portion of the process, where the appraiser figures out what he or she will say during the taping.

When we got into the set for the last time, the line continued to move slowly because two of the three book appraisers were talking to producers. But I didn't mind at all because we got to watch a bit being taped. The center of the set holds the cameras and boom mics, and around them are three appraisal stations. They were setting up to record an old rifle at one table, while at another a slightly shellshocked-looking woman with an antique toy was waiting for the appraiser to come sit across from her. The third spot was being set up with a contraption that ended up holding up a really cool looking rug.

We got the book appraised and were out almost three hours exactly after we'd arrived, exhausted despite the fact that we'd spent 90% of our time just standing in line. (Very well managed lines, I should add. Roadshow volunteers are On It.) The appraisers we spoke to were all friendly, upbeat, and happy to tell us in detail about our pieces (Peter Shemonsky in particular was super informative). They didn't seem fazed by the crush of people or seemingly endless lines, and it occurred to me that you'd have to be quite an extrovert to sign up to appraise for a television show.

I think my favorite moment came near the beginning of the day, when the woman at the metal work table was politely telling us that our lamp wasn't anything special. Another person walking onto the set looked at her and exclaimed excitedly, "Oh, it's Kerry Shrives!" Ms. Shrives briefly looked confused, then smiled and waved. It must be awfully strange to be a nerd niche celebrity.

Slayer Shoes

Previously in Geek Shoes.

The lovely Mel asked me to transform a pair of pumps into slayer shoes. She sent me the shoes and a TPB of Fray and I got to work (as soon as I finished reading it, that is).

Everything went faster this time because I knew I needed:

1) 4 long panels with visual interest for the sides.
2) 4 kick-ass close-ups for the heels and toes
3) A selection of smaller rectangular shots for the in-between spots
4) Some tiny pictures for the inevitable gaps

So I marked illustrations I liked as I read and picked ones to cut out only after checking to see if they'd fit on the shoe.

Then I decided to get faaaancy and layer pictures:

The goal is for you not to be able to tell, but this shot is three separate illustrations: The shot with the tattoo is the bottom, with the picture of Fray with her arm out and the red blade layered over it.

I was really happy with the results.












And Mel was happy too, which was the best part!



A couple of people have asked, so:

To get your own geek shoes, just send me the shoes and comic of your choice. My jar of Mod Podge and I will do the rest!

Vow

Hang on a second, I just need to recreate the experience of seeing Garbage live for the first time in fifteen (FIFTEEN?! Oy. Fifteen.) years via shaky YouTube videos. (Watch Cherry Lips if you only watch one, just to hear the crowd sing along. It was like that for every song.)

Supervixen, aka what I imagine it says on Shirley Manson's business cards.

Temptation Waits. Shirley comes over to our side of the stage at about 1:00. She made eye contact with my friend Cathy meaning they are now BFFs, obviously.

Shut Your Mouth. The kids in the front looked like they were having the time of their lives.

Queer. Y'all, can we talk about how great Shirley looks? I want her arms. Seriously, I would buy Shirley Manson's Sassy Scottish Punk Rock Workout, wouldn't you?

Stupid Girl

Control

#1 Crush. She actually walked off the stage and into the crowd for a verse. And the crowd gave her space to sing. It was amazing.

And I have to talk about the crowd, because in my mumblemumble years of concert-going, I'm not sure I've ever experienced a nicer, more enthusiastic group of fans. At a tiny venue like the Paradise, the crowd can make or break a show, and I'm sure we've all experienced Flaily Drunk Girl and Needlessly Aggressive Guy in our time, but there was absolutely none of that. If this group of people had a collective thought bubble, it would have said, WE'RE JUST REALLY HAPPY TO BE HERE.

Examples: I, like an idiot, walked into someone in my quest for a good spot near the stage, and he was like, "Oh my god! I'm such a klutz! Sorry!" Meanwhile, I was like, "I...uh...I have lived in Boston so long I've forgotten how to respond to an apology?" Then the tallish guy standing in front of us while we heckled the (HORRIBLE) opening "magician" laughed at something we said and was like, "I'm not eavesdropping!" and when he saw that we were shorter than him he said, "Hey, you just let me know if you can't see, okay?" I think at that point I decided we'd been dropped into a parallel universe.



Cherry Lips. I can't even tell you how fun it was to sing along to this song. This was pretty much the point where the concert hit its Awesomeness Peak, so I'll just link y'all to the set list for the rest of it on the off chance you've actually gotten this far into the post!

