Read nothing new for a while as I got stuck finishing Babel at a sloth pace… But bought for the summer vacations Don Quixote de la Mancha (in French) and a commentary by Marx that I intend to use as a reading guide. Not The Marx, mind you!, but a professor of comparative literature at Collège de France who gave a guided reading of the masterpiece on the French public radio last summer…. (I gave up carrying the extra abridged Spanish version I bought in Oaxaca eons ago. And already carried for nothing on earlier vacations.) Still, went through a few BDs suggested by and borrowed from Andrew, like De Cape et De Mots, a nice take over Cinderella, Overseas Highway, a none-too-credible Florida-set mafia scenario with great drawings, and Une simple formalité, set in New Orleans with anti-Italian mobs overcoming the corrupted police, and further themes of my liking (as predicted by Andrew!).
Had one cooking marathon a Saturday aft (in the sense it lasted longer than my estimated time for a marathon!) when making new kimchi with cabbage, carrots, and turnips (and of course a large serving of powder gochugaru), matcha rice pudding, grilled peppers, rhubarb preserve, marinated calamare all at once! With markets approaching peek season in terms of offer of local vegetables, I also made plenty of dahls and pasta dishes, like the above panned fennel orecchiette serving.
Watched The Pig, The Snake and the Pigeon, a dark comedy around Taiwanese gangster movies, with the funny premise that the central character is “only” the third most wanted gangster in the country, hence wants to eliminate the first and second ones to achieve posthumous fame. There is not much more in terms of story lines, but loads of (unrealistic) action, and great characters. Not at the level of A Sun, by far, but enjoyable. I found out later that the title refers to a Buddhist tale about the three poisons: the “pig” corresponds to #3’s ignorance and obsession, “snake” to #2’s violence and hatred, and “pigeon” to #1’s greed.
[Warning: There will be a series of Journals posted in the coming days, as I wrote several in the past months, only to forget them in the draft section!]