Shirley Introduces the Band.

The last song of the encore was Vow, their first single, which came out in 1995. It's one of very few songs where I actually remember the first time I heard it. I clearly remember lying down between the speakers of my stereo to get the full effect of the echoing guitars and closing my eyes to concentrate on Shirley's brutally beautiful voice. I was seventeen and, to put it mildly, A Goddamn Mess. I mean, I had it together externally, but my brain was like a bad Hoarders episode.

I didn't know that what I needed was a loud, ballsy redhead to grab me by the hair and sneer I came to shut you up/I came to drag you down/I came around to tear your little world apart like I should do the same to anyone who dared to fuck with me.

It took a few years, but eventually I managed to do that very thing, after a couple of nervous breakdowns and probably way too much red wine. I'm an old lady now, and a bad bitch, if I do say so myself. But when Vow started up? Seventeen-year-old me made a cameo appearance. I got teary. It was vaguely embarrassing, but also wonderful to know that I've still got that connection to the Goddamn Mess of a girl who grew up to be so Goddamn Fine.

Friendship is Magic

I was thinking about the recent spate of features blaming modern loneliness on the internet as I returned home last night from a Hairpin meet-up where I'd spent two hours happily conversing with people who'd previously only lived in my computer.

Then I started to count the number of people I consider good friends whom I'd met in various places online over the years. I stopped when I hit a dozen, because I wasn't sure how to differentiate between the people I now regularly see in person (including my husband) and the people I talk to all the damn time yet have never actually met face to face.

Needless to say, I don't feel terribly isolated by newfangled modes of communication.

When I got home I posted this to Facebook:

I keep reading about how the internet makes us more socially isolated, but I also keep meeting people online then in real life who are awesome and fun. Maybe I'm internetting wrong?

And this is an abbreviated version of the conversation that followed with some of my internet people:

Meaghan: Obviously we are horrible, worthless people.
Meaghan: as are you
Me: Obviously. Us losers have to stick together.
Kristen: I'm really a psycho killer. I just assumed you were as well.
Meaghan: I'm actually a large, West Indian man named Jeff. I like sumo wrestling and crochet.
Michelle: I am a horrible hateful stalking criminally wanted person. Boo!
Me: I am a platypus with incredible makeup skills.
Michelle: I like yours better.
Me: Originally I wrote "hobo," but then I was like, "I don't want to be a hobo! I want to be a mammal that lays eggs!"
Michelle: You will have to raise those eggs, you know. Hobos are guardians to no one.
Melissa: Damn. How did I, the only normal person in all the world, meet YOU GUYS? It's insane, really. [NOTE: The first time I met Melissa in person, we were staying in a hotel room together and she said, 'I hope you don't mind nudity, because I don't really wear clothes when I don't have to."] 

All right, I'll allow that it's possible I have all these internet friends because normal modes of communication can't contain our crazy.

Return of the Man in the Yellow Hat

Last year, I lamented the closing of Curious George & Friends bookstore in Harvard Square. Many of the square's independent businesses have closed since I moved to Cambridge in 1996, but that loss made me the saddest. (So far, that is. If Tealuxe ever closes, I am going to wear black and listen to nothing but The Cure for weeks.)

So I was delighted when I heard the store was reopening with new owners. I bookmarked their website! I followed them on Facebook! I stalked them all over the interwebs, basically, which is how I heard that they had their soft opening last Tuesday. Accordingly, I bundled up the baby and the husband and headed to Cambridge on a chilly, gray Sunday to check it out.

The new owners (who were charming and nervous, bless them) totally redesigned the store's layout. The cash registers have moved from the center of the store to a corner by the door, completely opening up the space. It's much brighter and easier to navigate with a stroller or hyperactive toddler. There's less merchandise, but I suspect the old store was overstocked, so that's not a complaint.

There are a lot of really sweet, kid-friendly touches, like the little padded space at the bottom of this bookshelf:

I think that spot will be popular, because Baby Razor waited patiently (ok, "stared like a crazy person and repeated I wanna sit in the bed! at increasing volume," but at this age no hitting or pushing = patient) until another little girl left. She then snuggled with a George larger than her for approximately four seconds before sprinting to the other side of the store.

Mr. Razor, meanwhile, hung out with an assortment of Georges on a corner bench seat and read about Margaret & H.A. Rey's amazing escape from Paris during World War II.

I shopped, of course. I didn't look much at the books (although I noted that all of my/my daughter's favorite authors were represented) because Baby Razor's personal library is up over 300 books at this point. I loved the all of the t-shirts from Out Of Print Clothing and the small but beautiful selection of children's clothing and hats from independent makers like Maisey Mae. There are also toys, games, and stuffed animals to be had.

Then, of course, there is every Curious George product known to man and monkey. I liked that they had merchandise featuring illustrations of Curious George from the original books as well as stuff featuring George and his friends from the PBS cartoon. Baby Razor likes the books, but she LOVES the cartoon. Whenever I mention something like going to the library or camping or kindergarten, she says, "Like George!" I got her a t-shirt of the cartoon's animal characters because she knows them all by name.

I realize was predisposed to love the place, but I think even if I were unfamiliar with it and/or my kid wasn't a Curious George superfan, I still would have found it charming. It's clear that a lot of thought, effort and love went into The World's Only Curious George Store, and I wish them the best. I'll definitely be going back!

Curmudgeon Central

Me: I have issues with this song.

Him: Me too.

Me: You go first.

Him: Was it really too much trouble to write a second verse? It's 30 seconds of an interesting story followed by 3 minutes of la la la bullshit.

Me: I hadn't even thought of that. My problems are that a) I am NOT young, therefore this song reminds me of my old age and impending death and b) even when I was young, I'm pretty damn sure my standards for dudes were higher than "willing to carry my drunk-ass home from the bar."

Him: That may very well be why you were single until you were 25.

Me: Point.

A story from my subconscious

(The main character looked like this guy, which is weird, because I don't even find him attractive.)

The Awl surveyed people about their work-related dreams, and I was thinking that I never have writing-related dreams. Then I realized that that totally wasn't true, since I had a doozy of one the other week, possibly fueled by exhaustion and cold medicine.

I dream stories sometimes, either imaginary episodes of tv shows that I watch or narratives made up out of whole cloth. This one started out with a bartender/manager at a popular restaurant in a coastal tourist town. (I think it was supposed to be Martha's Vineyard or Cape Cod, but it totally looked tropical. My subconscious went for the more favorable filming location, I guess.) The restaurant staff was like a big, crazy family and waitresses, bartenders, cooks, and hostesses were always just wandering into the manager's house, eating his food and expecting him to mediate their problems.

But then the elderly, offsite owner of the restaurant decides to sell it! And this was the part when I poked myself into the dream and said, "Wait, I thought that the manager guy owned the restaurant?" And someone else told me, "No, he's like the de facto owner because he's run it for so long. The actual owner lives in Florida or whatever." Yes, that's right: I was getting plot updates from characters in my own dream.

The new owner comes in and tells everyone she really wants to respect the history and traditions of this restaurant that's been around forever and is beloved by locals, visitors, and most of all, its staff. Then of course she goes and strips out all the old decor and repaints the place, all while continuing to be super sweet to everyone's faces. Then she fires the beloved manager. The line I remembered most clearly when I woke up was one of the waitresses saying, "Jesus, she's like a cross between Paula Deen and Sarah Palin."

So the staff plans a revolt, and I either woke up or don't remember what happened next, but I remember being in the dream and feeling gleeful about the mischief that was about to occur. I also remember sitting at the bar in the manager's house talking to two of the waitresses, telling them I was going to write a story about this and they should tell me what they wanted to be called in the fictionalized version of this dream I was having.

I haven't written fiction in years. I like creating characters, but I lack the patience to think of anything for them to actually do with themselves. I think my subconscious was trying to give me a kick in the ass, but again: lazy and impatient. Maybe I can crowdsource. If one of you gives me the rest of the plot; I will write this story. Ok, go!

A perfect storm of NERD

I originally thought this would be a crafts blog. This plan was derailed early on when I realized that I am, in fact, AWFUL at crafting. I'm impatient, messy, uncoordinated, and clumsy.

I still almost made this a crafts blog. Names I considered include:

DIY Reject
To What Has Daisy Glued Her Hand This Week?
Crafting for the Incompetent
"It Only Took 30 Minutes!" My Ass

Because regardless of my incompetence, I really like crafting. I like taking junky, unused stuff and turning it into something pretty and at least nominally useful. I love watching a crazy idea become greater than the sum of its parts. It's a visceral sense of accomplishment that adulthood doesn't often provide.

I'd been looking for cool geek shoes since I found these boots while trawling tumblr for Avengers info (Hot guys, Joss, and shit blowing up. Can I get in line now?). I din't like the execution (Sneakers should not have heels.), but I liked the theory. Apparently the universe wanted me to have geek kicks, because The Hairpin promptly linked to some badass decoupaged heels.

They looked easy enough (famous last words!), but I didn't have any comics, so my friend Kristen and I negotiated a trade: she'd brave the comic book store and send comics for herself and me, and I'd make shoes for her too. I ended up tackling her shoes first because, well, it turns out that in the comics Captain America doesn't look like this; he looks like a sack of potatoes wrapped in a flag. So I need to rethink my concept.

Anyway. Kristen sent me four Mass Effect comics. I know absolutely nothing about ME, but Mr. Razor is a fanboy and pointed out the cool stuff for me.



Shoe one was a near-disaster. Non-pro tip: If you've never decoupaged anything in your life, don't start with a curving, uneven, moveable surface. There were glued fingers, torn papers, and copious cursing.



Shoe two went a whole lot faster. Here's what I learned between the left pump and the right: choose large images. You'll have fewer edges and fewer weird tiny gaps. (Weird tiny gaps, however, are easily covered by onomatopoeia text.) Plus, big images show up better when people look down at the shoes on your feet. Cut the images as close to the shape of the shoe as you can to avoid creasing. Then resign yourself to some creasing at the heel anyway. That curve is freaking impossible.



Materials: Sensible pumps ($6 slightly used at Boomerangs), 4 comic books, mod podge, small paint brush, and acrylic sealer

Method: Cut out your pictures, slap some mod podge on those suckers, wait for them to get a little bit damp so they'll bend better to the shoe, then slap 'em on, When you have the whole thing covered, do 3 or 4 coats of mod podge over the shoes (waiting about a half an hour or more between coats), then wait a day and spray the sealer over them in a well-ventilated area.

Time: About an hour if you know what you're doing. Probably closer to three if you read this and are going, "What's mod podge?" But, as I think I've proved, still totally doable for a newbie!

Or, you know, you could send me some shoes and comics and I could do them for you for a nominal fee. Just sayin'.

Sunday Morning, With the Dead

On Sunday morning, Mr. Razor and I went to see A Day in Pompeii.

I can't really give you a review, because the moment we walked into the exhibit I got hit with what I privately call "the graveyard feeling," because the first time I felt it I was standing in a lonely, overgrown graveyard on Penikese Island. It's not that I'm squeamish about the dead--I've toured catacombs and tombs, and seen mummies and skeletons and not felt it. But it hits me sometimes, like something pushing down on my shoulders or holding a hand uncomfortably close to my neck.

Yes, I realize this is just me being my own personal gothic heroine, and it's all in my head. But I wasn't expecting it, and it made me edgy the whole time we were there. So I took a bunch of pictures to give myself some distance.


This is a detail of the wall-sized fresco at the entrance to the exhibit. I had no idea the colors would be so vibrant. (Nearby, there was a pornographic--oh, sorry, we were in a museum, so it was "erotic"--detail from another fresco, and I really wanted to take a picture, but there was a young girl standing next to me, and I was afraid if I called attention to it she'd be like, "Hey, mom, what are those two men doing to that woman?" and my parenting karma would go in the toilet. So no ancient dirty pictures for you all, sorry.)



Gladiator's helmet. Me: "They must have had really strong necks." Mr. Razor: "That's what you're taking away from this?"



The jewelry is my favorite part of any exhibition. I enjoy the continuity of humans liking pretty things.



Funerary statue. I think this picture really highlights the amazing lighting throughout the exhibit.



Minerva says you can all go fuck yourselves. Or she's giving her blessing, whatever. But doesn't she look cranky?



Minerva detail. We figured this is Medusa's head.



Neptune seems very chill here. I love the clean lines of his tunic, which really contrast with the ornateness of Minerva's.


We did the body casts last:


Mr. Razor never met a special on Pompeii that he didn't like, so I have watched upwards of a dozen programs on the disaster since we've been together. I have to tell you: I hate them. I hate being told in graphic, vivid detail how the people whose faces I saw yesterday knew they were dying; how it may have taken them minutes to choke to death on the hot ash flooding the air. Yet I can never bring myself to turn the channel or leave the room, which is how I felt looking at the casts yesterday. I figure it they had to die like that, the least I can do is pay attention.